SmokeJumpers parachute out of planes into wilderness areas to fight fires that are hard to reach with ground equipment. The SmokeJump Base - also known as The Gobi - in Cave Junction, Oregon was established to fight fires caused by Japanese incendiary bombs that hit the west coast during WWII and was active through the late 1980s. Meet Gary Buck, who jumped out of Gobi Base beginning in the 1960s and hear about the courage and strength and fellowship that make up this unique profession.
Stories of mills, mines, forests, and fields: Southern Oregon’s landscape, economy, and demographics have changed significantly since the donation land claims of the mid-1800s. Thanks to grants from the Oregon Heritage Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Southern Oregon University has been collecting the oral histories and photographs of heritage families and publishing these to the Southern Oregon Digital Archives.
Chelsea Rose of the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) will be on site showcasing the Jim Rock Historic Can Collection. The collection is housed at SOULA, and was made available in a digital format through a collaboration with Hannon Library. The historic can collection was created by archaeologist Jim Rock, who literally wrote the book on the origin and history of tin cans. In addition to being important artifacts at archaeological sites, cans played a significant role in the emerging world of disposable consumerism. Cans themselves became canvases for early advertisers, and as such, they are a material remnant of choice, preference, and the ongoing dialog between consumers and the changing global marketplace.
Chelsea will be at the festival all day, but if you want to hear her speak about the exhibit, she'll be doing that three times: at 11 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm.
Experience the ability of poetry to bring healing, inspiration and community connection through this brief workshop. Some writing time included. No poetry experience necessary!
A rollicking round table discussion that will look at ways to create literature at the grassroots level. Culture is not a top down process! And the most important voices are not necessarily the "lone geniuses" vetted by the literary class. Those voices start in the community.
Green Side Up was a reforestation crew that planted the Pacific Northwest after the 1970s and 1980s clear cuts. Green Side Up brought cash into the Takilma Commune that otherwise existed by barter. It was a remarkable time when hippies hit the hills with hoedads and axes. Robert Hirning negotiated the contracts for Green Side Up and was front and center.
Stories of mills, mines, forests, and fields: Southern Oregon’s landscape, economy, and demographics have changed significantly since the donation land claims of the mid-1800s. Thanks to grants from the Oregon Heritage Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Southern Oregon University has been collecting the oral histories and photographs of heritage families and publishing these to the Southern Oregon Digital Archives.
Tolly is a battle raccoon who will travel far and wide to protect our dreams. One day, when a Dream is born, Tolly must deliver it to the top of Heart Mountain. He must be the bravest of the brave to defend the Dream from its scariest foes, Fear and Doubt. Along the way, Tolly also discovers he needs more than courage to help the Dream survive ― he needs someone to believe in him.
The Applegate was a heated battleground in the late 1990s as environmentalists, loggers and the Forest Service all tried to exert their influence. It took people like Chris Bratt, a card carrying carpenter's union member to help folks talk through the issues, find new ways of solving problems and find consensus. Chris Bratt was a big part of the Applegate Partnership.
Stories of mills, mines, forests, and fields: Southern Oregon’s landscape, economy, and demographics have changed significantly since the donation land claims of the mid-1800s. Thanks to grants from the Oregon Heritage Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Southern Oregon University has been collecting the oral histories and photographs of heritage families and publishing these to the Southern Oregon Digital Archives.
Timber Curtain: In which a Victorian House is torn down and a poem goes up in its place; in which we read from a new book and screen clips from a new documentary film that goes with the book; in which poetry is depicted as a flimsy architecture subject to renovation and exploration.
Two and a half years ago, news broke that the Pacific Northwest building boom would claim the old Victorian that housed a beloved literary center—Richard Hugo House. In response, Hugo House co-founder Frances McCue launched the documentary Where the House Was, the narration for which became the poetry collection Timber Curtain (Chin Music Press, 2017). Join McCue for selections from the forthcoming film, speculations about ghosts, and renditions of “facademies,” the practice of inserting a new building into the facade of an old one. McCue reproduces this in poetic form and will show visuals to accompany her reading.
Pounds and pounds of gold came out of Sterling Creek Mine in the late 1990s, nuggets as big as your fist. Glenn Wadstein conceived of a sand and gravel operation that was efficient, productive and profitable, and restored the land after extraction. You'll see the equipment that Wadstein designed, the fruits of his labors, and hear some remarkable stories about what might seem unimaginable today.
Stories of mills, mines, forests, and fields: Southern Oregon’s landscape, economy, and demographics have changed significantly since the donation land claims of the mid-1800s. Thanks to grants from the Oregon Heritage Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Southern Oregon University has been collecting the oral histories and photographs of heritage families and publishing these to the Southern Oregon Digital Archives.
Fantasy, fairy tales, legends, and myths are the basis of our culture. Why, then, are they looked down upon as ‘merely’ fantasy? This panel will explore the reasons, and discuss the important part fantasy plays in forming new ways of seeing, by imagining new ways of being rather than simply reporting the old.
In his famous poem “Like You,” Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton wrote, “I believe the world is beautiful/and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.” This workshop will demonstrate how poetry is for everyone and that through poetry our students’ lives—the “landscape and bread” of their homes, their ancestors, their struggles, and joys—are invited into classrooms as subjects worthy of study. Students’ histories as members of a particular race, class, neighborhood, or even illness become part of our classroom anthology. During this workshop, participants will reclaim any part of our lives that society has degraded, humiliated, or shamed, and raise it up, share it, and sing praises to that “unanimous blood/of those who struggle.”
The Ashland Independent Film Festival presents Alex Cox's Walker, from 4 to 6, in the Meese Auditorium, in the Art Building on the SOU campus: with the director, Richard Herskowitz, and Andrew Gay in an informal discussion of the film, focussing on its production, reception, historical context, and legacy.
Walker is a 1987 American-Spanish historical revisionist film directed by Alex Cox and starring Ed Harris, Richard Masur, Rene Auberjonois, Peter Boyle, Miguel Sandoval, and Marlee Matlin. The film is based on the life story of William Walker, the American filibuster who invaded and made himself president of Nicaragua. It was written by Rudy Wurlitzer and scored by Joe Strummer, who has a small role as a member of Walker's army.
Wine is a powerful and frequent poetic reference in Sufi poetry. (The Sufis are the mystics of Islam.) Wine, of course, is forbidden by orthodox faith. So why is it such a central theme of the greatest Muslim poets? Rumi (twelfth century) and Hafiz (thirteenth century) are the two most widely read Sufi poets (writing mostly in Persian rather than Arabic). In his WINELIGHT presentation, Steve Scholl shares the poetry and mystical teachings of Rumi and Hafiz by sharing a sampling of their poems with wine and drunkenness as themes.
Many have argued that the Sufis use wine and drunkenness as symbols for states of divine ecstasy, and that we should not take them literally. Others feel there is more to the imagery.
Scholl will unpack the history and the metaphysics of wine and ecstasy for these great Sufi masters.
