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Transcript

Snapshots #1

A weekend in Portland, Oregon.

My friend Cara and I made it to the U.S. border around 1pm this past Saturday, breakfast sandwiches in hand. We lucked out, getting a friendly border guard, and passed through without trouble. In Olympia, we stopped for snacks and vapes, ogling the cornucopia of vibrant, hypernormal food and accidentally buying “sparkling water” that turned out to be pop. We tried to get all the Canada supremacy snark out of our system before going any further… I’m not proud of it, but there are only so many national pastimes, and I’m not much of an ice skater.

The drive was beautiful: sun, trees and sky kept us company as Cara remembered how to drive standard on the fly (and made it through Seattle traffic without stalling once, despite my temperamental clutch!)

We were halfway to Portland when we realized, in a roadside MacDonald’s, that it was inauguration weekend. I was stunned that I could forget such a monumental event; eight years ago, I’d thought the sky was falling. Were we fools heading into the headquarters of the resistance? Would we be surrounded by righteous fires and overturned cop cars?

Well, no. That’s not what happened this time. Things seemed rather ordinary when we finally pulled in that night.

TUCON pals & emerging theorists Evan Wellington & Sean Mittelstaedt.

On Sunday, after some ice cream and the obligatory trip to Powell’s, I met up with Evan and Sean, two friends I made at the

conference in Boise last October.

I hadn’t known what to expect when I’d gone, but the conference was a heady mix of working-class autodidacts and burnt out academics who came together in a DIY space to put on a theory conference, completely independent of a university. Spending a week in this environment relit a fire within me, and getting another little taste of that over tacos in Portland was a real treat. (Sean just launched a Substack, by the way! Check out his first post: Parasitism, Capital and My Unconscious.)

Then it was time for WORDVOM, an art party slash birthday party slash fundraiser for the Independent Publishing Resource Center! The event featured zines, comics and prints from artists Bebe Montoya, Cooklin, Alden Wild, and Krystal Pérez, accompanied by the vinyl-spinning DJ Barbarella. There were also various word games set up at tables throughout the venue, which is all I ever want at a social event.

You know those parties where it’s super awkward and no one’s really talking to each other, and you don’t know if it’s because people are anxious or everybody hates you? Well, this was the opposite of that. The people who showed up were so dang friendly and created a lovely vibe. One person found out about the event from my Substack Note, which made me very happy, and also very shy! Shoutout to sweeties Rosemary, Ryan, Bree and Vee.

Palling around with singer/zinester/birthday babe Bebe Montoya.

Bebe was easy to spot from the moment I walked in the door: it wasn’t just the feathered pink cowboy hat or the banana purse (although those certainly didn’t hurt), it was also this inviting presence bopping around, making sure everyone was taken care of and having a good time.

Bebe is also a literal rockstar, in case you hadn’t heard:

In honour of Bebe’s birthday, I brought a can of maple syrup from back east, which she was Very Stoked On. To my surprise, Alden chimed in to say some Portlandians are tapping bigleaf maples for beer-related reasons! Who knew? I have a hunch that at least one person in Portland is doing literally anything you can think of. There’s probably a social club where you knit winter socks for bees.

The chats went on late into the night, migrating to a bar down the street once WORDVOM was over. We sat at a table right beside a rack filled with vintage clothing, and I must say, I highly recommend watching drunk people try on outfits while you eat a grilled cheese sandwich. We were even consulted on a couple of the bolder outfits. These days, I almost always say: go for it.

After packing up Monday morning—although I don’t normally believe in capital punishment, it may be our only choice for AirBnb hosts with 9am checkouts—I tried not to be the biggest grump in the world while we snagged some pastries and hit up Arch’s bookstore (the first time I’ve seen an entire Lacan section in a bookstore).

On our way back north, we made sure to stop at Sleater-Kinney Road. It was as wonderfully ordinary as I’d imagined all those times I’d driven past: a gas station, an apartment block, a beautiful walking path that probably wasn’t there in 1994. The sky was blue, but the cloudy, coastal mood still hung around the edges.

After dinner in Seattle, it was time for the last leg of the drive, and we stopped to fuel up one last time. When Cara’s Canadian credit card gave us a hard time, a stranger put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter to cover our gas; he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

So I’m back home, safe and snug, mourning the loss of almond joys. But I’ve got this roll of pictures to remind me that there are good people wherever you go, and I’m lucky enough to call some of them my friends.

Cara’s that friend who will drop everything to come on a last-minute road trip.

P.S. If you’re curious about the 2023

event in Portland that I mentioned in the video, you can find the talk I gave here:

Bebe Montoya read an incredible piece from this zine that night—I highly recommend it.

xox
kier

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