Came to Eugene and had a lovely visit. It felt a bit weird for different reasons, hard to pin down. Obviously the town is home to Zerzan and the Green Anarchy crowd, and their bizarre enthusiasm for apocalyptic catastrophe as a “political critique” of modern capitalism. But we didn’t meet any of those folks, who either didn’t know I was passing through, didn’t care, or didn’t want to engage publicly…
I did a reading to a small, much older crowd than usual at Tsunami Books, a cool shop somewhat away from the town center. Here’s a photo, and also Scott, the proprietor who graciously hosted me on the local university’s commencement day, and has his own beautiful garden on the side of the bookstore.
I enjoyed presenting at Tsunami though did find it a bit weird how the crowd of 11 people consisted of 10 men, 1 female, and at least 8 or 9 over 45… quite a contrast to other appearances. But anyway, Kathy Ging was the most loquacious of the audience members and she told a couple of interesting stories: first about helping start a Community Skill Bank in Ashland a couple of dozen years ago and how it functioned; and secondly she started a concept (and website) called Liberated Salad. It’s pretty cool!
Kathy also set us up with Sue Supriano (host of Steppin’ Out of Babylon radio show), who kindly gave us a place to sleep and the following morning a walking tour of Maitrea, a nearby ecovillage and intentional community.
