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I promised a write-up of the Ursula Le Guin/Margaret Killjoy reading I went to at Powell's tonight. Someone official-looking was videotaping, but I don't know whether the video will be online anywhere.
The reading was to promote the anthology _Mythmakers and Lawbreakers_, a collection of interviews with anarchist writers that Killjoy edited. The book includes an interview by Le Guin, and it was pretty clear that the event was about the anthology and Le Guin was there to lend a "name" to it. But that was okay. She started by apologizing for not being able to sign books afterward, because "when you and your husband get to be over 80, some things are more difficult." She read brief passages from _The Dispossessed_ and _Always Coming Home_; both in her reading and in her responses to the questions lately, she was very assured and very not about drawing attention to herself. I liked an aside she made while reading from _The Dispossessed_, which was something along the lines of, "The character, Chevek, is a scientist, but I'm really also talking about artists here and about anyone else who has a job to do and knows it's their job."
After that, Killjoy talked about the anthology and gave "an anarchist PowerPoint presentation" -- which meant a flip-chart with magic marker cartoon drawings -- about anarchist writers in history. Then they did a joint Q&A session.
Like any overtly anarchist event (especially in, well, Portland), the crowd was mostly early-20-something white people with dreadlocks and hoodies, and the questions reflected that. Lots of people asking earnest philosophical questions rather than, yanno, anything in detail about either of the authors' *writing*. Oh, well. Le Guin answered most of those questions either briefly and amusedly (for example, the subject line of this post, which was an answer to the question "what do you think is the difference between libertarianism and anarchism?), or by deferring to Killjoy (who tried to address the questions with as much earnestness as with they were asked). In general everything she said was very economical and no longer than it needed to be. It's enviable.
So yeah, I wish there had been a more satisfying discussion (and there was an unfortunate moment when Le Guin tried to make a pro-copyright-law pitch in a crowd of anarchists), but I was glad to get to hear Le Guin read while I still had the chance. By which I mean while I still live in Portland, of course.
The reading was to promote the anthology _Mythmakers and Lawbreakers_, a collection of interviews with anarchist writers that Killjoy edited. The book includes an interview by Le Guin, and it was pretty clear that the event was about the anthology and Le Guin was there to lend a "name" to it. But that was okay. She started by apologizing for not being able to sign books afterward, because "when you and your husband get to be over 80, some things are more difficult." She read brief passages from _The Dispossessed_ and _Always Coming Home_; both in her reading and in her responses to the questions lately, she was very assured and very not about drawing attention to herself. I liked an aside she made while reading from _The Dispossessed_, which was something along the lines of, "The character, Chevek, is a scientist, but I'm really also talking about artists here and about anyone else who has a job to do and knows it's their job."
After that, Killjoy talked about the anthology and gave "an anarchist PowerPoint presentation" -- which meant a flip-chart with magic marker cartoon drawings -- about anarchist writers in history. Then they did a joint Q&A session.
Like any overtly anarchist event (especially in, well, Portland), the crowd was mostly early-20-something white people with dreadlocks and hoodies, and the questions reflected that. Lots of people asking earnest philosophical questions rather than, yanno, anything in detail about either of the authors' *writing*. Oh, well. Le Guin answered most of those questions either briefly and amusedly (for example, the subject line of this post, which was an answer to the question "what do you think is the difference between libertarianism and anarchism?), or by deferring to Killjoy (who tried to address the questions with as much earnestness as with they were asked). In general everything she said was very economical and no longer than it needed to be. It's enviable.
So yeah, I wish there had been a more satisfying discussion (and there was an unfortunate moment when Le Guin tried to make a pro-copyright-law pitch in a crowd of anarchists), but I was glad to get to hear Le Guin read while I still had the chance. By which I mean while I still live in Portland, of course.