Wednesday, June 28, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Cascades
compression
I was among those who
thought the roundabout was
a good idea. I still do—they
work—though some of the
motoring theatrics I observed
this weekend might cause
one to have legitimate sec-
ond thoughts. For a moment,
tourist-watching from my
favorite surveillance hidey-
hole in the Ray’s parking
lot, the roundabout sounded
like lower Manhattan, horns
ablaze, tires squealing, and
wild oaths being issued, as
touring cars bristling with
kayaks and canoes and
jammed full of vaping hip-
sters barreled relentlessly
into our very own theater in
the round.
We will have some wrecks
there before people figure it
out. Let’s hope they aren’t
serious.
In other news, I’m very
excited about the crush
of visitors for this eclipse
bonanza, which will, no
doubt, add another layer of
derring-do to the “roundy-
run.” Tens of thousands of
them are coming, and if you
listen closely you can almost
hear the determined swarm,
like a cloud of locusts, buzz-
ing somewhere just over the
horizon.
I confess that I don’t
understand why the eclipse is
such a big deal. Without try-
ing to be humbug about the
whole thing, I just don’t get it.
But then again, if Moses were
making a surprise appearance
at the Les Schwab amphithe-
ater, I probably wouldn’t go.
Not because I have anything
against Moses, it’s just —
you know — the behavior of
crowds.
The other swell develop-
ment in summer compres-
sion will be the Rainbow
Family gathering out near
John Day. A hippy flashmob
of some 30,000 people chor-
tling bongs, and banging on
drums will — if they stick to
tradition — spend a week or
two trashing large portions
of the National Forest, steal-
ing from local stores, aggres-
sively panhandling, and leav-
ing environmental ruin in
their wake. A more intrepid
journalist than I did the
math on the sheer tonnage of
human waste left behind by
the Living Light crowd, and
the numbers are staggering.
I’ll spare you the truly dis-
gusting details.
They are, of course, free
to assemble, and because
they are allegedly a leader-
less group — though they
do have a marvelous role
for more disciplined hippies
known as a “focalizer” — no
one can, or will, force them
to do what the rest of us have
to do for such a blowout,
which is to get a permit.
The Forest Service usu-
ally budgets about a half-
million dollars to monitor
these gatherings, so not only
do they not pay for a permit,
at the end of the day, it’s you
and I who are paying for
the big peace-party. Which
— any focalizer will tell
you — is appropriate for us
Babylonians.
In fairness, the record on
Rainbow behavior, and the
damage they do to forests, is
mixed, and depends entirely
on who is doing the talking.
I hope for the best, but I’m
fairly certain that if a rancher
— who grazes on a permit
— tore up a forest meadow
the way 30,000 hippies and
their cars are going to do
it, he would be filleted by
everyone from Greenpeace
to the National Cattleman’s
Association.
The big rhinoceros in
the room, of course, is that
there are just too many of us.
We’ve done a bang-up job of
overpopulating the planet,
and there are fewer and fewer
places to escape the crush of
humanity. Particularly when
the weather is good.
In local business terms,
that’s good for what the
Chamber and others refer
to as “sticky dollars,” but it
means we have to endure the
seasonal invasion of people
who don’t care about our
community as much as we do.
Which brings me to
Michael Wolf, the cel-
ebrated photographer, who
by recording daily life in
cities has become a kind of
prophet. Born in Germany,
raised virtually everywhere
else, and now based in Hong
Kong, Wolf’s images of the
daily commute on the Tokyo
subway — a series he first
started in 2010, is a disturb-
ing glimpse into the future
that we are building for our
descendants, and yes, even
in places as lovely as Central
Oregon.
Invariably, the photo-
graphs are tightly constricted
19
in the frame, and present
the face of a hapless com-
muter, face, hands, ears,
pressed into the glass, ear-
buds in, dread written in the
eyes, and the condensation
from so many tightly packed
humans obscuring the image
ever-so slightly. It’s virtu-
ally raining inside the sub-
way car, and the people are
contorted into what can only
be described as “stress posi-
tions,” of the kind gener-
ally reserved for extraordi-
nary renditions and Gitmo
interrogations.
The series, known as
“Tokyo Compression,”
reveals a kind of horrify-
ing desperation, an almost
trancelike embrace of mis-
ery. Perhaps the most impor-
tant element of the photo-
graphs, what makes them
so intensely and uniquely
disturbing, is that these are,
after all, everyday events —
just regular people like you
and me, trying to get to work,
or to get home.
We aren’t there just yet.
But a temporary dip into any
one of our big-city neighbors
— even Bend, where the traf-
fic now resembles many of
the places people fled from
to begin with — can give us
all a taste of what is coming
this way.
Enjoy the
bounty of
summer!
Patio seating available
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THE LOCALS’
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The Hair Cache
— Your Barber Shop —
Jeff, Theresa, Ann, Jamie, Shiela,
Terri, Shanntyl, Brittany
152 E. Main Ave. / 549-8771
Thursday, July 6 at 6 p.m.
Hosted by Cascade Street Distillery,
261 W. Cascade Ave., Sisters
A fundraiser for STA.
Tickets: $20 at the door or
through www.sisterstrails.org
includes two small cocktails or a
s sample fl ight & light hors d’ouvres.
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