The Confluence

Who writes the West? Rich Wandschneider, Richard Etulain, and Anne Richardson will pool their thoughts on October 12, at 7:00 PM at Black Hat Books, 2831 NE MLK.

Richard W. Etulain is a prize-winning historian specializing in the history of the American West. He has been honored as president of both the Western Literature and Western History Associations. His most recent book is about Ernest Haycox, a Portland writer who grew up alongside a brand new art form: the Western.

Rich Wandschneider is the director of the Alvin M.

After attending so many wonderful festivals throughout the state, Oregon Film, Travel Oregon and the Community Service Center at the University of Oregon (CSC) wanted to try to quantify the impact these community gatherings were having – economically, socially and creatively. To that end, with help from many of the festival organizers and patrons themselves and grants from both the Oregon Tourism Commission (OTC) and the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (EDA), the CSC spent many months looking into the impacts and strategies of the nearly 80 festivals occurring here in Oregon every year.

Under the sub-heading of “Hooray for Horregon!” Raider/Contributor Phil Oppenheim descends into the historical depths of the genre and unearths H.P. Lovecraftian tales featuring the haunting and often horrific Oregon Coast where none-other-than Tori Spelling emerges as a seductress from the sea to summon the all-powerful Cthulhu to River Mouth (nee Astoria) shores.

Diminutive armies of rotting zombies, blood-thirsty vampires, Wonder Women, Harley Quinns, Pikachus, and fairy princess are preparing to storm the sidewalks, assault our homes, and demand we relinquish our candy corn and Swedish Fish or suffer the consequences.

This week’s trek into Oregon’s dark and eclectic cinematic woods marks a (literal) transition from “Back to School” to a month of horror themed posts leading up to Halloween. Raider/Contributor Phil Oppenheim is calling this slashy little sub-series “Horregon.” In this installment, we find ourselves with not only a pre-Star Wars (post-American Graffiti) Harrison Ford but also a pre-Stripes (post-Carrie) PJ Soles skulking around a dimly lit (and therefore mostly unidentified) Reed College campus trying to soak up some of the devil’s blood left behind in the boffo box office red wake of The Exorcist.

We’re headed Back to School again this week and tackling that most interesting and uncomfortable of classroom topics: Sex Ed. Raider/Contributor Phil Oppenheim takes a look at the late 40’s and early 60’s in-classroom, let’s-watch-a-film-on-that approach to this topic from the University of Oregon and it is quite curious (frustrating? enlightening? stereotype-izing?) to see the differences between the two and, even more so, between then and now. On top of that, in a state with such a (forgive us) well developed animation industry, it’s also great to see such early roots for that particular art form even if it is at the expense of poor Aunt Sarah (who might have have a few questions to answer about her hateful niece’s origins).