You might have seen her performing with her troupe of accordion addicts, frolicking in her intricate green royal garments, or holding court this past Saturday during the Eugene Celebration parade.
Queen Accordionna, the crowned ruler of the Eugene Celebration, captured the title after an intriguing routine of accordion playing, belly-dancing and bubble-blowing. The S.L.U.G. Queen governs over the Eugene Celebration parade and makes appearances representing the entertainment community throughout the year.
As Queen of Eugene’s entertainment highlight of the year, and proclaimed representative of the Eugene scene, the Emerald took a moment with the zany ruler to cipher what entertainment in Eugene is all about.
Q: How do you plan on entertaining the city during your S.L.U.G. Queen reign?
A: I plan to learn to ride a unicycle and play the accordion at the same time. So I’m looking for a unicycle and a coach.
I also plan to play a lot of accordion, which is a lot of entertainment in itself. Whatever else unfolds, who knows.
Q: What do you recommend people do to entertain themselves on a Friday night?
A: I have to say Air Jamaica comes to mind. It’s a wonderful reggae show on KLCC. Sit back and relax and listen. And sleep! (Snoring Sound) Just relax, go to the park.
Q: How should we go about expanding the cultural-activity base in Eugene?
A: Oh boy! Wow! One idea I came up with today was I’d like to see the Eugene Celebration be much more locally driven. Local artists getting a chance to show their work. And local singers and dancers. It’d be more fun and get people involved.
Also, workshops and hands on culture instead of spectator sports. I love seeing acts from out of town but we have a huge three day block party. It’s an opportunity for us to do things for ourselves.
It would be nice to see an event where everyone doing theater, music, art and dance could show and share their work. We need to have more places where people can show their work.
If you want to expand art in the community, put it in the schools. It helps kids in so many ways. And it’s just fun!
Q: How does having a university in Eugene help the entertainment scene?
A: It’s a wonderful resource. You have music students, lots of them, who are very dedicated. You have to love it. I admire anyone who can get through [the program].
Q: If you could only choose one Eugene event to attend other than the Eugene Celebration, what would it be?
A: It would have to be the Country Fair. How could you not go to it?
Because of the vaudeville energy that is central there, it is totally amazing. It’s like a circus, really cool! I really like it and definitely don’t get enough of it.
It’s only three days, too short, but it’s quite spectacular. It’s like a vortex of talent.
Q: What prompted you to compete for the S.L.U.G. Queen title?
A: I have a group called Accordion Anonymous and we’re accordion addicts. We work through the 12 steps of accordion addiction. We were rejected by the Eugene Celebration to perform.
But when “we” — I’m taking the liberty of using the royal we — are in charge, it’s a totally different ball game.
Q: What are your plans for the actual Celebration?
A: One of our enablers contacted the would-be powers of the Eugene Celebration and suggested that now that there was a queen in the group, we should be playing. But we were rejected again, causing much controversy among the group.
We went into a trance to ponder our next action and decided “we don’t need them,” we can do our own show whenever and wherever we please.
I get the float [in the parade] and the accordion players are my court. We’ve marched in the human powered parade that happens in Eugene in June and have been in the Eugene Celebration parade twice.
I wanted to do a human powered parade. Because of “our” royal status, we’ve gotten a commitment from Kinetic Sculpture Race out of Corvallis to bring this monster bike down. It takes eight pedalers [pistons] to power it and it has a platform that can hold 10 people. I’m excited to use this — we’re having a “floatilla” of human-powered machines.
I’d like to see the Eugene Celebration parade be completely human-powered. That would be really cool and less smelly.
Q: What importance does the color green have to you? [Accordionna’s costume, as well as her outfit during the interview, were green.]
A: It’s the general consensus around Eugene that slugs are green — though I think actually slugs are brown but they love green stuff. And I love everything green. So it’s a wonderful chance to represent the symbolism of things I love best — nature.
And since “we’re” queen, we are trying to fulfill our duties. This is where we get oxygen from. Common sense should dictate one should totally exaltify the color green.