Nowtopian

On Wednesday past Russell, our host Katie, and her big dog Beijou, drove up the Columbia River Gorge to visit the hometown of Michael Med-o, a place called White Salmon that I’ve been hearing about for 25 years. Finally I have some visuals to associate with his memories and stories of his youth. And for a break from Portland and the Carfree Cities Conference, it was perfect.

It’s very beautiful there, the town of Mt. Hood on the Oregon side of the river and White Salmon on the hilltop on the Washington State side. There is also the White Salmon River pouring in nearby. Michael explained how the economy had crashed a couple of decades ago when the timber industry went into terminal decline, and for five years the area had 30%+ unemployment and folks were leaving in droves. Then the windsurfing phenomenon took off and this spot became of the world’s premiere destinations for windsurfers and parasailers… Now it’s the backbone of the local economy, and it’s all thanks to the relentless wind pouring upriver, countering the river itself rushing westward, leading to a unique area of crazy currents and powerful winds nearly all year long.

Michael took us to see the local elementary school named after his dad, we went by his various job sites as a teenager, and then we went up the White Salmon river to find his old highschool stoner hangout on a bridge. When we got there, we found the path had turned into a muddy creek, and the bridge itself had been destroyed by a fire some time earlier. Here’s the ruins of it:

Continue reading In the Cascades

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.

Continue reading U-gene Oh-ay-sis