LET TERS
ADDRESSING RAPE
Your “The Freshman Survival Guide”
(Oct. 12) states: “The first half of your
first term of college is known as the ‘Red
Zone,’ the period of time a young woman
is most vulnerable to rape … so go with
friends you trust and look out for each oth-
er, and keep an eye on your drink.”
Why are you giving advice only to
women when addressing rape?
How about talking frankly with men, the
gender that creates and perpetuates the prob-
lem? What if instead you had published:
“Male sexual assaulters are more likely
to prey on freshman women, so if you ob-
serve a man play up to a freshman or any
other woman, stick around and intervene
when necessary. If you know of a man who
puts drugs into women’s drinks, report him
to authorities. And do not in any way con-
done, encourage, enable, participate in or
make jokes about such behavior in men.”
Harriet Behm
Eugene
UNFORTUNATE
JUXTAPOSITION
I wanted to check in with you all to say
that I absolutely love your work, and I’ve
been able to use a great deal of your work
in my classroom to talk about very impor-
tant social justice related issues as well as
important community organizations and
goings-on, for which I’m very grateful.
VIEWPOINT
I also wanted to check in with you
about your recent issue, “Back to Campus”
(Oct. 12). I noted that the “Freshman Sur-
vival Guide” is placed opposite an ad for
a lawyer who seems to represent students
and other folks who are accused of sexual
assault.
I’m not familiar with the details of how
y’all sell advertising and why certain ads
are placed on certain pages or paired with
certain articles, but as a consumer of Eu-
gene Weekly I’m concerned that the pairing
of this article with this ad is promoting or
at the very least condoning sexual assault.
I realize this is a leap, but I’ve shared
the ad and the pairing of the two with a va-
riety of folks and we each agreed that there
was a message being shared, and it is one
of linking freshman survival with the pro-
tection of those accused of sexual assault.
I understand the Weekly has already
been distributed, but I wanted to share this
concern as a community member, an edu-
cator, a woman and a UO student.
Relée Davis
English language development teacher
Eugene
Editor’s note: The placement was unintentional and unfor-
tunate. We apologize.
KENNEDY IS WRONG
Will Kennedy’s “Raffi for grownups”
(Oct. 12) spoke more to his anger issues
than to give information about Jimmy Buf-
fer. I’m not a Parrot head my music taste
runs a gambet from clasical to funk & hip
hop. But I do have a lot of great 80’s young
adult music memories with Buffet. I get his
point about the me Gen, but many of these
big bucks people are philanthropists.
Jimmy Buffer funds environmental &
humanitarian disaster relief volunteer ac-
tion through FAUACA in the Carribian.
He also gives grants to youth in Detroit &
for vegi gardens in harlem. Do your home-
work Mr Kennedy.
Carol West
Eugene
Editor’s note: We felt that this letter made its point without
our editing it for typos.
LEVIN IS WRONG
On the whole, I appreciate Rick Levin’s
florid stylings, even if he does tend toward
an oxymoronic holier-than-thou nihilism.
That said, his recent review of Jekyll &
Hyde at Cottage Theatre (Oct. 12) gets
some important background wrong.
First, Freud, Marx and Nietzsche are
not all products of “the late 19th century.”
Marx published Das Kapital in 1867, after
20 years of previous published work. He
died in 1883. By contrast, the vast majority
of Freud’s work was published during the
first three decades of the 20th century.
More important, Levin's gloss on Rob-
ert Louis Stevenson’s original, The Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, provides a
nice example of how people confuse what
they think they know for what they know
in fact. Contrary to Levin’s assertion, this
story is not a familiar one — much less
“the way it speaks to the duality of human
nature, good and evil and all that.” It is the
titular characters that are familiar, not the
story, or its vision of good and evil. I’d
guess these are virtually unknown.
I’d be curious to hear how Stevenson
“intuits the catastrophes of the coming
century.” It seems to me that Levin has
simply read his own obsessions into the
space where familiarity with the actual
work would go.
I regard this as a shame, as beyond the
apparent spectacle of the current musi-
cal lies a profound original of lasting rel-
evance.
Timothy Shaw
Eugene
PARROTHEAD REVOLT
First James Taylor, and now Jimmy
Buffett. Next, Will Kennedy will be chas-
tising John Denver because “Rocky Moun-
tain High” wasn’t about smoking pot.
Michael Billings
Eugene
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics and
will print as many as space allows, with priority given
to timely local issues. Please limit length to 200 words
and include your address and phone number for our files.
Email to letters@eugeneweekly.com, fax to 484-4044 or
mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.
BY AMY ADAMS
Let’s shine some light on Bach
TRANSPARENCY IS NEEDED ON THE OREGON BACH FESTIVAL
B
erwick Hall, the new home of the Oregon Bach Festival, is an el-
egant building — small, modern, light-filled, with a performance
hall that can seat up to 140, perfect for small-ensemble perfor-
mances such as were given at the public reception on Oct. 8 cele-
brating the building’s opening. Windows abound — from virtually
every desk in the office, light floods the space.
That, sadly, is the only transparent thing about the festival these days.
The few scraps of information given to the public lead to more confusion
than clarity: The festival renews artistic director Matthew Halls’ contract through
2020 and then abruptly fires him, issues an unconvincing press release and then
claims that the relationship has “drawn to a close.” Both the university and Halls
agree to not “disparage” the other party. Yet in that silence, both parties are dis-
credited as the public struggles to guess at what has been concealed.
That is how silence works — people fill it with whatever comes to mind.
The festival website has all but ground to a halt, its vibrant banner photo
replaced by an appropriately black rectangle, like a censored phrase. Halls’ pres-
ence has been virtually erased from the site — photos featuring him are gone.
News releases about him are gone. A video of Halls extolling the beauty of
Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 is inexplicably disabled.
One can almost hear crickets chirping in the website’s silence, a sharp contrast
to years past when autumn would be spent gloating over the summer’s successes,
promoting the Chamber Music at Beall concert series, highlighting any cheerful
festival news and enticing patrons with hints of future performances.
Confidentiality is not a virtue, it’s just a tool that ensures information stays
with authorized people. And it can, like any tool, be misused. Because of con-
fidentiality, the festival’s stakeholders are prevented from knowing if there was
wrongdoing or ineptness or both. They are unable to prevent whatever happened
4
October 19, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
from happening again, because they don’t have any relevant information. All
that’s known is that the University of Oregon, in clinging to its self-imposed
secrecy, may well be protecting someone’s interests, perhaps even its own. And
it is doing so at the expense of the Oregon Bach Festival.
Running a performing arts organization is a challenge even during the best of
times, but look now at the new hurdles faced by the festival:
How do you repair the eroded confidence of donors?
How do you convince volunteers to stay, when the organization they love
does not tell the truth?
How do you cultivate enthusiasm to a shocked and dismayed community of
patrons?
How do you fix a damaged brand?
How do you run a conducting master class...after firing the master teacher?
How do you replace the relationship built between conductor and festival
musicians?
How do you forge connections between community and festival in an atmo-
sphere of mistrust?
How do you engage world-class artists after firing the world-class artistic
director?
How do you sell tickets … when no one even buys your press releases?
I have a long history with the festival. I sang in the chorus for 20 years.
Helmuth Rilling is one of my greatest influences and a master teacher I’m proud
to have made music with. I was on the OBF board of directors as a musician
representative and served on the search committee that hired Matthew Halls as
Rilling’s successor. His joy, his relish and skill in music making are profound and
infectious. And he was ours.
Amy Adams is a singer who lives in Springfield.