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September 28, 2006

(Nothing But) Flowers, Excrement, Broken Glass, Toxic Waste and Decrepit Industrial Architecture: Me, My Dog, and the Local Superfund Site

Matthew asked me to give a talk at the Public Speakers room at the Affair at the Jupiter Hotel and so I'm going to talk about my dear old Superfund site -- I never get tired of that place!

I described my talk as:

"A brief historic overview of the north Portland McCormick/Baxter superfund site and adjacent properties, together with some photos, some music, some digressions on how to conduct historic research on Portland industrial properties, and a series of sincere questions about the aesthetic appeal of abandoned industrial sites in a post-industrial economy (with some mostly uninformed parallels suggested between punk/goth/emo, and the 18th century Cult of Ruins)."

And I think that's pretty much what I'll do -- with any luck!

No They Do (aka Pete) will be joining me with some soulful strumming. He's promised me a cover of Nothing but Flowers, from which I took my talk title.

We'll be going at 3 PM on Saturday.

And boy oh boy -- the other speakers sound really interesting. There will be talks on dancing, drinks, furniture, geography, karaoke, reading, democracy, and of course art, among other things. My kind of stuff. I'm kind of intimidated, actually, but I think my pictures will be good, anyway and I'm pretty good at projecting my voice so at the very least, it will be easy to hear.

Here's a description of "Public Speakers" from Matthew:

12 x 14
(Public Speakers September 29 - October 1, Jupiter Hotel, Portland, Oregon)

Public Speakers is a group of autonomous cells in four cities commissioning and presenting new public lectures for a popular audience. Past lecture events include "Psychedelic Logging," "Mansex Agitprop," and "Monkey Wreaks Havoc in Suburbia" (all in Portland, Oregon). For more information write to publicspeakers@gmail.com.

(Mary again): I hope to see you there!

Update:

You can download the complete program as a PDF here

Posted by mary at September 28, 2006 11:28 AM

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