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Philosopher offers lifestyle designs
If you’re a college student and you ‘‘really”
Know what you want, you're in very select
company.
That’s the contention of philosopher Mark
Richmond, a native Oregonian who has traveled
through 60 countries in the past generation and
claims tenure as a medicine man, Zen monk,
lecturer, swim instructor, anthropologist,
playwright and groom to a ceremonial virgin.
“Ninety-nine percent of the students in
this school don’t really know what they want,”
says Richmond, who has returned to the
University to finish a play and to begin his own
philosophical school.
“People are afraid in this country. And
what they’re afraid of is their own shadow in
the (Carl) Jung sense. The shadow is a person’s
dark side, and they are quick to project their
shadow onto another person. I call this ‘casting
your shadow.’ "
Richmond advertises himself as a
“lifestyle designer” and founder of the Creative
Survival Institute.
What is creative survival?
“It is a lifestyle that I developed that is
designed to give me a lot of freedom of dif
ferent things to do, different places to be,”
says Richmond.
Meanwhile, he will give a lecture on “Pas
sion, The Great Human Liberator,’’ Tuesday at
the Eugene Hilton. Admission is $3.
The type of people who come to hear him
speak are “people who want to change their
life, to earn a living doing what they want to
do,” says Richmond.
What will $3 buy in the way of self
improvement?
“Nothing they don’t already have," he
says. "They may come out with a clearer sense
of what they want, and what they’ve got."
A turning point in his life came in 1968,
when he fell from a cliff into the bottom of Cop
per Canyon in Mexico and lay injured for three
days before being rescued by Tarahumara
Indians.
"I noticed that I had been wasting a lot of
time and energy," says Richmond. “By falling
into the canyon, I was given the opportunity to
stop for a couple of days and realize the futility
of what I was doing. I came close enough to
death to become interested in life. It changed
my way of living.”
Lest anyone believe that Richmond
doesn’t have a capacity for the creativity he
preaches, consider the plot to the "rock-ballet”
play he is trying to get staged. Richmond says
the play lends insight to his philosophy.
"In the play, humanity has explored the en
tire universe and mapped every planet and
every star. Adam, who is the intergalactic
businessman, has financed the Frankenstein
project,” says Richmond.
“Frankenstein is going to be the first per
son to jump out of the universe. He’s going to
be the first man to go beyond God. Franken
stein, who is not the Hollywood version of the
monster with a baby’s arm coming out of its
mouth, but the original out of Mary Shelley’s
novel, decides he doesn’t want to do it
"So Adam realizes that his life has been a
waste. There has been no fulfillment or mean
ing in any of his business ventures. And Eve ar
rives to tell him that it was her intention in the
beginning to get out of the garden of Eden. She
tells him that she picked any old fruit and that
snakes don’t talk and that she invented good
and evil in order to bring humanity to this point
— the point at which man is no longer limited
by God or the universe.
“Dorothy from Oz arrives to announce in
her song ‘I Am the Lips of the Apocalypse,' that
the world is coming to an end at last.
"So Black Hole, who is God disguised as a
cosmic janitor from New Jersey, agrees to
bring Christ back in order to get Frankenstein
back and be present at the last judgement. Christ
returns and brings Frankenstein, but does not
agree to sit at the last judgement. Because, as he
explains, the last judgement really means the end
of people judging one another and he's going to
be the first one not to do it.
“Christ becomes transformed from a crip
ple who can only take blessing and suffering
poses to a real human being, who can say four
letter words and actually dance ballet.”
What Christ does with his newly
discovered talent remains a mystery. Richmond
says he doesn’t want to give away the play’s en
ding just yet.
By Sean Meyers
Hah* Loft
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Philosopher Mark Richmond offers ‘freedom ’ to people through his
Creative Survival Institute.
The theater of Iggy Pop
Eclectic rock’n'rollers were afforded a rare theatrical treat
Sunday night when the inimitable Iggy Pop played the EMU
Ballroom
Long-hairs mingled with mohawks as Pop bounded on stage
end leaped into ' I'm Loose.”
He crouched in front of the bass drum, writhed on the stage,
ricocheted left and right as he frenetically sang "Conquering
Tiibe ”
Pop taunted the EMU crowd, singing "Gloria/Diarrhea" for
the white girls But the "street theater” became deadly serious
as he sang the psychedelic "Street Crazy " He stopped the song
in the middle — cocked his leg with his hand on his waist and
turned his back on the crowd. “Looks like it's our energy against
their sloth," he said to the band He held the audience spell
bound.
Pop burned through "I'm Bored” and halted another song
so the audience could "feel the futility of rock'n'roll,” as he hit a
cymbal with the microphone.
Blondie's Frank Infante backed Pop on guitar with stylis
tically precise power chords On another song Pop twice
stopped it in the middle saying he couldn’t be heard over
Infante's guitar By this time the awed audience wasn’t sure if it
was true or part of the theater
3-HOUR
PHOTO FINISHING
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