Live sessions with Sidewalk Chalk and the star-studded Filthy Friends, plus Rene Denfeld on how her work as a private investigator inspired her book, Artist Rep shakes up the theater season and more.
Ready for new fall things? Out with last year's school shoes, in with fun new kicks like Sneaker Week, the Stackstock Music Festival, and more. Sneaker Week Takes Flight - 1:30 How has no one thought of this before? Sneaker Week is a brand new celebration of the street style and informed design that put Oregon at the center of the sneaker universe. Elayna Yussen went out to meet the organizers at Portland's kicks-centric coffee show Deadstock and Pensole Shoe Design Academy. Get out in front of ...
This week on 'State of Wonder,' we talk Twitter and Copland with George Takei, hear about the must-see shows at the Time-Based Art Festival, celebrate James Baldwin with Stew and the Negro Problem. Also firefighter Sean Davis talks about working the lines in southern Oregon.
Almost time for Rose City Comic Con! We talk with Wonder Woman's Greg Rucka, David F. Walker on Luke Cage, Kurt Busiek and Ben Dewey discuss their fantasy adventure Autumnlands. Plus C. Spike Trotman on making the comics she wanted to read.
It’s that rare bird, a truly super supergroup: alt-country firebrand Neko Case, world-class indie lyricist Laura Veirs and songstress supreme k.d. lang released a lush, soulful record last summer. Their opbmusic concert will rebroadcast on OPB TV as part of “Oregon Lens” Tuesday, Aug. 29. Also we listen back to last fall’s flash fiction contest winners. We teamed up with the Portland imprint Tin House, a publisher of great literature and poetry offerings — as well as a most unusual how-to book. ...
This week our show traveled across the solar eclipse path of totality, from Newport to the Ochoco National Forest and many places in between for a once-in-a-lifetime artistic and cosmic journey. This is the documentary we put together of our road trip.
This week, OPB’s State of Wonder will be driving across Oregon ahead of the eclipse, checking out the preparations towns in the path of the totality are making. Today they’re at Suttle Lodge, north of Sisters, where Portland musicians are putting on an eclipse music festival.
This week, OPB’s State of Wonder is driving across Oregon ahead of the eclipse, checking out the preparations towns in the path of the totality are making. Today they’re in the middle of the Ochoco National Forest at the Symbiosis' Oregon Eclipse Festival.
This week, OPB’s State of Wonder will be driving across Oregon ahead of the eclipse, checking out the preparations towns in the path of the totality are making. Today they’re in Madras.
This week, OPB’s State of Wonder is driving across Oregon ahead of the eclipse, checking out the preparations towns in the path of the totality are making. Today they’re in Corvallis checking out an art exhibit focused on totality.
"State of Wonder" is traveling across the solar eclipse's path of totality, from Newport to the Ochoco National Forest and many places in-between.
Oregon's Most Audacious Eclipse Festival Comes Covered in Glitter - 2:42 We visit the Big Summit Prairie in the Ochoco Mountains, where a temporary city is being built to host some 30,000 attendees from around the world. The Oregon Eclipse Festival promises 400 musical acts, lectures and workshops galore, art installations both profound and whimsical, a floating bridge, and enough glitter to make a drag queen blush. Mexico ‘91: Two Oregon Writers Look Back on Another Eclipse - 6:48 We checked in...
The Search Is on for a New Director at Portland’s Regional Arts and Culture Council During outgoing director Eloise Damrosch’s 30-year tenure, the Regional Arts and Culture Council has grown from a small Multnomah County bureau to a flourishing tri-county arts council. In the first of several stories, we look at the search for her replacement to oversee the $9 million arts office. It could be one of the most important hires for decades to come. Kent Nerburn’s Classic Novel, “Neither Wolf Nor Dog...
Drive-By Truckers Explore Duality And Dirt - 1:20 With their double-barreled live sets and searing lyrical craft, the Drive-By Truckers are an easy add to top-ten list of best American rock bands playing today. Formed in Athens, Georgia circa 1996, the DBTs have had a lot of volatile personnel changes — Grammy-winner Jason Isbell was part of the lineup for a few years —but they’ve settled in nicely with partners in grime, Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, at the helm. Their most recent record, “Am...
For the Portland band, Portugal. the Man, creating “Woodstock,” the band’s newest album, took a long time. They couldn’t stop writing, and pumped out about 40 songs, collaborating with the likes of producer Mike D from the Beastie Boys at Rick Rubin’s illustrious studio, Shangri-La. But then they decided to throw them all out and start again. The band explains how it all came together after they settled on the album’s name, “Woodstock.”
Portland-based astro-photographer Jake Breed gives us a demonstration of best practices for getting a perfect shot during the two minutes of daytime darkness. Plus, helpful hints from an art educator who’s spending the whole week of the eclipse leading a workshop for amateur photographers, and a quick conversation with one astronomer from NASA about why this eclipse is such a big deal, anyway.
For the Portland band, Portugal. the Man, creating “Woodstock,” the band’s newest album, took a long time. They couldn’t stop writing, and pumped out about 40 songs, collaborating with the likes of producer Mike D from the Beastie Boys at Rick Rubin’s illustrious studio, Shangri-La. But then they decided to throw them all out and start again. The band explains how it all came together after they settled on the album’s name, “Woodstock.”
Our favorite futurist has gone all anachronistic. Daniel Wilson, a New York Times best-selling novelist, robotics engineer, and Cherokee citizen, gave us forward-thinking science fiction page-turners. Wilson’s new novel, “The Clockwork Dynasty”, tears across the centuries, from prehistoric China to Tsarist Russia to Victorian England, chasing after exquisite sentient machines.
Bag&Baggage Productions in Hillsboro is about to premier an adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” that opens new doors on a story that is even older than Shakespeare. A thousand years before Romeo and Juliet, Arab-language poets were telling the story of Layla and Majnun: star-crossed lovers whose spiral of obsession and longing turned fatal.
Baker City writer and illustrator Nancy Coffelt teamed up with publisher Elaine Cuyler to create her new book, “The Big Eclipse,” which uses charming animal characters and goofy jokes to help kids learn about the eclipse. Coffelt and Cuyler blew through all the books in their first printing and are filling orders with a second. We caught up with them on a grant-funded tour of libraries in Eastern Oregon.
A New Book Aimed at Elementary Astronomers The Baker City writer and illustrator Nancy Coffelt teamed up with publisher Elaine Cuyler to create her new book, “The Big Eclipse,” which uses charming animal characters and goofy jokes to help kids learn about the eclipse. Coffelt and Cuyler blew through all the books in their first printing and are filing orders with a second. Umbraphile and Author David Baron - 7:37 David Baron is a former NPR science correspondent and the author of a new book, “Am...
A New Collaboration for The Decemberists: Offa Rex The Decemberists may have finally met their match. The band has been collaborating with British singer Olivia Chaney to reinterpret tradition Scottish, Irish and English songs under the name Offa Rex — a reference to an Anglo-Saxon king. The resulting album, “The Queen of Hearts," comes out July 14 and is produced by local whiz Tucker Martine, and you can see Off Rex perform live July 23 at the Aladdin Theater. Kinetic Sculpture Racers Pedal On ...
This weekend Corvallis celebrates the return DaVinci Days: the festival where art and science mix. It started 29 years ago in the spirit of Leonardo DaVinci — a man as much about math as Mona Lisa. At this festival you’ll be able to listen to live music, check out a lecture on 3D printers, hear poetry readings and ask an astronomer for star-watching tips — all in the same day. DaVinci Days includes a full-three day schedule this year. Finances forced organizers to suspended operations for 2014 a...
The Decemberists may have finally met their match. The band has been working with British singer Olivia Chaney under the name Offa Rex — a reference to an Anglo-Saxon king. Their album, released on July 14 and produced by local whiz Tucker Martine, is called “The Queen of Hearts.”
It’s not often you find an artist whose work incorporates nature, meditation and a business plan. Erika Bartlett is such an artist.
Devil-may-care side trips to imaginary cities, soul-searching conversation with graphic novelist Teva Harrison, and moments of wonder with Portland's premier soul interpreter.
Maria Semple on "Today Will Be Different" - 1:23 The world of Maria Semple's imagination is a glowing place. Her characters rocket off on madcap adventures; they collide at high speed; they teeter on the edge of emotional cliffhangers. Some passages crackle with the comedic snap she honed writing for TV shows like “Arrested Development” and "Mad About You," but at the center of her stories are quiet emotional truths. Semple’s last novel was the "New York Times" best-seller “Where’d You Go, Berna...
This week on "State of Wonder," singer Beth Ditto breaks out from her band Gossip, the Slants gets their big day at the Supreme Court, and we look back on Thara Memory's complicated legacy. After Years of Fighting, The Slants Prevail at the Supreme Court - 1:23 This week the United States Supreme Court cleared the way for the Portland dance rock band the Slants to register a trademark for its name — something the Patent and Trademark Office had previously rejected, claiming it was derogatory. Th...
This week on “State of Wonder,” shake off your June gloom with the magical animals of "Autumnlands," the music of Animal Eyes, the monumental sculptures of Lee Kelly, the drag art of Kaj-Anne Pepper, and all that jazz at new music joint Jack London Revue. Ghost Ship Fallout: Portland Art Spaces Grapple with News of Indictments in Oakland - 2:48 Prosecutors in Oakland, California have sent shock waves through the art world, filing criminal charges last week against two artist-administrators from ...
