If ‘spoon ghosts’ and unearthly spirits sound like good
movie-going company, the Bijou is the place to go
Ryan Starkweather Emerald
(above) Employees and movie-go
ers alike have thought the Bijou
is a place of unsettled spirits.
The hallway in the courtyard (left)
is one place in particular that
people say they have felt those
ghostly presences.
paul Galbraith
I 1998 Grammy Nominee
(Best Solo Instrumental Album)
• One of two best CDs of 1998
— Gramophone Magazine
• Four-Star rating
— Stereo Review
• TOP 10, Classical Charts
— Billboard
• Interviewed on NPR's
"All Things Considered" and
"Performance Today"
• Silver Medal, Segovia Interna
tional Guitar Competition.
• Free pre-concert talk:
* UO guitar professor David Case
discusses Paul Galbraith's
f revolutionary 8-string guitar.
7:15 p.m., Room 198 Music
Tuesday, March 7 8:00 p.m.
BEALL CONCERT HALL
UO School of Music • Chamber Music Series
Reserved Seats $22, $18, $8 at Hult Center (682-5000) or
EMU Ticket Office (346-4363). Student rush tickets at the door $9, $5.
Music sample on our web site: http://musicl.uoregon.edu/CMS/CMSHomepage.html
By Yael Menahem
Oregon Daily Emerald
1th the Oscars
scheduled for
March 26 — and
keeping in mind
that the Academy of Motion Pic
ture Arts and Sciences honors
mostly mainstream Hollywood
films — there’s a certain comfort
that the Bijou Art Cinemas in Eu
gene offers its patrons a taste of
independent, and sometimes ob
scure, films year round.
Luckily, it’s not housed in or
anywhere near a mall, and em
ployees aren’t required to wear
neon-colored bow ties and vests.
“It’s a place for people with
piercings and blue hair to work,”
says Louis Thomas, former man
ager at the Bijou.
But it was not always like that.
The Bijou is probably the only
movie theater in town with a rep
utation for a haunting atmos
phere and as a place where cus
tomers and staff come for a night
at the movies prepared to see
someone from the afterlife.
“The ‘spoon ghost’ — how do I
explain the ‘spoon ghost’?” asks a
perplexed-looking Dana Krizan, a
Bijou projectionist.
Krizan takes a deep breath and
begins to explain that every once
in a while a spoon will fall from a
high place onto the ground.
“I’d be standing in the booth, and
the spoon would just fall,” he says.
“There are no shelves in there
where it could’ve been put.”
The spoon ghost was also pres
ent in the storage room and the
auditorium, Krizan says. And for
those who are skeptical of ghost
stories, Krizan explains “that
would mean that someone would
have to climb 50 feet or so just to
I---”— —
drop a spoon.”
But there is no fined chapter to
these incidents.
“We never really answered that
mystery,” Krizan says.
When Bijou owner Michael La
mont lost interest in school back
in the late 1970s, a friend told
him that he should look into “the
jewel of a building on East 13th
Avenue toward town.”
Lamont did, and in 1980 the
Bijou, which means “jewel” in
French, opened with one audito
rium in what was once the Mc
Gaffey-Andreason Mortuary.
On Oct. 15, 1980, the Bijou
opened not with a movie but with
a piano recital by Victor Steinberg.
For its premier movie screening,
Lamont played “As Time Goes By”
and “Lullaby of Birdland” on the
theater’s pipe organ hidden behind
the 15-foot screen in auditorium
number one.
It was “a practice I had to aban
don due to the theater’s other de
mands on r$y time and energy,"
Lamont says with regret in his
voice.
The Bijou is housed in the
Willcox Building, named after
W.R.B. Willcox, the first head of
the University’s school of archi
tecture and the building’s design
er. The building was originally
home to the First Congregational
Church.
Ray McGaffey opened the Rose
Light Chapel and the mortuary in
1956. He was intrigued by the
building because of its rose-tinted
lighting, created by wine-colored
glass imported from London.
When he attended Sunday serv
ice, he always thought what “an
ideal and beautiful place for a mor
tuary the building would be. ”
Turn to Bijou page 7B
1
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT ALL T1CKETMASTER OUTLETS INCLUWNS 6.1. JOE'S ABO MEIER S FRANK LOCATIONS
AND THE ROSE QUARTER TICKET OFFICE. ALL TICKETS SUBJECT TO CONVENIENCE FEE.
CHARGE BY PHONE: (SQ3) 114-4400
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