I’ve never cooked bok choy, but I’m always drawn in to the bok choy booth at the Eugene Farmer’s Market. Two platters of bright, colorful greens draw me in with their sweet garlicky wafts and sesame-seed polka dots, and I can never resist.

This week, I actually bought some bok choy to see if I could make any of that magic at home. I didn’t buy the seasoning packets offered from the bok choy stand, because, well, I’m not that in to seasoning packets. This recipe is inspired by what my taste-buds remember from those platters, but also by springtime, nostalgia for New Mexico, and a fierce grumbly tumbly.

Bok choy isn’t particularly flavorful by itself, so strong flavors get their chance to shine. A sweet, spicy, spine tingling combination of ginger, New Mexican chile powder, garlic, cumin and onions underlies this dish. It is further accented by chopped peanuts that add crunchy satisfaction and protein richness. Baked baby potatoes are an excellent carrier for the spicy veggies, but rice or any other grain that is fairly neutral-flavored and has some sauce-soaking potential will do.

Ingredients:

½ onion

1 clove garlic

1 inch knob of fresh ginger, minced

1 Tbs New Mexican red chile powder (or some other kind of chile powder, or some chopped jalapeno)

1 tsp cumin

1 head baby bok choy

¼ cup chopped peanuts

1 T olive oil

Process:

1. Chop the onion and mince the garlic. Plop them in a dry pan over medium-high heat and add the spices and ginger with a hefty pinch each of salt and pepper.
2. Let the onions exude their liquid. When things start sticking to your pan, add the oil.
3. After about 5 minutes, add the chopped peanuts.
4. Add your bok choy, chopped up into bite-able pieces.
5. Keep cooking and stirring the mixture for about 10 minutes. The bok choi will release a lot of water and cook down. If things get sticky, add more oil.
6. Serve over carbohydrate of your choice!

“Exceptance” is a mystically suspenseful short story printed on broadsheet scrolls, available for $5 at Smith Family Bookstore and Sundance Natural Foods. Batteries not included. Upon opening the scroll you are greeted by a frenzy of neon green block letters and vibrant illustrations, which while loud and literally intruding onto the text, adequately frame the story to create a multidimensional reading experience. While navigating the story, your imagination is supplemented with artwork by fellow OV legends Taylor Johnston and Josh Kennett.

And the story itself ain’t bad. Actually, it’s  rather fantastic. Ficklin, also a regular OV contributor, somehow through his zeal for expressing the absurdity of the universe and the human condition, binds the visuals on the broadsheet with his prose to create a tone of lurking anxiety amidst a breezy summertime backdrop. Larry, a prickly yet heavily romantic baby boomer, sits in his apartment with a packed suitcase, ready to “leave” through his high-rise window, when suddenly his flight from existence is interrupted by his twenty-something neighbor Kandis. The beautiful woman is herself at a defining moment in her life, as her unplanned pregnancy progresses in the midst a straining relationship with her partner, who more or less has his own bags packed.

The ensuing challenge for an old man without faith to give farewell advice to a young woman with tangible problems suddenly and inexplicably manifests itself into an explosion of magical realism, which strangely enough isn’t all that ludicrous. It is obvious that Ficklin adores the fantastic- he collects rare editions LOTR and obsesses over Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. His influences are plenty, and their effect on the writer is shown in more ways than one can count. Larry, the cool antihero, is the fusion of an urban farm instructor’s passion for the natural world with Tom Waits’ stoicism. The story is also an incredibly personal statement- every character’s name is derived from someone in Ficklin’s life in Oregon.

While there is much room for Ficklin’s articulation of the abstract to grow, this is a truly ambitious, enjoyable first step. The best part is that all profits go towards the EVERYBODY art collective, which hopes to crank out future collaborations in the near future. In many ways, “Exceptance” is a debut experiment, a genuine labor of love, by some of the most bodacious young freaks our fair city has to offer.

I have to admit, I was stoked that for once I wouldn’t have to delete my internet history when looking at porn. This time, should someone be on my computer and see “Annie Sprinkle and Dwarf” or “Little Oral Annie,” I could legitimately explain that I was doing research for this piece. Which I was, of course.

I don’t know if many people chomp at the bit to talk to a former porn-star-turned-sex-educator, but I was more than willing. I used to work at a store in Portland where a number of people trained in the delicate arts of pole dancing and amateur porn bought their props, and they’re human just like the rest of us. But Annie Sprinkle is a real porn star, having starred in real films with the likes of Ron Jeremy. (For those of you who don’t know who that is and claim to have never watched porn, you know who you are, just go watch Boondock Saints again.)
Dr. Sprinkle has garnered attention over her illustrious career for her outspoken nature and activism. Her parents were lefty activists through the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, but she says she didn’t begin her career in pornography, at the tender age of 18, as an activist. Instead, it wasn’t until later in her career, when she was nearing 30, that she took a gender studies course and realized that feminist wasn’t a dirty word. She took more classes, eventually receiving her Ph.D. She has written a number of books, from an autobiography to a sex-help book. Her movies have been remastered and are available for purchase on her website.

On an unusually bright spring day outside of the Erb Memorial Union, Dr. Annie Sprinkle, who claims to be the world’s first porn star with a Ph.D., was setting up the Sidewalk Sex Clinic. She had a radiant personality that emitted rays of calm and cheer, methodically laying out her books, pamphlets, videos (some openly displaying her breasts), and tarot cards. Her cohorts were struggling to pin up the Sidewalk Sex Clinic sign, and passing by me she winked and quipped, “How many sex educators does it take to pin up a sign? A brothel.”
The clinic was up and running, and she was available for questions. But by the time my turn came around, her voice was raspy from speaking (she’s had a long tour, and it’s far from over) and I had missed her talk from the night before. I figured she wasn’t too interested in going over things she had already covered, questions she had already answered, and talking too much about herself. Instead, I decided, this was an opportunity to hang out with someone who had worked in the world’s oldest profession, and hell, what isn’t totally awesome about that? I had already seen her in her most naked, vulnerable form, and here she was in front of me, asking if I wanted her to read my sexual tarot. Hell yes!

I am at best skeptical of things such as tarot readings. Much like psychics on TV, I feel that most of it is crowd sourcing, a skilled performer feeling out his or her audience, and reacting to answers on a generalized basis. However, with each subsequent card I pulled, Dr. Sprinkle read me like a book. She was enthusiastic about my first three cards pulled – explaining to me that I was inventive with sex, open minded, but also in a transitional period. I’m leaving school soon, and I hadn’t told her, how could she know that? Last I pulled the Fool Child card, which made her giddy with excitement, as few pull that card and it is the karmically highest card one can get. I don’t think I have to explain too much about what a Fool Child card might mean, and I have plenty of friends who would probably agree about it while simultaneously rolling their eyes.

My day couldn’t have been better spent than with Dr. Annie Sprinkle. In the afternoon I attended her eco-sex walk, a New Agey communion with nature that some 20 other people joined in on. I met a variety of people, from students who enjoyed the outdoors, to an older woman rediscovering her sexuality, to a guy who fucks trees. Seriously. He couldn’t wait to tell us about his first sexual experience with an apple tree, or how hiking through the Appalachian Trail he would steal off to rub one out on some moss.

Dr. Sprinkle concluded with a ceremony marrying anyone who was interested the earth. This was a bit much for me, but she performed it in earnest and those who participated left with a bright smile. Eugene is a good fit for a former sex star, and although I don’t think I discovered my ecosexuality, it was a blast to see that others did.

It saddens me how common it is to go to a show where no one is dancing. Too often I show up to a crowd of people standing still and looking completely uninvolved in front of a group going wild right in front of them. Aren’t we as an audience obligated to contribute at least some energy? Isn’t music meant to make us move our bodies?

Thankfully, The Rebirth Brass Band knows how to get the people moving. Although you might not expect to have fun listening to a “brass band,” you should know that Rebirth blends a traditional New Orleans second line sound with some heavy funk that gets the party started. I got down. Hard. Thankfully Eugene’s scores of weirdo hippie dancers (you know, the ones with the super baggy pants, wife beaters, and beanies) as well as some adults showed up, making it a decent crowd to jive with, despite the noticeable lack of fine ladies (my only criterion for “fine” being under 30). That didn’t stop me from dancing all night, as the deep grooves surged through my body along with the sweet and bluesy harmonies put out by the trumpets and saxophones.

While it’s good to know that rebirth can groove, the true reason to check them out is to hear a kind a music you never hear unless you’re in New Orleans. They embody a deep tradition of second line music, which is basically rhythmically intense New Orleans parade/party music — the kind that people go crazy on at Mardi Gras. You could tell these guys were really psyched on what they were doing when they repeatedly yelled, “We won a fucking Grammy y’all. Yeuh!” (They were the 2012 Grammy winner for Best Regional Roots Album.)

This video is a good representation of what they do: http://youtu.be/3E1VBCcA76E

Here is probably their most popular song and my favorite of the night (skip to 4:13 to check out the lyrics: “Can’t you see how much I want to fuck you!”): http://youtu.be/NLdgKIWjtro

If this group ever comes back, be there. Good times.

Picnic season is rolling in to Eugene.

It’s time to break out the Birkies and free-flowing dresses. Time to dust off the old sun blocking peepers, hop on a finally dry bike seat and coast though the daisy littered, daphne odora-perfumed city that is so much more than a home for ducks. Snacks are of utmost importance on any springtime gallivant, of course, but they should not take a lot of indoor preparation time.

Shortbread cookies are a perfect match for springtime. They are sweet and simple. They can be enjoyed dipped in chocolate, dipped in milk, along with berries or just plain. There are no secrets behind the preparation, it’s straightforward goodness. Bake up a batch and get out of the house.

Ingredients

2 cups flour

pinch salt

1 cup butter

½ cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

(dark chocolate for dipping)

Recipe

1. Beat the butter (softened), sugar, vanilla and salt until it is a fluffy mass of sugary fatness.
2. Add half of the flour and mix it until incorporated. Add the rest of the flour, and keep mixing until you have a uniform blob of dough.
3. Flour your hands, and keep a little bowl of flour handy.
4. Split the dough in two pieces, and form two balls, adding flour so you don’t get all sticky.
5. Let your creative juices flow. You can flatten the balls into circles, squares, rectangles, octagons, and use a knife to cut cookie-sized shapes of your choice. Or you can free-form some snails, blobs, or letters.
6. I poke holes in the top quarter inch of my cookies and sprinkle them with sugar, but neither step is necessary for any non-aesthetic reason.
7. Bake the cookies on a cookie sheet at 350F for about 10 minutes, or until they are a light caramel brown

When the cookies are cool, you can dip them in melted chocolate.

…Do as the Mapuche do — stand tall with the trees!

words JORDAN CHESTNUT & CLAIRE SCHECHTMAN
art IMOGEN BANKS

In the mountains of southern Chile, in an old growth forest of Araucaria trees, a storm knocks a branch against the side of a shingled refugio in El Cañi Sanctuary. It is supposed to be summer here, but everything outside is back bending under the weight of the sky. The wind pries and flattens the door of the refugio open, and the wooden octagonal ceiling splutters rainwater from thin slits in the boards. A metal chimney chute hangs tilting above an ashy fire pit in the center of the room. The chains holding the chimney creak and some dry charcoal is scattered across the stone floor. Damp and partially singed socks flap from a limp clothesline.

The storm has been raging all night, but until the final whiplash of that branch against the wall we hadn’t stirred. “Medicina!” someone shouts from their sleeping bag a ladder’s climb above us. We have been in Latin America for five months now, and a storm isn’t just a storm down here, it’s the Pachamama — the earth mother — and she is meteorologically salsa dancing.

We found El Cañi through a peculiar travel suggestion*. Passing tips and recommendations has sculpted our trip, and our itinerary has formed itself, evolving day by day. We like what is unfiltered, the rural underbelly of a place, and have sought out the diverse peoples of Peru and Chile while abroad.

The Mapuche in Chile are traditional farmers, who don’t just coexist with the land — they are the land. Mapuche, in the local language of Mapudungun, means “people of the earth.” Right now, throughout Chile, the commodification of natural resources for fuel and export is transforming the landscape. Patagonian rivers and watersheds are getting pinned for dam projects by hydroelectric companies to supply energy to massive mining efforts in the north of the country. Native forests are being chopped and replanted with vast stretches of fast-growing eucalyptus and genetically modified pine trees for sale by large agrocorporations. These non-native species take over, sucking the ground water supply dry so no indigenous trees can exist. After their period of growth, the monocultures of trees are massively chopped and harvested for export. Any laws that exist for tree protection are often blatantly bypassed by loggers and traffickers, and this anti-ecological campaign is homogenizing the landscape and displacing local people.

Chile is double-fisting two conflicting ideologies for its future: conservation and development. Native forests and holistic land management cannot coexist with Western development. While conservation projects like El Cañi Sanctuary have begun to rise up, the strongest efforts still stem from the native inhabitants. Every budding cause needs an ally, and for the Mapuche of Chile, it’s our friend Rick.

It is easy to get lost in Rick’s mind. When we first met him, he was instructing the waitress that black beans and a fried egg don’t qualify as a “Mexican” breakfast. His thoughts swirl, as if caught in a whirlpool, propelled by centripetal force. Ideas and topics are subsequently flung, like clothes from a line when Pachamama does the salsa. Evidence of this mental scattering is reflected in the infinite void of his bald patch, where half a conversation disappears like a single sock on laundry day.

Rick arrived in Chile hitchhiking, back in the decades when Craigslist rideshare wasn’t internet-bound and thumbs spent their time in the streets instead of stuck to a spacebar. He wrote to Gary Snyder, the environmental Beat poet and theorist, for the same reason he was pulled under the equatorial midriff into the muskier parts of our Americas — Ancient Forests International, an organization aroused for the conservation of old growth forests. Gary Snyder, Rick told us, was the first to refer to our old growths as “ancient.” Before that, many thought of old growths as “over-mature” and “decadent,” as if their wise and necessary existence wasn’t compatible with modernity.

Like any good plotline, Rick’s story has its fair share of detours. During his first trek south, he got picked up by a treasure baron in Mexico, thrown into a Bolivian jail by the same communist-wranglers that roped Che, and ended hitching an oceanic ride on some old tanker to Chile after four months. This, of course, is all explained in the cosmos of his bald patch.

When Rick finally made it down to Chile, sea-torn yet still intact, he got a job working at a national park. He was and still is the only gringo park ranger in the country. Now a man with a title and badge, he caught word of a logging company that was set to tear down a couple hundred hectares next door to the protected space where he worked. As a member of a conservation group, it would have been wholly ironic for him to ignore the demise of a neighboring area. In a warm moment, Rick whipped out his metaphorical conch shell and summoned all of the local groups to the aforementioned site — perhaps promising snacks.

He couldn’t have anticipated the immense turnout of concerned locals and traditional Mapuche farmers that arrived to protest the attempts of the industrial logging company. Families arrived on sleds pulled by oxen during the middle of a blizzard.

A decade or so later, around the same year we were born, word spread that the Araucaria trees nearby were being sold to a sawmill. That is when a small group of Chileans and Northwesterners came together to form the Lahuen Foundation. With the help of AFI, they were able to raise and throw down more money than the sawmill and make the forest a protected space. El Cañi Sanctuary was born.

Rick explained all of this in between bites of buttered toast while abruptly leaving the table and pacing through the hostel dining space looking for “a part of something.” Before leaving us for the last time, he stuck his head around the corner and mentioned that a storm was moving up the coast and that we should flag down a ride to the Sanctuary before the weather builds up. We followed his suggestion and made it to El Cañi the day before la gran tormenta.

At more than two million years old, the Araucaria species over-qualifies as ancient. They prehistorically protrude like stubble from the granite jaw line of the monolithic rock peaks that curve above Laguna Negra. As we walked through the Araucaria, on trails littered with yolk-colored lilies, we were subsequently silenced. Their branches were spiked and mandala-shaped, funneling water from the stiff-tipped leaves to the scaled trunk. The tangled scalp of mossy Old Man’s Beard gripped the bark and swayed like a loose gaze, growing alongside pubic tufts of lichen. Higher up, fog lingered in the canopy and straddled mountainheads.

No other hikers were exploring the Sanctuary that day, but the two of us wouldn’t have been surprised to see a centaur, a scantily clad family of hunters and gatherers, or some kind of glowing, flaccid-cheeked gnome out of a David Lynch movie. As we walked alone through the lagoons, we were caught in the dreamy quietude.

We eventually found the sanctuary’s refugio, a dilapidated barn with dusty wine and beer bottles lining the sides from past occupants. Several other backpackers were inside when we entered — an adrenaline-obsessed couple from Australia, a barefoot Canadian, and three 20-year-old Chileans.

Everyone began to rummage for some fire-side offerings — avocado, bread, chocolate, a Jew’s harp, the remainder of a cigar, and Paulo Santo incense wood and eucalyptus to smudge the room. When the fire was fully ablaze, conversation melted, and it turned out that the three Chileans, Johanna, Dario, and Elizabeth, were all Mapuche.

They asked us about the native people in our respective homelands. We all acknowledged that our governments have repressed the original inhabitants of the land. We passed around a cup of mate, and they told us that the Mapuche’s resistance to colonization was the longest indigenous defense movement in the entire continent. They lost almost all of their land in the process, but they are still protesting for it to be returned.

The Araucaria tree, because of its devoutly straight and indestructible spine, represents the Mapuche tree of life — their symbolic interpretation of the universe. However, it is easy to understand why the logging industry would fall for something so adamantly vertical. For the industrial engine, it doesn’t matter that the forest provides food and water to the people who have built their lives there for generations. These corporations are more concerned with how much they can fit into their pockets, even if it means monetizing Chile’s ecosystem and native culture.

There is life and death, but in between that there are things that are simply old. Not the kind of old that watches infomercials and finds bare ankles sexy, but a kind of old that is wise outside of time — like ancient forests, indigenous and diverse peoples, tribes, shamans, connections with natural systems, watersheds, and everything that can be encompassed inside one man’s bald patch.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Claire and Jordan have created their own study abroad program by WWOOFing, working on organic farms throughout Peru and Chile for six months. World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is an Internet-based work-trade network of farms and projects in just about every country. The girls are backpacking to expand their knowledge on everything from soil to spirituality, broadening their gastronomic and psychedelic worldviews. Since October, they have been following the harvest season, working their way southward from the highlands of the Peruvian Amazon to Northern Patagonia, from mangoes to blackberries. The two of them lived in a temple for Mayan cosmology, built adobe houses, were ceremonially rebirthed, swam naked in the Rio Cumbaza, succumbed to food poisoning, picked cacao, rooftopped Valparaiso, found fluidity in Peruvian public transportation, stood at the ancient ruins of the Cloud People, followed weavers, lived in five different versions of “dog town,” read poetry with Lima beatniks, lost clothes, fell down, found sensual replacement in the hammock-and-box-wine combo, stole bread, were kicked out, shell searched, soul searched, memorized Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hits, were run over by a sunset in the island of Chiloe, became eight-years-old, chanted, over-contemplated words, under-contemplated plans, lost their Oregonian rain tolerance, and slept together every night.

words NOAH DEWITT
art TAYLOR JOHNSTON

“This is going to be real — maybe more real than you’re used to experiencing,” says summer camp instructor Matt Bradley to his five teenage campers around a fire circle. It’s a sunny August morning at a camping lodge in the coastal range mountains of Oregon, and the oceanic dew is slowly dissipating. “You don’t have to do this. Don’t feel pressured by me or your peers. If you want to have this experience and connect with the source of your food, make the choice for yourself.”

An animal scream sounds faintly from some nearby woods. Matt pauses. It’s the sound of his two fellow instructors “giving death” to some rabbits. Holding the animals firmly against a log on the ground, the instructors whack them with a wooden baton at the base of the neck. They try to make it as quick and painless as possible, but one of the rabbits survives long enough for some last words. The instructors slit the rabbits’ throats, and blood puddles on the forest floor.

Matt leads the campers into the woods where the freshly slaughtered long-ears dangle from a log suspended five feet off the ground. He and the other instructors guide the exuberant 13- to 16-year-olds, step by gory step, through the butchering process. “So that’s why it’s called a kidney bean,” says one kid as he removes guts from the abdominal cavity.

This is the Whole Earth Nature School. Co-founded by Matt, his partner Anna, and their friend Rees Maxwell in 2009, Whole Earth offers after school programs, summer camps, and apprenticeships that teach Eugene youngsters how to get by in the wild. Matt and his colleagues have spent this particular week-long summer session teaching campers hunting skills — from animal tracking to bow making, from full-body camouflage to target archery. Although Matt himself is new to hunting (he has only been on two expeditions and has yet to bag any game), he believes it’s something that more people should learn. “It’s a lifestyle that puts you more closely in touch with your livelihood,” he says.

Hunting has been on the decline in North America since the ‘80s largely due to falling rural population, but lately there’s been a growing interest in hunting among urbanites. People who have never killed an animal before are taking up the rifle — or in Matt’s case, the bow — to get in touch with the meat they eat and to live more harmoniously with the earth. Who knows? Maybe in the future educating middle schoolers on butchering rabbits will be the norm.
The past few years have seen a slew of headlines about novice hunters with locavore leanings (e.g., “Urban Deerslayers” in The New York Times). Clubs like the Bull Moose Hunting Society, founded in San Francisco for urban foodies who want to learn to kill and butcher their own meat, are springing up in many American cities.

“It’s not an interest that we can put a number on in Oregon, but certainly it’s a mindset that we’ve heard people talk about,” says Michelle Dennehy, spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We are hearing of more interest in hunting because people want an ethical source of meat. And it doesn’t get more free-range than a wild animal.”

Words like “sustainable” and “ethical” aren’t usually associated with hunting. We all know the stereotypes. We picture fat, white, Republican-voting fuckheads who get off on killing things. We picture camo everything, trophy buck heads, 24-racks of Busch, and Ford F-150s. We picture the anti-environmentalist.

But according to Dennehy, hunters have actually been the driving force behind wildlife conservation in North America for the past century. Fish and wildlife agencies are funded by hunting fees, not tax dollars, she says. So hunters end up paying to create and maintain the protected areas that everyone enjoys — hunters, non-hunters, and wild animals alike.

“For those of us who are avid hunters, we actually put ‘green’ where our mouths are,” says Hank Shaw, hunter, forager, fisherman, and author of Hunt, Gather, Fish: Finding the Forgotten Feast. On top of the mandatory fees and taxes on licenses and ammunition, many hunters donate voluntarily to organizations that conserve habitats for specific species (Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, etc.). Shaw estimates that he spends between two and three grand a year on habitat conservation, which few non-hunters can boast. “Quite often the Venn diagram between environmentalists and hunters really overlaps quite a bit.”

Hank Shaw didn’t grow up hunting, but his family was big into fishing (as most New Englanders are). He fostered an intimate relationship with the Eastern Seaboard well into his adulthood. When he moved to landlocked Minnesota as a news reporter in 2002, he found himself suddenly cut off from the piers and tide pools that provided him with both food and a connection to nature. He decided to give hunting a go upon a friend’s suggestion. He hasn’t purchased meat from a store since 2005.

Shaw calls himself “the omnivore who has solved his dilemma.” According to him, not only should our food be unprocessed, organic, and local, but a good deal of it should also be wild. If you’re picking your salad greens from the forest floor, though you run the risk of ingesting trace amounts of deer piss, your worries about pesticides are over. And if the only jerky you snack on is of the wild goose variety, growth hormones, antibiotics, and other questionable chemicals are no longer an issue. In his book, on his blog, and at his frequent talks and dinners, Shaw preaches that supplementing your farmed goods with wild edibles is a healthy lifestyle.

And not just physically. In Shaw’s experience, hunting is as fulfilling spiritually as it is nutritionally. For urban people who spend their days staring at screens, hunkering down in cubicles, and traversing a rebar world, hunting in wilderness offers a connection to nature that can’t be achieved by just going for a hike. “When I’m hunting, I become a set of ears and a pair of eyes, and my awareness ratchets up to such a high level that I can sense the slightest changes of the environment.” he says. “Without that connection to nature, something dies within us.” Hunters don’t just observe nature. They partake in it.
Hunting is attractive to health freaks, animal empathizers, and sustainability buffs alike because it’s everything the corporate meat industry isn’t. For starters, hunting is about as small-scale as it gets — it’s downright DIY. It’s one hunter personally killing one healthy, happy, unsuspecting animal, often getting enough meat for a year’s worth of din-din. Contrasted with the wasteful factory farm model — which demands shitloads of feed, fuel, water, and land to produce mediocre meat from depressed, diseased animals — the sport of hunting doesn’t look so bad.

What’s more, hunting is honest. Hunters make no attempt to hide the fact that meat comes from sentient beings who want to stay alive. For most Americans, whose ribs and loins come in meal-size cuts and in shrink-wrapped Styrofoam trays, eating meat is a clean, convenient, and thoughtless affair. But killing, bleeding, skinning, gutting, and butchering something that has feelings, a face, a family — it’s gnarly.

“I try not to see death as something sad, but it does bring up emotions. Gratitude is really the only thing that can be going through your mind,” says Matt Bradley. Seated on his living room futon couch, he sports a buzz cut, Carhart jeans, and leather-stitched shoes that fall somewhere between hiking boots and moccasins.

Matt Bradley the Hunter started out as Matt Bradley the Backpacker. Interested in keeping his ass alive in backcountry emergencies, he began reading up on wilderness survival skills. But when he stumbled upon a book about the methods and wisdom of the Apache Indians, his interest shifted to “the art of permanent living” — hunting, gathering, and self-sufficiency. While he has yet to slay an animal in the wild, he has had the opportunity to slaughter and butcher a number of livestock animals.

Matt hunts with a bow, not a rifle. And not a high-tech compound bow with pulleys and wheels and sights and shit, either. He uses a traditional bow — you know, a curved stick with a rope tied to it. The fact that he’s a badass isn’t the only reason. “I hunt to have a closer relationship with the animals that I’m eating. And I also want to have a close relationship with the tool I use to take that life,” he says, pointing to the longbow that he hand carved from a piece of ash.

“This arrow has spirit in it,” he says as he hands me an obsidian-tipped shaft that he fashioned out of Pacific ninebark, hazelnut, turkey feathers, and twine. “The life and energy from the turkey and the stone and the plant went into this.” For Matt, knowing where your resources come from is what’s up.
“Meat doesn’t come from a grocery store,” he says. “It comes from an animal.” And that animal, whether raised on a farm or in the wild, affects its landscape and derives its life from surrounding plants and animals. “And all that life, all that energy, all that nutrition, all those resources are going to become a part of me. That’s a lot to ask the earth to provide for me. But I’m a part of the earth too.” This worldview, which smacks of Mufasa’s circle-of-life, prey-becomes-predator philosophy, is a touchstone of the new-school hunters.

When Hank Shaw stopped at the UO in November on his book tour, he took a group of Honors College kids out to the coast for a crash course in foraging. In his talk the next day, he said that Eugene is blessed with a bounty of wild foods — from salmonberries to chanterelles, from black-tailed deer to ducks and geese. “If you live in Eugene and you don’t partake in that, you’re missing out.” If you’ve never fished, foraged, or hunted before, right here is a good place to start.

“A lot of people treat nature like a museum — something to be set aside, looked at, and occasionally walked through,” Shaw says. “I don’t agree with that. For me and the outdoors community, nature is our home. Whether we pave it over, whether we ignore it, whether we put it in a box, nature is where we live.”

The OV’s lyrical analyst Brett Sisun textually pours some out for the rose that grew from concrete, hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur. Pac’s spirit lives on through his thug-life anthem “Life Goes On”

words BRETT SISUN
art CHELSEY BOEHNKE

Here at the crossroads between life and death lies Tupac Shakur. Rightfully so. Shakur was a mystic creator and divine wellspring in the development of the lyric arts. His legend has become more significant in the American music scape than he could have imagined while growing up in the violent whirlwinds of Harlem, Baltimore and the Bay Area during the mid-1980’s. Against forces obsessed with greed, power, and death, Shakur found a new form of expression in reflecting the realities of “thug life” in modern America.

In the past my section has been dedicated to analyzing the diction of famous rappers; to point out their imaginative or sloppy use of the English Language, and, basically, get a laugh out of their work. But I wouldn’t feel right doing that now. Yes, I’m tired of the gimmick and the ironic tone. I think there is something more important at stake here in “Life Goes On”:

“How many Niggas fell victim to the streets? Rest in peace young Nigga there’s a heaven for a G.”

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in East Harlem, the son of two radical Black Panther activists. His name, Tupac Amaru, comes from the name of a Peruvian general who led a failed revolution against the Spanish conquistadors in 1780. His mother Afeni says that he was named for “the last Inca chief to be tortured, brutalized, and murdered by Spanish conquistadores…a warrior.”

From an early age Shakur was a reflective and creative mind. He attended the Baltimore School of the Arts for 2 years, was an avid reader, poetry writer and even starred in a high school production of The Nutcracker. When he left his single mother at age seventeen for the West coast, a new world surrounded him, one obsessed with violence, death, and race. Shakur’s experiences there had a profound impact on his art and would eventually become the “thug lifestyle” portrayed in “Life Goes On”:

“Be a lie, if I told ya that I never thought of death, my Niggas, we tha last ones left.”

The chorus of “Life Goes On” is a simple and sentimental reflection of Tupac’s solitude. In his community people had little access to wealth, education, and social empowerment, and thus were likely to run into trouble with the law. He is keenly aware of this oppression in his music. He refers to his people as “Niggas,” an endearing derivative of the N-word once used by plantation owners in early American history. In reforming and using this word, Shakur counters and explains its meaning. According to “Man Man,” one of Tupac’s closest friends: “I never could have had that word tattooed on me before, but Pac said, ‘We’re going to take that word that they used and turn it around on them…to make it positive.’” A polarizing word by design, this is a clear example of Shakur’s character. He turns hardship and bigotry into something more meaningful that anyone, even outside his own community, can understand. This lyrical confrontation with social issues became a defining aspect of the “thug lifestyle”:

“2 in tha morning and we still high-assed out, screamin’ ‘thug till I die’ before I passed out, but now that you’re gone, I’m in the zone thinking ‘I don’t want die all alone.’”

Shakur’s first albums, 2pacolypse Now (1991) through Me Against the World (1995), spoke to an enormous number of people, some of whom lived the “thug life” and others who indulged in its edgy style. This popularity caught the attention of Death Row Records’ executive Marion “Suge” Knight. Notorious for his brute mentality and violent intimidation tactics, Knight wanted Shakur on his label in order to package and sell the “thug life” in musical units. After a stint in jail for assault charges, Shakur was bailed out by Knight in exchange for a recording deal. Knight picked up Shakur in a stretch limousine and flew him in a private jet to Knight’s L.A. studio. The inner city gangster shook hands with the multi-billion dollar record industry. Rap music, and Shakur’s life, would never be the same.

“Give me a paper and a pen, so I can write about my life of sin, a couple bottles of gin, in case I don’t get in.”

“Life Goes On” appears on Shakur’s first album with Death Row Records, All Eyez on Me (1996) which went 9x Platinum and sold over 5 million units by 1998. Written and recorded in less than 2 weeks, it is widely regarded as one of the greatest rap albums of the 1990’s. The songs on the album reach into the hidden emotional aspects of the “gangster”, and reveal the unmistakable change that death incurs on those who live on with its memory. Shakur ironically describes his own death in the song and how it should be celebrated:

“Bury me smilin’, with G’s in my pocket, have a party at my funeral, let every rapper rock it, let tha hoes that I used to know, from way before, kiss me from my head to my toe.”

On the night of September 7th, 1996, Shakur helped assault Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a member of L.A.’s Southside Compton Crips, in the lobby of the MGM Grand after a Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight. After leaving the MGM, parked at a red light, Shakur was shot four times in a drive by while in the passenger seat of Knight’s BMW. Knight survived the attack, but Shakur died from internal bleeding in the hospital September 13, 1996. His wish for a rocking party funeral would not be granted. He was mysteriously cremated days after his death, and little investigation followed into his murder.
“Pour out some liquor, have a toast for tha homies, see we both gotta die but you chose to go before me.”

Following Tupac Shakur’s death, as Knight battled the abandonment of his artists, parole violations, and jail time, The Death Row Records Empire crumbled. Shakur’s spirit, however, lived on through his enormous and dedicated fan base, who celebrated his death as martyrdom. Myths arose about him still being alive and, in almost biblical fashion, predicted his resurrection back into the world. Regardless of these rumors, he died living the life he always preached would kill him and, in doing so, validated his life’s work. In his own words, his message is clearest:
“If you can’t find somethin’ to live for, you best find somethin’ to die for…”

“That’s right baby, life goes on…”

words BEN STONE
art CHELSEY BOEHNKE

“Should be a short article,” UO astronomy professor James Schombert wrote me recently. I had asked him if we could meet to talk about the search for extraterrestrial life. “The current scientific opinion on extraterrestrial life is that there is no evidence, so there is nothing to discuss.”

Interesting.

There is no evidence. That simple fact is a huge buzzkill, but it hasn’t dampened astronomers’ curiosity. People do still discuss this stuff. For years astronomers have been expecting that proof of alien life forms is just around the corner. In 2007, the head astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute predicted that we will know if we are alone or surrounded by 2025. You can’t blame scientists for being hopeful — there is a lot of universe to check. According to the New York Times, about “10,000 billion billion” solar systems may exist in the observable universe. And the search for extraterrestrial life isn’t like the search for some unknown frog species that hasn’t been noticed because it chills too hard. If we were to discover extraterrestrial life, it would be the most important discovery ever made. It would redefine what humans mean in the scheme of the universe. It would justify a level of stoke that science hasn’t inspired since Bill Nye’s theme song (Bill! Bill! Bill!).

The first time I heard someone talk seriously about the prospect of extraterrestrial life was a year ago in Astronomy 122. You can tell I was buggin’ out by how rambling and sketch my notes were that day. In the margin of one of the pages, I wrote the phrase “Now it’s useful to do something disturbing.” That was how Professor Gregory Bothun introduced the work of an astronomer named Frank Drake, who blew minds in the ‘60s when he wrote up a short formula to find out what the hell is even going on out there in space. It went like this:

N = R* • FP • NE • FL • FI • FC • L

Drake designed this formula to predict how many alien societies there are in the Milky Way galaxy that throw down detectable signals, or “N.” For a breakdown of what the other variables mean, peep Figure 1.1 on the next page. For all you haters who don’t want to read the sidebar, it basically means that we can’t use the formula to get consistent results because we have no idea what the last four values are. Accordingly, scientists have used this formula to form wildly different theories about life in the universe. Some have calculated hundreds of millions of alien civilizations to exist in the Milky Way, and some have calculated absolutely zero. Thanks to this equation, we now know that the Earth is either one little house party in a pretty lively neighborhood in the universe, or we are the party. Which would be, as Professor Bothun said, disturbing.

So the value of conclusions drawn by Drake’s equation seems hella dubious. But while the second half of Drake’s equation underscores how little base knowledge we have in alien matters, the first three variables represent what we do know about the process that produced a fly planet like ours in the middle of all these rocks. As far as humans are concerned, that process had two particularly fortunate developments during the messy creation of Earth a few billion years ago.

First, when the ruckus of our young solar system simmered down and all the newly formed planets started falling into their orbital tracks, the Earth dropped into orbit at the perfect distance away from the sun — the “habitable zone.” And second, towards the end of this formation period, gravity slapped a huge field of ice onto the Earth’s surface. Because of these two developments, Earth then had a huge body of water in liquid form for little organisms to get busy in. Astronomers now use these two qualifications as starting points in their searches for life on other planets.

At the forefront of the search for planets with climates similar to Earth’s is a fresh little NASA spacecraft called the Kepler. It uses light sensors to detect tiny drops in the levels of light coming from stars and uses that data to identify planets with Earth-like orbital patterns. On December 5, NASA reported that the Kepler and its crew on Earth had finally scoped a planet that hangs around perfectly in the habitable zone of a distant star. At 600 light years away, though, it’s hard to say what this star will actually tell us about life in the near future. And even if we get close enough to study this planet, the New York Times says we’ll probably just find tribes of “alien pond slime,” which is kind of disappointing and kind of dope at the same time.

On a more local tip, scientists in Antarctica are conducting research that may have heavy implications for our knowledge of extraterrestrial life. In February of this year, Russian scientists at the Vostok Research Station finished drilling through two miles of ice to reach Lake Vostok, a huge freshwater lake that has been cut off from air and light for between 15 and 34 million years, according to the NYT. When their drill hit the lake, the pressurized water shot up the borehole and froze, forming a plug that will seal the hole until the scientists return next season to test the water. If samples of the water turn up some sort of life forms, which have been living alone in super-medieval conditions for ages, scientists think that there might also be organisms doing laps in the cold water on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Unfortunately, that is a possibility predicated on something we don’t even know to be true yet.

So scientists are in slow-motion pursuit of extraterrestrial life. But there is still no clear evidence of such life, and it seems unlikely that we will discover any in the near future. I asked Professor Schombert what he thought about this. “All science starts at this stage and grows,” he replied. “My personal opinion is that these types of searches require technology that we do not have at this time.” Rats.

One can only discuss these challenging hypotheticals for a while before looking up at the stars, saying, “What, are you kidding me?” and considering the simpler alternative. Say we are the only living things in the universe right now. What does that even mean? On its face, that’s a profoundly depressing thought. It means we will never meet any radical-looking space cousins who can tell us what’s going on here*.  It also means that in the billions of years that this universe has existed before us, no alien camp has ever been successful enough at super-fast space travel to colonize other areas of the universe and outrun exploding stars.

But the slightly less depressing, arguably trippier aspect of this scenario is a piece of knowledge dropped by Professor Bothun last year that I will now paraphrase. Everything we feel and do in our lives may be inconsequential, and we may be at the mercy of all the hardcore objects and properties that the universe can throw down upon us. But if we are the only life forms out here, we represent something really beautiful — the ability for the universe to see itself. And it would literally be the wackest thing to ever occur in the universe if we didn’t try to sustain our ability to check out and think about our surroundings for as long as we can.

Professor Schombert is right. There is really no substance to discussions about extraterrestrial life, only theories. Sometimes it’s useful to have trippy discussions to put things in perspective, though. It might be vain to think that we are the only intelligence in an impossibly big universe full of the same things that allowed us to develop. But considering what we know, the only logical thing to do is to live like we are alone.

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*Although in 2010, mighty astrophysicist Stephen Hawking warned that if aliens do come to earth, our interactions with them would probably mirror that of Christopher Columbus and Native Americans when he rolled over in the 1400s. And Columbus was a real son of a bitch.

words and photos WILL PAUGH

“I used to go into Yahoo chatrooms during 7th grade and catch pedophiles,” Cody tells me. “With the name lonelyprincess13 I’d just turn in the evidence to the police. It was more because I was bored.”

He wears his long brown hair in a slick ponytail. Around his neck is a string with a red USB drive tied to it. It’s not clear whether he sports it for fashion or function, but either way, it seems to complete the package: Cody is a seasoned resident of the digital world known as Second Life. Years as an ever-present observer and curious participant make him the perfect guide. In my expedition into the virtual world, he’s my Sacagawea. He sits in the corner of a Portland Starbucks. Hands folded, he concentrates on every word that leaves his mouth. As the transition lenses on his glasses become clearer, so does his story. Cody Izzo is from the Internet.

What separates Second Life from a video game is that it is quite literally a digital life with no linear goal or instruction. Second Life only limits users to make what they can imagine, and this has spawned a world that is a canvas for creativity. Each resident is free to sculpt whatever he or she wants using Second Life’s built in 3D modeling tools. More advanced users can script their own movements for avatars to perform. Every inch of Second Life is user-generated. Started in 2003 by digital game developer Linden Lab, Second Life began as nothing more than a small island with a few trees. Today it holds over one million subscribers who have contributed to a constantly expanding landscape. Recently the active regions of Second Life have been estimated to be around 795 square miles.

But what can you expect from a digital world where anything goes? Because users enjoy free reign to make their own content, Second Life has developed a seedy underbelly — full of sexual deviance and plenty of computer-generated semen. For users like Cody, it’s a sign that Second Life is going to shit.

Cody first logged on to build his own structures. It was the perfect atmosphere to practice architecture as a hobby. Over 300 universities around the world have taken advantage of Second Life, and created virtual classrooms as a platform for teaching. Even Harvard Law has held mock-trials in Second Life courtrooms.

Cody has been told that he has an eye for detail, and it wasn’t long before he realized that he could turn this into a profit. “I own a land rental business,” Cody says. “But it’s all part time.” Cody was converting digital currency into hundreds of real dollars each month at the peak of his business. And all before he graduated high school. Now 20, Cody has moved most his attention from architecture to the social features of Second Life.

Next to Cody is Carson, a quiet 20-something sitting behind what must be the world’s largest laptop. He flies around Second Life as a yellow My Little Pony avatar. Carson is part of a My Little Pony community that Cody facilitates, and prior to meeting in first life the two had only talked online for a total of half an hour. “Bronies,” also known as male fanatics of the children’s show My Little Pony, are just one example of the many specialized groups that Second Life caters to. These fan bases are the lifeblood of Second Life and keep it thriving to this day.

Cody doesn’t mind stepping in and helping these groups out: “If people want help running a community I’ll do it, even if I don’t give a crap what it is. It’s more that I get the feeling I’m helping people out.” Because he isn’t invested in certain groups, he is asked to mediate them. He objectively dissolves conflicts and keeps things running smoothly within the community. Cody does it to make friends online; he could care less whether he receives a paycheck, he says, because at the end of the day he is conscious that Second Life is separate from reality. Nothing is real except for the socialization, which Cody prizes as the most important aspect of Second Life.

There is an almost infinite number of communities on Second Life that can accommodate anyone’s craving, and this is where the less-than-savory side of the virtual world begins to show. Because users can create whatever they want, fantasies are no longer hindered by social norms or the law. “People give a blind eye to certain things, and that’s where we get into morality in a sense. There is prostitution, even a slave trade,” Cody says. The strangest part of all this is that people willingly participate in these shady activities; no avatar can be forced to do anything. Cody does not take part in this behavior, but enjoys harassing, or “griefing,” those involved whenever possible. For Cody and many other Second Life residents, detachment from real life does not mean abandoning ethics. “I’ve known and seen a few people who turn to that, and I just tell them to fuck off because that’s weird for me to see that.”

While walking through Second Life it’s not unusual to bump into Dora the Explorer having sex with an alien. Not everyone in Second Life is down with this, just as we can hope that not everyone in the real world is. Second Life just doesn’t do anything to keep the pervs out. Like the Internet as a whole, freedom of creative expression comes first. Even if it means that children’s cartoon characters get desecrated.

But in order to do the nasty in Second Life, one must first have the necessary equipment.

Standard avatars aren’t born with reproductive organs so they must be purchased from what is known as a “dick baron.” Cody has a hard time keeping a straight face when this topic is brought up. “These are people that actually make virtual penises, and make hundreds of thousands of dollars off of it. They make various animal ones too. It gets ridiculous.” Dick barons, like real world vendors, have stores with billboards and mannequins advertising their junk. Many dick barons do not limit themselves to one gender, and sell impossibly proportioned parts for both men and women. While their products are made out of pixels, their paychecks are anything but artificial. “The barons I know don’t really care about it. They say ‘I can make money off this, why not? If I have an excuse to sit at home and play video games all day and make dicks for a living, why not?’”

While Second Life to some means an opportunity for artistic invention or harmless recreation, it’s hard to ignore the shady behavior that Second Life is notorious for. The focused attention on the perverted threatens to bring down all of Second Life’s reputation.

Warren Degenhardt, who knows Cody from high school, sees none of the positives that motivated Cody to create an avatar. “There are entire cities that probably took weeks to model that are completely abandoned, and where is everyone? Crowding around watching a donkey fuck.” Warren says. “It’s a stain on the Internet.”

Even Cody is losing optimism for the future of Second Life. “The more years pass by, the more it seems Second Life degenerates.” Cody knows that at first glance no one will remember Second Life’s creative potential, but the dark rampant sexual activity. “It seems that it has become the greatest and probably the worst thing for certain people. Some can make a pretty decent living off of it, and others have quit their jobs and digressed into fucked-up shit.”

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Second Life Fun Facts:

• Throughout SL there are many child adoption agencies. Adults role play as children looking for a loving home.
• Ben Folds held a concert in SL, got drunk, shot lasers from his eyes, took his shirt off, and fought fans with light sabers.
• In SL, American Apparel has virtual stores full of virtual hipsters shopping for virtual clothes.
• Drew Carey thinks SL is dope and occasionally goes on for virtual dates with his wife.
• Affairs on SL have inspired very many real world divorces.
• One SL user created a concentration camp for furries. It was very graphic, and the user was banned.
• Furries are very common.