called “Smokey Joe

Up in Smoke

The wildfi res largely spared Oregon’s cannabis crop, but farmers still took a hit.

BY SOPHIE PEEL

@sophiegreenleaf

On Sept. 8, Roganja co-owner Peter Butch stood in the garden of his family’s cannabis farm in Eagle Point, watching as the Obenchain Fire climbed over the ridge bordering his 1-acre grow. That night, as his neighbors and family evacuated, he used a hose to drench his property until the following morning. “It just burnt overnight, getting closer and closer, and burnt through my family’s property,” says Butch. “It [burnt the land] that my dad pioneered.” Butch says only 10% to 20% of the grow was destroyed by ambient heat from the wildfi re. But structures used for processing and drying were burnt to ash—as well as his and his mother’s homes. His irrigation system and drip lines used to water crop also melted from the heat. He expects there’s $300,000 worth of damage to cannabis structures on his property. “It’s gonna cost a lot to rebuild,” says Butch. “We were actually having an incredible summer up until these fi res hit. Almost smoke-free, a beautiful fall. [And then] we had about nine nights of horribly smoky skies.” As wildfires raged through Southern Oregon this month, where many of the state’s cannabis farms are located, farmers found themselves on the fi ghting end of a natural disaster few saw coming. The blazes came at a particularly inopportune moment: Harvest season has begun, with the bulk of collection happening late this month and through October. The devastation to actual cannabis grows has been relatively limited, says economist Beau Whitney—only about 2% to 4% of the state’s supply was impacted. Successful grows need excessive amounts of moisture to survive, and that may have saved many of them from going up in fl ames. But damage to the infrastructure of the industry, such as drying and trimming buildings, irrigation systems and the ability of pickers and sta— to return to areas that are still under evacuation orders, might be where the trouble lies. “Unless you have that insurance money coming in, that’s a loss,” says Whitney. “That’s where the impact is: How do you pull up from your bootstraps and get back into the game? That’s the real tough part.” And because cannabis is still federally illegal, property and crop insurance is hard for cultivators to access. As the fi res encroached closer to farms, many farmers used primitive measures to protect their grows from catching fi re. At the peak of the wildfires, East Fork Cultivars in Takilma was surrounded on nearly all sides by fires within 1 mile of the property. Co-owner Nathan Howard and a few sta— members dumped buckets of water along the border as the flames creeped closer. Other farmers used handheld hoses to soak their properties, tractors to dig fi re lines along property borders to stop the fi re, and handheld leaf blowers to blow off ash from individual plants. Howard’s sta— also pulled up shrubs and trees they thought would exacerbate the fi res. Even if ash and smoke cover the plants, Whitney says he’s not too worried about farmers being unable to use

and sell that flower. Smokier plants can still be used for distillate, though farmers would have to take a profi t cut since it is less valuable than smokable fl ower. Still, Whitney says the adaptable cannabis market is already using the smoke as a marketing tool. “I’m seeing some extracted oil brands and names of brands like ‘Smokey Joe,’” he says, “so I’m starting to see the market react immediately already.” And even if everyone has a slightly smoky flower this harvest season, “the smoke won’t have an impact on the overall market because it’ll be so ubiquitous throughout the entire system,” Whitney says. “They have to buy something.” Smoke and ash, says Nathan Howard, isn’t a big concern for East Fork, as it’s had a small crew hand-watering plants and removing toxins that have settled from the smoke—and anyway, smoke is a natural deterrent to the particular mold endemic to cannabis plants, Howard says. Instead, the concern for Howard is the ethical quandary of whether to allow salaried farm sta— back despite unhealthy

BURN ONE: The Obenchain Fire creeps closer to Roganja’s cannabis farm in Eagle Point, Ore.

air quality. Takilma is still under Level 3 evacuation orders, and though East Fork has had several local employees volunteering to survey the plants, the crew of seasonal pickers probably won’t come back. That could spell trouble for harvest season, which has already begun and picks up in force through October. “We’re potentially facing devastation if we go into next week and can’t invite our team back,” says Howard. “We have many thousands of pounds of cannabis that need to be harvested next week.” Rhea Miller, who co-owns Millerville Farms with her husband, Matt, is neighbors with East Fork. She says she’s been obsessing over whether to even harvest the plant, which she says is covered in a thick layer of ash. “I’ve been analyzing di— erent outcomes, as far as taking the loss and bulldozing it down now and stop spending money on it, to harvesting it and exploring extraction or harvesting once cut and seeing how it smells,” says Miller. “We learned from the cannabis glut of 2017: If you don’t know where the plant is going or what it’s doing, don’t touch it.”

PICA.ORG

TIME MARCHES ON: TBA o ers a mixture of in-person and virtual events this year.

Time’s Almost Up

Despite the pandemic and recent wildfi res, the Time-Based Art Festival has found a way to press on. Here are the highlights of the fi nal week’s schedule.

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON

“A festival of interdisciplinary art” is an accurate but insufferably unromantic way of describing the TimeBased Art Festival, better known as TBA. The festival is nothing less than a colossus of the strange and the glorious, a place where you might see a fi lm that never ends, a dance through a fountain, or a Q-and-A session that plunges into hysteria. TBA, which is organized by the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, hasn’t been hindered by COVID-19 as much as you might expect. “Early in the pandemic, I would say everything was questioned and considered, but we always kept our priorities on supporting the artists we work with in whatever way we could,” says Erin Boberg Doughton, an artistic director at PICA. That support has led to TBA’s fi nal week, which will feature both virtual and in-person events that exist under the umbrella of the festival’s current theme, Take Your Time. With that in mind, here are fi ve TBA events worth taking the time to enjoy, all of which can be seen at picatv.org.

Audience Portrait

The spectators will become the spectacle at this Zoombased event, which asks viewers to post a picture or to simply show their face so that TBA can capture an image of its 2020 audience. “The Audience Portrait is a little bit of an experiment,” says Kristan Kennedy, another PICA artistic director. “[We] asked ourselves, ‘How do we capture that feeling of being together during TBA, or that moment we share the space in a live performance or gallery just [by] being present, looking and relooking?’ It is a time to listen and just be.” 6:30 pm Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Debajo del Agua: The Wake Work of Enerolisa Núñez

When many people think of Dominican music, they think of merengue. Yet one of the Dominican Republic’s defining musical forms is Afro-Dominican religious music performed in the salve style, which is also called palo or atabeles. Debajo del Agua is a talk by artist-musician-writer manuel arturo abreu that explores the music of Enerolisa Nuñez, also known as the “Queen of Salve.” It’s part of a series of TBA events from Home School, a free pop-up art school run by arturo abreu and Victoria Anne Reis. 4 pm Friday, Sept. 25.

PICA.ORG

THE VOICE: Dao Strom will perform song-poems via livestream. Instrument/Traveler’s Ode

For Dao Strom, who was born in Vietnam and grew up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, music, poetry and visual art aren’t just forms of expression—they are her three voices as an artist. Instrument/Traveler’s Ode sees them combined, merging guitar, photography, piano, song-poems and recorded noises—including the sounds of birds and rivers. Her performance will stream Sept. 26 and will be played on cassette decks in PICA’s annex the next day. 6:30 pm Saturday and 1 pm Sunday, Sept. 26-27.

A Movement for Black Laughs

Black lives and laughs will matter at this celebration of Black humor in political movements featuring Dahlia Delu Belle, The Real Hyjinx, Anthony Robinson and Debbie Wooten. It’s a program pitched at the intersection of comfort and enlightenment, one of the festival’s defi ning dualities. “Many of the artists in TBA have created projects that can be comforting and/or enlightening. It depends on the audience,” Boberg Doughton says. “I would also say many of the projects question who gets to experience comfort or enlightenment, or who defines what those terms mean.” 6:30 pm Thursday, Sept. 24.

Puro Teatro: A Spell for Utopia

Uruguayan choreographer luciana achugar is a singular artist, a visionary who can find beauty in bodies on pavement or the stillness of a cat. Puro Teatro: A Spell for Utopia continues her quest to create what PICA describes as decolonized, uncivilized, utopian art. Achugar recently posed the question, “What is a theater without a theater?” COVID-19 may have made that question di£ cult to answer, but if her previous work is any indication, A Spell for Utopia will o¤ er an intriguing and inimitable response. 4 pm Saturday and 5 pm Wednesday, Sept. 26 and 30.

FIVE BOOKS ABOUT THE OTHER PORTLAND (AND SURROUNDING AREAS)

Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout

When Elizabeth Strout writes about Maine, she comes home, again and again. Most of her books, in some way, center around the rural Northeast, the region she grew up in without newspapers, movies or worldly novelties. The familiarity shows. In 1998, Strout published her much-loved debut novel, Amy and Isabelle, the story of a teenager and her mother gripped by scandal and the oppressive smallness of backroads towns. Strout writes with a subtlety most authors only dream of and manages to draw the reader into the sweetness and grief of everyday life with ease.

Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes

It’s an unproven theory, but books set in fi ctional locations tend to be easier on the soul. They don’t get tangled up in the gritty details. In the seaside town of Calcasset, Maine, podcaster-turned-author Linda Holmes spoon-feeds her characters every New England cliché—lobster, accents, a clunky class divide. There is a new widow and a scorned professional baseball player, both looking for escape. They might fall in love. In the three days it will take you to fi nish this book, you will probably feel a little less cynical about the world, and a little more resentful that you cannot aˆ ord a waterfront vacation home.

Carrie, Stephen King

Of course, Stephen King is the archangel of modern New England literature, and horror, and politically aggressive tweets. The thing is, his debut novel happens to be really, frustratingly good. In the Maine town of Chamberlain, King gives the masses what they want—a 16-year-old outcast who manages to wage holy war on those who have wronged her (everyone) through all means possible (telekinetic mass murder). King once described Carrie as a “cookie baked by a fi rst grader,” but all the greats sell themselves short.

Summer, Edith Wharton

For a holistic transplant, there is Summer by famed and fabled aristocratic novelist Edith Wharton. Written one whole century ago and set in the country town of North Dormer, New England, Wharton writes of misguided passion and new love from the perspective of a young girl almost comically humbled by life. There are rolling hills and gooseberry bushes, things tragically missing from the Portland landscape, and the sense that the worst thing that could happen is a mismatched betrothal or maybe the onset of Prohibition.

On Beauty, Zadie Smith

In the past two decades, Zadie Smith has carved out her own place in the top tier of modern writers, and at least some of that is due to On Beauty. In a college town outside of Boston, Smith writes about self-important academics and contentious family dynamics, zigzagging between the American Northeast and London for a trans-Atlantic reckoning on all of the cultural institutions we hold close. “The future’s another country, man,” Smith writes. “And I still ain’t got a passport.”

WORDS

Gimme Indie Rock

COURTESY OF STEVE CONNELL

Portland-based Puncture upped the game for punk zines. A new anthology shows how.

stand out to you?

but also very literate. And that’s where I was. I was a weird university post-graduate who ended up working for Rough Trade. It was pretty clearly my kind of thing.

in San Francisco not long after. Did you seek out Katherine immediately?

No. She called up the oš ce because she was looking for We should talk.”

drew you to Katherine?

I think.

tions tended to ignore.

little zine when they were being covered in Rolling Stone.

Why did you move yourselves and the magazine to Portland?

I stopped working for Rough Trade, and then the [1989] earthquake happened, so Katherine didn’t want to live in San Francisco anymore. And the city was changing pretty fast—it was yuppie-fying and rents were going up. We realized that if we wanted to spend more time doing Puncture and not have full-time jobs, we’d have to fi nd a cheaper place to live. And, of course, in ’92, when we moved, the scene with Hazel, Pond, and the Spinanes was starting to happen. We were like, “Yeah, this is the place to be.”

Beyond music, Puncture was very connected to the world of literature, publishing excerpts of Infi nite Jest and interviewing authors. Was that in the DNA of the magazine from the start?

I think Katherine probably would have most wanted to do a literary magazine. But there wasn’t a DIY way to do that back then. We always wanted to make sure literature was in the mix. There were always reviews, and running excerpts of books started in the Portland years. And we transitioned into doing Verse Chorus Press and stopped doing Puncture.

How was it to experience the trajectory of Puncture from this photocopied, hand-stapled zine to a fullfl edged magazine with a glossy cover? Something that came out of the introductory essays in this collection was Katherine’s pretty strict standards. How was it to have your work edited by her?

I probably got off more lightly than most people. It was really, really seriously done, professional work. Katherine worked for real magazines, so she didn’t see any reason why it couldn’t be presented that way, too. I think that’s one thing that made it stand out. The major publications did that, but for a lot of the zines, it didn’t necessarily matter that much. I think it made Puncture di‹ erent in the end.

Was it gratifying to see artists that Puncture championed early on become more widely known?

It was fantastic to see all those bands get bigger, and they deserved it. Sleater-Kinney getting covered in Time magazine. Even the Mountain Goats—certainly the records are di‹ erent and if [frontman John Darnielle] carried on recording into a boombox, it probably wouldn’t have happened, but all the greatness was there in those songs. Maybe we played a little part in that, but I think it showed how things were changing, too. I remember Spin trashing Neutral Milk Hotel. At times it seemed like they didn’t get or they didn’t want to get it.

READ IT: Now Is the Time to Invent!: Reports From the Indie

ZINE AGE DREAM: Puncture editors Katherine Spielmann and editors Katherine Spielmann and Steve Connell in 1994, shortly after moving to Portland. Steve Connell in 1994, shortly after moving to Portland.

BY ROBERT HAM

@roberthamwriter

On the outside, the first issues of Puncture looked like the dozens of other roughly constructed zines covering punk and post-punk culture in the 1980s: hand-folded and stapled with cut-and-paste cover art. What set it apart was the content on the inside. The writing was wise and witty, covering artists ignored by most other underground papers—the Virgin Prunes, Negativland, Toiling Midgets—and included thoughtful writing on literature and fi lm. As it became a proper magazine with glossy covers, eventually relocating from San Francisco to Portland, and opened its ears to embrace hip-hop, jazz and the avant-garde, Puncture remained on the bleeding edge. It was the fi rst to write about Guided By Voices, Je‹ Buckley, and Neutral Milk Hotel in any meaningful way, and even published an early excerpt of David Foster Wallace’s Infi nite Jest before the novel became a phenomenon. The magazine folded in 2000 when founder Katherine Spielmann and fellow editor-life partner Steve Connell started the publishing imprint Verse Chorus Press. But Puncture hasn’t disappeared. The first six issues were anthologized last year, and this month sees the publication of Now Is The Time To Invent!, a collection of features culled from the magazine. The book picks up the story in 1986—starting with college-rock luminaries Throwing Muses and ending with Sleater-Kinney, the cover stars of the final issue. In between are rare interviews with Fugazi and critic Lester Bangs, powerful essays on misogyny in the underground scene, and coverage of the now legendary 1991 International Pop Underground Convention in Olympia, Wash. It’s not the complete story of Puncture but a great document of how indie went from a subgenre to a cultural watchword. The book also serves as a beautiful memorial to Spielmann, who passed away in 2016. From his home in Hamburg, Germany, Connell spoke with WW about how he went from a reader to becoming the magazine’s managing editor, covering the music no one else would, and watching those once-obscure artists become icons.

WW: When you stumbled upon Puncture, what made it

Steve Connell: There were some great fanzines, but they weren’t as well written. Puncture had a frame of reference that the others didn’t have. It seemed zine-y and punky

a Test Dept record. We used to import all these English a Test Dept record. We used to import all these English things and she had her ear to the ground. I was the perthings and she had her ear to the ground. I was the person she ended up talking to, and I went, “Oh, Puncture Puncture ! !

Clearly, you two hit it o€ instantly. What was it that Clearly, you two hit it o€ instantly. What was it that

We had a similar background in some ways. The first major We had a similar background in some ways. The first major discussion we had was about what was the best rock novel. discussion we had was about what was the best rock novel. Back then, there really weren’t that many, and we agreed it Back then, there really weren’t that many, and we agreed it was Don DeLillo’s Great Jones Street. That was a good start, . That was a good start,

Even as the magazine got bigger, Puncture still stuck still stuck to covering artists and scenes that other publicato covering artists and scenes that other publica

We were definitely drawn to the more left-field stuff. I We were definitely drawn to the more left-field stuff. I mean, I was a huge R.E.M. fan all through those years, mean, I was a huge R.E.M. fan all through those years, but there wasn’t much point raving about R.E.M. in a but there wasn’t much point raving about R.E.M. in a

Rock Revolution 1986-2000 is out now on Verse Chorus Press.

We didn’t want to fetishize this idea of, “It’s gotta look like a zine.” That was pretty much all you could do then. It was rubber cement, cut-and-paste, those guidelines that you cut with your X-Acto knife. We went with the technology as it developed. We got a Mac Plus as soon as they were available. I learned PageMaker and then it was o‹ to the races.

Puncture’sGreatest Hits

Women in Rock: An Open Letter Writer Teri Sutton presaged the riot grrrl movement with her 1988 essay that lays bare the ugly sexism roiling within the supposedly enlightened indie-rock scene.

Sleater-Kinney The fi rst-ever interview with the venerated trio, with then-drummer Lora MacFarlane, was published in a 1995 issue of Puncture.

Fugazi D.C.’s most important band gave a rare interview to Lois Ma‹ eo in 1990 following the release of their fi rst album, Repeater.

Jonathan Richman Jonathan Richman Camden Joy blended fi ction and journalism to wondrous e‹ ect for this portrait of the revered singer-songwriter. revered singer-songwriter.

The Pastels In 1998, musician-poet David Berman interviewed the infl uential Scottish pop trio—by fax.