Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/culture/page/32/)
Uberbrew recently became the second Billings brewery to put six packs of its beer on retail shelves. The Yellowstone Valley Brewing Co. has been doing so for years with a bottling operation attached to its brewery at 2123 First Ave. N.
Uberbrew owners Mark Hastings and Jason Shroyer are going a bit different route—having their popular White Noise hefeweizen bottled at the Fort Collins Brewery in Colorado. (more…) Continue Reading →
Every year on Veterans Day, I cringe at the knowledge that well-meaning people are going to wallpaper Facebook and Twitter with heartfelt tributes to the heroes who have served our country. I cringe because as a veteran myself, I know the truth about the average military personnel. Most of the people I met in the military were good people. They showed up and did their job. They didn’t cause problems. They were generally a pleasure to work with. Continue Reading →
True story: In the early 1980s, when I was living in Butte, I was in Billings one weekend to play hockey. I was driving down Montana Avenue with a couple of other players, at a time when the avenue had probably never looked worse. The Rex restaurant was there, as it is now, and there were a handful of other businesses, mostly secondhand stores, but not much else. (more…) Continue Reading →
Korine Fujiwara will be going back to her roots when she performs with the Carpe Diem String Quartet at the Alberta Bair Theater on Saturday evening. The 1985 graduate of Billings Senior High first performed on that stage in high school, when she played in the violin section of the Billings Symphony Orchestra, when the venue was still called the Fox Theatre. She is also coming back to the place where the two streams of her family joined to make her the musician she is. (more…) Continue Reading →
Of course it was planned and was not a lucky accident, but still, you couldn’t have found a better way to officially open this year’s High Plains BookFest on Friday. The theme of this year’s festival is Border Crossing, meant to celebrate the literary kinship of the people of the High Plains, whether they live in the United States or Canada. (more…) Continue Reading →
It’s a safe bet that the Skyview High parent who did not want her child to read Sherman Alexie’s “Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” would not have wanted her child to attend Alexie’s speech in Billings Thursday night. The wildly popular author delivered a 65-minute talk and then spent 48 minutes answering, more or less, just three questions from the audience in the gymnasium of Rocky Mountain College’s Fortin Education Center. (more…) Continue Reading →
News item: A body believed to be that of missing actress Misty Upham has been found in the Seattle area, police said on Thursday. I first interviewed Misty Upham a few months ago, and it ended eerily. Out of the more than 1,000 interviews I’ve conducted, our three conversations, each lasting about an hour, were uniquely unshakeable. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Fallow Season of Hugo Hunter, by Craig Lancaster, Lake Union Publishing, 2014. 286 pages, $14.95. How am I biased toward Craig Lancaster, whose novel I am proposing to review today? Let me count the ways. (more…) Continue Reading →
At the fifth annual Billings Grand Slam poetry event next week, you can expect to encounter high sentiments, lovely words — and fierce competition. “People are there to see the blood sport,” said James Hickman, one of the organizers of the slam. (more…) Continue Reading →
If you want to hear author Sherman Alexie speak next week at Rocky Mountain College, Steve Germic suggests you get there early. Germic, an associate professor of English who is helping organize the event, said there is likely to be a full house, even though the speech will be in the biggest indoor space on campus, the gymnasium of the Fortin Education Center. (more…) Continue Reading →
