So, I sort of said I would be in Portland for the Summer solstice, and that plan went through without issue.
The actual solstice party itself was hosted at the Linus Pauling house on Hawthorne. The small house was jam-packed with vibrant spirits; everyone had something interesting going on in their life. I mostly just listened. A sweet Austrian lady named Susan brought some exotic fruit cherimoya ("custard apple"), which I did not get to try, regretfully; Barry brought his famous ribs; I had a cup of Spanish wine.
I was pleasantly assured that there were not Pagan rituals to speak of. No "hail Valhala," no secret handshakes... so, to the old man at the local park who showed me this handshake so I "wouldn't look like an idiot," thank you, but it really wasn't necessary.
Anyways, Kirby (and his house and dog Sydney) was very hospitable, and the five days I spent there were a pleasant enough vacation. He made very sure I was aware of the local lore of the land, and had something to say about almost every building we passed ("this house was raised from the ground and the basement was added later;" "this building used to be a ..."), regaled me with the history of Cascadian synergetics, and introduced me to some of the key figures in his life. Everyone was always up to something, it seems.
Kirby made sure we hit all the key stops - Voodo donuts, a couple Asian markets, where we picked up some durian popsicles; Quarter world - which was jam-packed (I played some Dig-Dug, Tetris, and Soul Calibur II); Voodoo donuts (which sadly hasn't had the Pepto Bismol donuts "in a long time"); most importantly, we went to Powell's book store - the big one downtown. I went to the red room, the same one Andrius Kulikauskas and I stood at two years ago when he visited America. Kirby was nice enough to buy me two books - to advance the cause of independent scholarship, of course (long live Syn-U)!
We talked about many things, but what sticks out to me now is gratitude; Kirby lamented that the world is so quick to leave behind what great achievements it has in pursuit of bigger and better things. For instance, hypertext, he tells me, was a dream of his since at least the 80s, and marvels that we now have that, the ability to download 900 million books, etc., and yet it oftentimes goes unappreciated. No matter how awesome Earth is, some people just want to get to Mars; no matter how awesome Mars is, some just want to leave the solar system, etcetera.
Among the highlights of my visit was a trip to Movie Madness, which has a little museum full of iconic movie props. We rented Inside Out 2, which made me ball my eyes out, and Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," a three-part movie perhaps best known for its incessany repitition of the line "who is John Galt?"
Dave DiNucci joined us for the viewing of the first two parts of the movie. He enjoyed mocking the ham-fisted anti-communist messaging. The guy is also something of a genius, it seems; when he discovered a little puzzle toy that Daniel Friedman gave to Kirby, he wrote down a short sequence of numbers, went home, typed up a computer program, and BOOM! It was solved two days later.
On the final day of my trip, we drove to Eugene, where I was able to visit Sam Lanahan's farm. It was a gorgeous (if I remember correctly) nine acre piece of land, with a newly minted irrigation system. Sam has a big shed filled with his Tensegrity sculptures. His wife Jill put together a big ol' brunch with fancy cheeses and non-alcoholic beer. I tried my best to remain prim and proper the entire time, because this was a bit more glamorous of a place than I'm used to being in.
I then spent six or so hours in Eugene at a place called the Lorax manor with my sister and some friends. The place is a bohemian nirvana, with lots of paintings on the wall, a big whiteboard with little doodles all over. I jotted down some abstract nonsense before making my way to the DnD room, where we listened to some music and shot the breeze. We ended up going to the roof, where I got this pic:
tl;dr
I met a bunch of interesting people, spent the week with the grandfather of Cascadian synergetics, and returned home. It will take a long time to process and integrate this whole thing; I have a feeling I will be looking back to this for quite a while, and will have more to say.
Some picture's are available on Kirby's Flickr