Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, October 28, 2004
“Go to heaven for the climate,
hell for the company. ”
Mark Twain | Author
■ In my opinion
RYAN NYBURG
BUDGET RACK
PR image
promotion:
The bane of
journalism
Being a journalism major, I am forced
to spend a certain amount of time study
ing public relations, though it is not my
area of focus. (I would like to pretend to
be a real journalist, thank you very
much.) This subject usually comes up in
classes that fulfill some requirement for a
wide range of different focuses, such as
Mass Media Ethics. (Assignment 1: TVy to
say the name of the class without gig
gling.) It is in such classes that I am ex
posed to the fascinating and profitable
world of PR, where what you do is not
nearly as important as what you say
you do.
Now, I don’t mean to diss on all PR
folk. Some of them do good work and are
ethically minded people. The same with
some lawyers. But these people are poor,
so they don’t count. There’s no money
in being ethical. What really interests
me are the more lucrative aspects of the
PR industry.
This relates to my job in a number of
ways. This office receives on average a
tree’s worth a week of press releases con
cerning various bands, events, showings
and such. The cultural detritus doesn’t
end there. We also get CDs, videos, books
and various crappy promotional material
for various crappy things. All of this is the
product of people working in PR trying to
get me to mention whatever they happen
to be selling.
A large part of the job of an entertain
ment reporter is separating the subject
from the PR surrounding it. Every band
wants to be the next big thing, but instead
of coming up with original music and cre
ative ideas, bands often opt for just hav
ing their press releases say they are the
next big thing. It’s less hard work and
more often than not it actually works, at
least for a few years. I mention music be
cause of all the possible forms of artistic
endeavor, it’s the one most concerned
with image. Of course all artists are con
cerned with their image, but with musi
cians it seems to be chronic. Actual
paint-and-brush artists (or paint-and
hand artists, or human-fecal-matter
and-brush artists) will put up a front
as a survival tool in a profession
where “starving artist” is no mere
jocular description.
But musicians are really obsessed. Ac
tors can become extraordinarily self-pos
sessed, but they are also performing the
works of other people. Musicians more of
ten than not are performing their own
compositions in front of an audience.
How you look becomes remarkably
important. If you have any doubts
about this, the next time you go to a
rock concert, ask yourself, “Who is
wearing the coolest T-shirt in this
building?” Was it a member of one of the
bands? Bingo.
Musicians can’t be blamed for this. This
NYBURG, page 10
Retro revival spurs knitting trend
Soft Horizons Fibre offers everything from craft
workshops to the newest innovations in yarn
BY NATASHA CHILINGERIAN
SENIOR PULSE REPORTER
Rows of jewel-toned balls of
yarn — fluffy ones, sparkly ones
and silky ones — line the walls
of Soft Horizons Fibre. Crafters
gather quietly at a table, leafing
through knitting books in search
of their next projects. Through
out the shop sit materials for a
spectrum of fiber-based projects
such as looming kits, beading
kits and even a few Sleeping
Beauty-style spinning wheels.
Soft Horizons Fibre is a para
dise of fiber arts. The shop, lo
cated in an antique house at 412
E. 13th Ave., carries a variety of
supplies for knitting, crocheting,
basketry, spinning, weaving and
chair seat creations. Taking cen
ter stage at the store are the
newest innovations in yarn, in
every color and texture; some
styles are fringed and glittery
and some are soft and furry. Soft
Horizons Fibre owner Mona
Rummel said the past few years
have brought a large knitting
comeback, especially with
young people.
“Little kids, baby boomers and
seniors are coming back to the
craft,” she said. “But the up
swing in knitting is fueled by col
lege-age people. It’s the hip thing
to do now.”
Rummel said the popularity of
knitting among the young crowd
goes hand in hand with a revival of
trends from the 1960s and 1970s.
“It’s a retro movement,” she
said. “The 60s and 70s are coming
back, like with colors like rust and
olive green. It’s a rebellion against
the electronic age. People want to
do something with their hands
and have a finished product.”
Eugene resident and former
Soft Horizons Fibre employee Bet
ty Kjeldgaard also said she has no
ticed a growing trend of knitting
during the past few years.
“For so long, knitting was about
the little old grannies in rocking
chairs,” she said. “When 1 was in
college, we knitted argyle socks for
our boyfriends and brothers. Now
college students are interested
again, and it’s wonderful. There are
so many neat yarns now.”
Soft Horizons Fibre employee
Lisa Nicholson said she has no
ticed an interest in knitting from
University students. She said sev
eral residence hall assistants
asked her to teach a residence hall
knitting group and that students
have come in to tell her about
campus knitting groups.
“A lot of college students come
in,” she said. “They love doing
the scarves and fingerless gloves.”
Soft Horizons Fibre offers classes
and workshops, which make the
shop a community craft-making
spot. First-timers can sign up for
Knitting 101, Introduction to Cro
chet or Table Loom Weaving. The
store also offers one-day work
shops (often taught by special
guests), and intermediate and ad
vanced classes. A regularly-occur
ring workshop is the Square of the
Month Club, where students learn
to knit a different square each
month and at the end of the year
piece them together into a unique
afghan. The store is still accepting
students for its fall classes, and
those who are interested can stop
by the store for a registration form.
Rummel said the perfect project
for a novice knitter is a scarf. She
said while the stitching of a scarf is
YARN, page 11
Danielle Hickey | Photo editor
F.D. Morgan speaks to saleswoman Kusi Meneloo in Soft Horizons Fibre, at 412 E.
13th Ave., which carries all types of yams and holds knitting workshops.
Harrelson film targets "beast' industries
The former 'Cheers' cast member visits Eugene
to promote documentary, urge students to vote
BY NAIASHA CHILINGERIAN
SENIOR PULSE REPORTER
Actor and activist Woody Harrel
son, known for his role as the
dimwitted bartender on the TV se
ries “Cheers,” will be in Eugene to
day to promote his environmental
ly conscious documentary “Go
Further” and encourage University
students to get their ballots in. He
will appear with OSPIRG at 1 p.m.
on the corner of East 13th Avenue
and University Street to promote
protecting the national forests and
speak one-on-one to passersby
about voting. At 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.,
the Bijou Art Cinemas will present
a sneak preview of “Go Further,”
where Harrelson will appear for a
question and answer session. I had
the privilege of interviewing Harrel
son recently about his new film,
the environment and our current
political situation.
Emerald: What message does
your film get out?
Harrelson: I’ve looked at these
environmental issues from every
which angle, right? I’ve put a lot of
money into it, I’ve put a lot of time,
and I feel like most of the time the
way environmental issues are dealt
with is, it’s like putting out fire. You
put out this fire here, you put out
this fire there — there are a lot of
emergency situations, but does
that really get to the root of the
problem? Because if you stop them
from cutting down this forest, they
go cut down that forest. So the big
problem is the beast — I call it the
beast — which is all these giant in
dustries like the petroleum, timber,
mining, nuclear...just all the indus
tries that get giant subsidies, huge
tax breaks and rape mother earth
on a daily basis. They look at us
not as human beings, but as con
sumers. So if we focus on where
we put our dollar, it has a big im
pact. Not that everybody has ac
cess to biodiesel fuel, but on the
other hand, when you buy your
shampoo, you don’t have to neces
sarily buy petroleum-based sham
poo. The message of the film is
that each of us has our own ability
Actor Woody Harrelson says to help transform our planet we need to
our dollars to earth-destroying industries such as petroleum or timber.
Courtesy
stop giving
to affect whether or not we’re feed
ing the beast.
Emerald: In your film’s synop
sis, it states that you test your abil
ity to believe that the personal
transformations people can make
can transform our planet. After
making the film, do you believe
this is true?
Harrelson: Oh yeah, I don’t
doubt that it’s true, but it’s going
to have to be a lot of it acting in
union with each other. All we can
focus on is our own tasks, like not
using Windex is a good thing
(laughs). It’s a little thing, but it’s
a good thing. Everybody uses
Windex. Well, 1 think that
cleanser’s a thousand times more
toxic than anything it could
(clean). But yeah, that’s a way of
giving money to the beast. It’s not
affecting it on a big level, but if a
bunch of us did it together, then it
would have a powerful effect. If a
bunch of us agree on what we’re
boycotting, then we have a really
powerful tool.
HARRELSON, page 6