Entertainment

When I came across mention of a real-life Barbie on my Twitter feed, naturally my curiosity was aroused. I've always thought Barbie was hot (though my most ardent attraction is to a more mature, yet similarly curvaceous comic strip character, Blondie). A 21-year-old girl, who has become an internet sensation in her home country of Russia, claims on her blog to be the most famed woman on the Russian-language internet. Valeria Lukyanova's doll-like features, long blonde hair and 'perfect' body make her look like a real life Barbie.In fact, with her tiny waist and large breasts, she bears such a resemblance to the…

When my daughter, Celeste, got married, I wasn't the dancing fool that I am now. By "fool," I mean that my dancing is more fun for me than it is artistic to look at; also that I now feel foolish for not having started to take ballroom lessons earlier than my wife and I did, because we really enjoy dancing. If I had my father-daughter wedding dance to do over again, I'd love it to look like this one. I think I could handle most of the moves this fellow gray-haired guy throws out on the dance floor so engagingly.…

I have a mountain bike. But I shun mountains, because they are so up'ity. Flat or downhill... that's my ideal bicycling terrain.  Since we live in the hills of rural south Salem, this constrains my interest in bike-riding. But after watching "Motherfucking Bike," I was (almost) inspired to join the motherfuckingbike movement -- not that I have any idea what it is.   However, from the video I seem to be too old to join the two-wheeled non-motorized hipsters. And my 63 year old sense of propriety -- what's left of it -- wonders if the lyrics to Motherfucking Bike…

When I first heard about "The Artist" (2011) I thought, "This is a movie that I should like, but won't." Black and white. Almost entirely silent, as regards speaking. French actors/director. An homage to films of the 20's and 30's. I figured "The Artist" would be one of those films my wife and I go to at Salem Cinema because it's an artsy, indie movie that's getting a lot of attention. Afterwards we'd look at each other and say, "What was that all about?," then go home and watch something genuinely enjoyable on TV, like The Colbert Report. Wrong. I…

My wife and I live in Salem, a.k.a. "So-lame," Portland's dowdy, plain, uncool neighbor to the south. We wish our city could be half as ravishingly interesting as Portland is. No, one-tenth as interesting. Heck, give us any little slice of Portland and we'd devour it hungrily. (Salem just got it's first Trader Joe's store, eons after Portland, Corvallis, and Eugene got theirs. We still don't have a true vegetarian restaurant, much less a vegan one.) So we really want to enjoy IFC's "Portlandia." We watched every episode of Season 1, chuckling only episodically. It kept seeming like Portlandia was on…

Damn you, Showtime! Last year I cancelled your half of our HBO/Showtime subscription, because you didn't have on anything we liked to watch.  But last night we took advantage of DirecTV's offer to see Showtime premieres for free. And already we're hooked on "House of Lies."  What's not to like about cynicism, sex, money-grubbing management consultants, dysfunctional relationships, and other reflections of reality? About halfway through the first episode, my wife said "This is our kind of show." A quick review of some early reviews, here, here, and here, indicates that our enthusiasm isn't universally shared. Well, we're used to…

It's been quite an entertainment week for us. Fresh from seeing Cirque du Soleil's tribute to Michael Jackson at the Rose Garden, last Tuesday we headed to the Pearl District for Cavalia -- a horse show unlike any other.  There's a connection between Cirque du Soleil and Cavalia: Cavalia's artistic director, Normand Latourelle helped Cirque du Soleil get off the ground and was bought out by the Cirque founders. This helps explain why the Cavalia experience is so similar to the magical atmosphere of Cirque du Soleil. Well, the parking lot wasn't anything special. But the sight of the gigantic tents…

Last Friday we braved a few snow showers in Portland to reach the Rose Garden, where we had tickets to see Cirque du Soleil's "Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour." Here's my five word review: Wow, Wow, and more Wow! This show is special. It isn't like a good movie where you enjoy it a lot, but the impact of the flick fades quickly. I'm still affected by this magical production.  It starts strong, and builds from there. Eventually I felt immersed in an almost other-worldly experience. Understand, I'm not at all religious. But "Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour"…

I have a plan to fix soccer ("football," in the non-United States world). I'm uniquely qualified for this, because I know next to nothing about soccer, and until today I'd never watched an entire match on TV without fastforwarding through the boring parts. Which for me, has been every part except for the thirty seconds before and after a goal was scored, which means I'd end up watching just a few minutes of a 90 minute match. But this afternoon I got drawn into watching the entire Japan vs. USA 2011 Women's World Cup final, all 120 minutes of the…

I bet there's nothing like the Oregon Country Fair anywhere else in the United States. Heck, maybe the world. It's a celebration of what made the 60's so magical: freedom, creativity, love, expressiveness, community, caring. Sure, the magic faded (I was at Altamont, the 1969 antithesis to Woodstock: nasty and murderous). But every year it lives on in a beautiful rural setting in Veneta, outside of Eugene, for a weekend in July. Here's some photos from opening day 2011, Friday. My wife, Laurel, and I had a great time. The weather was perfect. Per usual, the Fair staff and volunteers…