Before the Performing Arts Building (PAB) was constructed, the Music Department had been largely in Prexy, the Theatre Department in the old building in the canyon, and the Dance Department found places to practice in the gym. The new spaces are breathtaking, but the unification of the performing arts in one building should be seen as the greater achievement. As you walk through the atrium and see a class using the steps for a staged reading, past the Studio Theatre and Performance Lab being used for various dance and theatre events, and look through the large windows of the dance studio at a class’s rehearsal until they all start looking at you and you continue on your way — all while some piano music drifts through the entire building from the student practice spaces.
Volume 16 Issue 2
A year ago I stared at the numbers rising on the New York Times website. Every day I found myself feeling more inept as 10,000 became 20,000 became 40,000 became 80,000. I stared at the numbers like a moth at lights. Inept and discouraged. I still feel inept. I now have a tab with the New York Times vaccine distribution map. It is weird staring at this good news. Some part of me doesn’t feel hopeful since this is just what needs to be done. We failed and are now picking up the pieces.
Volume 15 Issue 3
This was before the establishment of large public parks, meaning that if you were a Victorian-era urban American, you most likely spent your time outdoors strolling and picnicking with family, friends, and lovers, all amidst the dead.
Volume 15 Issue 2
· Arriving
· The first song you listen to through headphones
· When a good bakery has good tea (the complete experience)
· The crisp, blue outlines of the hills here in Western Oregon
Volume 15 Issue 2
Portland is a peculiar white haven, and I come from a melting pot that smells like urine year-round. Both are good, but very different.
Volume 14 Issue 1
Released on August 25, 2020, Haley Blais’ Below the Salt is an album I wish I had during my first year of college. Coincidentally, that’s when I first started listening to Blais, a Vancouver-based singer-songwriter and vlogger whose wacky sense of humor and DIY bedroom-pop bangers resonated with me, a freshman living on her own for the very first time and trying to make sense of the world and herself. That unsure first-year is a senior now, but no less unsure, and I think that’s the point of Blais’ debut album: her label writes, “Below the Salt is a coming of age story that recognizes that there is no real ‘coming of age.’”
