Capitalism and the Counterculture in Wonderland

(This is cross-posted.)


Belly Bells: $24

Bamboo incense holder: $55

Carved wooden bowl: $275

A day spent communing in the wilderness with half-naked white people can really put a dent in your pocketbook.

Over the weekend, the Oregon Country Fair, a major event on the counterculture circuit, convened outside of Eugene on the sprawling, 280-acre wooded parcel it calls home for its annual extravaganza of peace, love and weirdness. As an uninitiated native, I thought it was about time I took a look.

I grew up in Eugene, a university town known for its hippie/progressive aesthetic, so I wasn’t that surprised by the sartorial (or should I say sartorial-free) diversity on display – but more on that later.

The sticker shock was an entirely different story.

My “experience” began Friday morning waiting in the ticket line at a local Safeway. A girl in front of me – wearing dirty pink cutoffs, ripped fishnets and clutching a grimy journal to her chest – was talking loudly on her cell phone. Sample grab: “I just got back from chillin’ in the Redwoods on acid. It was awesome.” Her hair was matted with grease, she was bone-thin and apparently had no place to stay, but she had the dough for a ticket: $21 for a single; $47 for a three-day pass purchased in advance.

The next day when I arrived at the fair, which bills itself as “a radical experiment in communitarianism,” I was greeted by clever “Change Comes from Within” signs posted at the ATMs and at least half a dozen pirates heckling us on stilts. I sat through a fashion show of clothes entirely created from broken umbrellas and other garbage, and passed by a “pledge of allegiance” to the Earth and a bus where you could share your “global warming stories.” I overheard an earnest conversation about the importance of “graywater” and listened as a serious, bearded man in tie-dye extolled the virtues of “intentional communities.”

This “fair” may have been launched back in the late 1960s as a barter-based event, but today (like the Woodstocks in the 1990s and a host of other happenings that trade in nostalgia for the Age of Aquarius) it is in many ways an exercise in cold, hard capitalism…albeit with a twist. In addition to inquiring about one’s sexual identity, the “public fair survey” handed out this year included a string of questions related to money spent and household income. Plastic of the Visa or MasterCard variety was more than welcome. Most of the vendors had the requisite sign indicating they gladly accepted either – which was a good thing, considering a flowing silk dress went for $195, while a clay soup tureen clocked in at $109.

Among the offerings in my price range, a chocolate “truffle buzz” ($2.50) and fake roses crafted from used condom wrappers ($5). I decided to pass on both.

I’ll be the first to admit that I err on the conventional side (I found the women-only urinals, i.e., glorified troughs, to be a stretch), but as they say, when in Rome…so after I left my more rhythmically inclined pal at the Drum Tower for a mass “pa rum pum pum pum” of sorts, I set off to learn some “dances of universal peace” at the Community Village. Before long, I was standing in a circle arms linked with about a dozen other strangers (including a woman dressed in a Dutch peasant ensemble and green felt headpiece that resembled a flying saucer) chanting supposedly soothing lyrics in various foreign tongues that I had a hard time identifying, while envisioning “the sacred” in the air around us. I had just about made it through my third song when the intrusion of a man in a flying carpet contraption broke the spell, and I drifted away from the group.

Next up was a workshop on “instant songwriting for causes” – you know, in case you get caught unprepared at a spontaneous mass rally. While I waited for my tutorial to begin, a young man next to me started lamenting the discord in his astrological chart. “Mars and Saturn are conjuncted on Pluto…that would explain my intestinal illness,” he bemoaned to his interlocutor. Through the entryway of a nearby teepee, two lovers with feathers sprouting from their hair and legs entwined gazed into each other’s eyes. Across the way, in a yurt, a modern-day Titania bedecked with a floral wreath rested her head on the stomach of her Oberon.

As the day progressed, I took in more naked breasts, adorned with hennas, sequins and stickers than I have in a lifetime in women’s dressing rooms and lockers. I stumbled into a moon lodge, advertised as a sacred space for women, but was told I would have to leave unless I removed my shoes. I opted to bail – sitting around with a bunch of fat chicks painting each other and wearing cowboy hats is generally not my idea of a good time. (Note to readers: the counterculture life is a cruel mistress for the over 50 set; the dangers of a lifetime of unbraed breasts are not to be pooh-poohed. Anyway you dice it, there’s nothing attractive about a love-handled mid-section crowned by a pair of rainbow-painted nipple mudslides. And let this be a warning to you, too, “rainbow man.” The day is fast approaching when a strategically placed green pouch and a pair of faded Converse won’t cut it anymore.)

By late afternoon, my head was swimming. My nose and eyes were stinging from the strange brew of heavy incense and other substances hanging in the air. The heat pounded down, and I found myself pushed and prodded by a human wave of tens of thousands of the unwashed and malodorous. The scene was reminiscent of a Fellini film. There were hooded druids, trees on stilts shouting slogans, men and women sporting fairy wings and tutus, blue pinafored Dorothys, horned gals in sheepskin and little else, even a lone Jimi Hendrix wannabe. Periodically, a colorful brass band snaked its way through the throngs. “I’m a salmon,” one woman shouted amongst the cacophony.

One could only hope for such a metamorphosis.

At last, we escaped to the Blue Moon stage, where an all-girl acoustic cabaret called “The Bad Mitten Orchestre” was warbling on about “beggars and borrowers, harlots and jokers.” A large witch – broom in hand – plopped down next to me. A dreadlocked ballerina bopped to the beat. The group moved on to a song about loving “the twigs in your hair and the dirt on your hands.” Above us, from his perch in a tree bough, a parrot cast a wise eye over the proceedings.

I can’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking.