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The Gizmo Guys are Barrett Felker and Allan Jacobs, world class jugglers who have a wealth of experience between them. They began performing as a duo in 1987, but until then had each learned how to make a living by tossing objects into the air and catching them all by themselves. Of course, they're both pretty good at it. Allan studied psychology and earned his degree. But to him, "practice" didn't mean sitting in a chair listening to people's problems; it meant hours and hours per day of developing his eye-hand coordination. He taught juggling at Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's Clown College and won the solo championship at the International Juggler's Association competition in 1983. Barrett Felker was hanging out with his cousins when he was 15, when he saw someone juggling on TV. He was mesmerized. His cousins said something like "Big whoop. We can do that, too," brought out their juggling balls and showed him how it was done. He left his cousin's house with those balls and began practicing at least an hour every day, instead of doing his homework. "But that's another story," he says. Soon Felker was on the streets of Boulder, Colo., performing various juggling routines. His parents wanted him to go to college -- "they were supportive, but didn't know how someone could make a living as a juggler," he says -- but he knew the juggling life was for him. He began going to festivals and that's where he met Jacobs. They kept in touch over the next 10 years, Jacobs teaching, Felker touring throughout the U.S. and Europe, then decided to team up. The two brought different talents to their act. Jacobs was more skill oriented, having mastered extremely difficult techniques. Felker, as a street performer, had learned how to ad lib and establish a rapport with whatever sidewalk audience assembled. "A lot of people aren't comfortable watching jugglers -- what happens if he drops one? It's a big disaster," says Felker. "We try to make that entertaining." Felker adds the show is "pleasant" to watch; they don't juggle flaming swords or anything too nerve-wracking; instead they offer a family-oriented show where the humor may be geared more toward the adults but the visuals are for everybody. Shows are at 2 pm and 7 pm Sunday, Jan. 14 in the Hult's Soreng.. Tix are $12, $10 stu./sr. Over at the Very Little Theatre, the winter doldrums get a little lighter with a four-week run of Jack Sharkey's The Murder Room, a spoof of British murder-mysteries. The story takes place in a cottage in a northern English town in the 1950s. A disguised character, a secret chamber, a trap door and characters well beyond the pale are all here. The stock characters include the rich older husband (Don Kelley), the money-seeking second wife (Susan Keller), the sweet, innocent daughter (Mindy Linder), the rich American fiancé (Johnny Ormsbee), the loyal maidservant (Kathleen Bear), and the constable (Steven Mandell). Suzanne Shapiro directs. Tix are $12. Senior Sunday matinees are $9. Performances begin Friday, Jan. 12 and continue Thursday-Sunday through Feb. 3. Curtain is at 8:15 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm on Sunday. Congratulations to Encore Theatre, which has received a $5,000 grant from the Fred Meyer Foundation. The grant was awarded for Encore's Elementary School Performance/ Workshop Project, and will be used to present an original show to third- to fifth-graders. The money will enable two separate senior troupes to perform shows based on their life experiences concurrently: One show is geared to middle and high school students, the other to elementary students. Robin Christian, executive director of the foundation, says, "We hope this grant will help Encore continue the important work it is doing to enrich the health of the community."
On the Nature of Generosity by William Kittredge. Knopf, 2000. Hardcover, $25 In On The Nature of Generosity, William Kittredge continues the story he started in Hole in the Sky, his acclaimed memoir of early life on his family's vast ranch in Eastern Oregon. In this new book, Kittredge wheels though diverse areas around the globe and back through time. Breezing from New York and Venice to the Andalusian hills of Garcia Lorca and from cow towns in Montana to museums in Paris, this deeply personal work is fueled by Kittredge's desire to reconcile childhood simplicities with complex, urgent questions about who to be and how and why. Most striking to me are the numerous sections where Kittredge explores the nature of story as a essential shaping tool of experience. Here's how he reflects on one of mankind's oldest places, the caves at Lascaux in France: "Around these limestone cliffs above the river, there existed a palpable continuity of time, from people constructing fires against the night to a hungry tourist like me, engaged in his own abstract and yet pressing constructing. There is no point in dreaming of a return to the ways our species once lived. In fact, we have never truly left, since those rhythms are inscribed in us and will not evaporate in any living future. "What does 'holy space' mean, exactly? Is it a situation where humans feel secure in the knowledge that they're where they belong in the passage of things? Here, we were surrounded by rock walls people had used to back up their hearth fires for millennia, the embers burning down in the night, clans and families warming and drying themselves while snow fell through the darkness and they dreamed of spring, when the tundra would flower and the great animals would return." Throughout Generosity, Kittredge samples an array of biological, cultural and psychological histories to create a petition against selfishness and a celebration of mankind's diversity and possibility. The breadth of his beguiling material gives the book an almost stream-of-consciousness style, which may not suit the taste of everyone but may induce in some readers a meditative state impossible to attain from a more clearly mapped path. Indeed, the project as a whole could be seen as a travelogue for the soul, a sort of "Fodor's Guide to The Sublime" written by one of this country's finest writers. Kittredge will read and sign the new memoir at 7:30 pm Jan. 24 at Knight Law Center, UO campus, Room 175. Booknotes: TV writer/producer Tom Sawyer will sign his new book, The Sixteenth Man, at Borders Jan 12 between 3pm-4. Six poets -- Victoria Wyttenberg, Charles, Goodrich, Barbara Davis, Debra Brimacombe, Pat Ware and Carolyn Miller -- will read in the Eugene Public Library Lecture Room January 16 at 7 pm. All were featured in the 1999 anthology, Millennial Spring, edited by Peter Sears and Michael Malin. ...For the William Stafford Birthday Reading, bring a favorite Stafford poem to read at Tsunami Books, 7:30 pm, Jan. 17. ...Willie Weir (Spokesongs, reissued 2000) will show slides and talk about his recent trip to India in 100 Willamette Hall, Jan. 17, at 7:30 pm. ...Lan Samantha Chang will sign her new collection of stories, Hunger, in the UO Knight Library Browsing Room, 8 pm, Jan. 18. ...Elizabeth Lyon will hold a workshop, "Eight Proven Methods To Sell Your Book," at Barnes and Noble, 7 pm, Jan. 18. ...Science fiction writer Jerry Oltion will sign his novel, Abandon in Place, based on his Nebula-award-winning novella, at Borders, Jan. 21 at 2 pm. ...Laurie Swanson Gribskov, author of Where Did My Father Go? Coping and Caring When a Parent has Alzheimer's, will present a free workshop, "Facing the Challenges of an Aging Parent," at the First Congregational Church, Jan. 23, at 7 pm ...Glenna Grey will read from You Don't Have To Be Jewish To Be Funny at Tsunami Books, Jan. 28, 3 pm. ...Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet C.K. Williams will read from his 1999 collection, Repair, at Portland's First Congregational Church (1126 SW Park) on Jan. 30 at 7:30 pm. (503) 227-2583. ...Screenwriter Cynthia Whitcomb, author of Selling Your Screenplay (Crown, 1988), will speak at Amazon Community Center, Feb. 1 at 7 pm. ...Wendy Maltz, Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar will read in the Knight Library Browsing Room, Feb. 6 at 8 pm. ...Porter Shreve, author of The Obituary Writer and UO 2001 Visiting Writer, will read in the Knight Library Browsing Room, Feb. 8 at 8 pm. Back to Top
For the last decade or so, honey bees all over Europe and North America have been plagued by parasitic mites. Bee keepers can use chemicals to control mites in their hives, but wild populations -- including most of the honey bees that show up in our gardens -- have been reduced by 90 percent. Honey bees are not native to North America (they were introduced in the 17th century) but modern agriculture depends on them for pollination, especially where fruit trees are concerned. Honey bees are social insects that live in large, dense colonies. This lifestyle enables them to pollinate large monoculture crops easily and hives can be trucked wherever they are needed. Most native bees are solitary or, like bumble bees, grow in small colonies of a few dozen individuals. Some are very efficient pollinators. Whether they will ever displace honey bees in large-scale commercial farming is unclear, but it seems they can do a great job for gardens and small orchards. So far, the best-known and most widely tested native bee is the orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria), which is native to most of North America. One man who has done a lot to increase awareness of the orchard mason bee is Brian Griffin, a self-described urban farmer in Bellingham, Wash. Knox Cellars, the business he owns with his daughter Lisa Novich, has an excellent web site (www.knoxcellars.com) and his book describing the life-style and needs of Osmia lignaria recently came out in a second edition. He also supplies bees. Last year, a friend of mine bought one of his bee habitats containing dormant bees. She followed the directions and observed the little blue-black bees emerge, visit flowers in her garden and lay down a fresh set of eggs in her bee house. I often see small, dark bees in my own garden, so I asked Griffin if they might be mason bees. He replied, "There are many small dark bees that could live in your garden, ceratina, Heriades carinata, up to three leafcutters, Osmia coerulescens to name a few. Osmia lignaria is larger than most but it could very well be in your garden. The entire Willamette valley is native territory for O. lignaria. That does not mean they are everywhere. Usually populations are scattered and small but they will do well anywhere in the valley if started and provided with nesting holes." According to Griffin, these are gentle bees, perfectly safe to raise and observe at close quarters in a small yard. Orchard mason bees are active from early spring through June. Females gather pollen and nectar to provide food for the eggs they lay in successive chambers in a pre-existing hole. It might be a beetle tunnel in a tree, a hollow stem or a 5/16 inch hole you drilled in a piece of wood. Each chamber contains food and one egg and is sealed with a plug of mud "masonry." The eggs gradually develop into adult bees that remain dormant until next spring. "Winter is the very best time to purchase bees" Griffin says. "They must be mailed, and we want to keep them cold. Bees shipped in February and March are thinking about waking up and going to work. In late March and April we have to put blue ice packs in with them to keep them in hibernation during shipment." Put out your nesting habitat on March 1st. The bees usually emerge about March 15. You want to be sure the nesting holes are ready for them, because females begin to work on nest building immediately. Griffin adds: "Putting out different size nesting holes will attract different sized bees and at different times of the growing season. We now sell three species of hole-nesters that operate from mid-March into September, each with their own 8- to 10-week period of activity." Nesting devices and Griffin's book The Orchard Mason Bee are available from local garden stores. Starter-colonies of bees can be ordered direct from Knox Cellars Native Pollinators, 1607 Knox Ave., Bellingham, WA 98225. You can reach Knox Cellars by phone at (425) 898-8802.
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