The Feast of Change Story by JeffLand Photos by Deborah Pickett “Lt’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.” Like the Cat in the Hat, the Oregon Country Fair reveals certain kinds of fun to be subversive, especially in bleak and mean-spirited times. Today, when the packaging and selling of entertainment is at its nadir, this great carnival retains remarkable cultural independence. It frolics about, growing and sowing its vision of liberation within the local and regional community. And now, due to nearly uncontrollable success, it has mushroomed into a source of funding for social justice and community revitalization. On Saturday mid-afternoon at the Fair this past summer, Leslie Scott, the general manager, did the unthinkable. She shut the gates early on the summer’s biggest party. The Fair, on this second day of its 23rd year, bulged with almost 20,000 guests, at $10 a head. On a normal day, with only 10-15 thousand visitors, the dusty paths that circle in a maze through the dry marshland remain somewhat passable. The crowd size usually serves to slow everyone down to a comfortable walking pace. But now the place seemed completely full. What does the sellout this summer really mean? Ask anyone from Eugene’s dominant ethnic group, neo-60’s hippies, and they will tell you, endlessly, of the Fair’s good old days, back when you could get stoned in public, when crafts were cheaper, more funky, when the delight and absurdity was spontaneous instead of rehearsed and scheduled. They complain that Community Village (where dedicated local activists reach out to the public) was once the respected political heart of the Fair, but is now treated like a needy poor cousin. Inevitably the people who kvetch the most are those active in the Fair the longest. Still, the complaint that the Fair has in some way gone commercial or become less true to its original vision misses an important point; the event, for all its revelry, was always also a market and has, for just about every one of its 23 years, earned money, sometimes a great deal. Since the start no single patron, foundation, or sponsor underwrote the festivities. The admission fee and the rent from the hundreds of vendors ensure that those most directly involved will financially support the event. The festive wonder of parades, jugglers, music, circuses and general gossamer frippery have always been propped and nurtured by the cool-headed rationale of the hippie vendor who counts on perhaps half a year’s income from those three summer days. Here, Adam Smith’s invisible hand holds a special wand. The many small businesses protect the Fair from seeking that most baleful thing, corporate sponsorship. Entrepreneurial zeal joins in some fortunate way with the dreams of the Woodstock nation: peace, love and understanding — as alive in Eugene as anywhere — open this space for good fun over a long summer weekend. How else can we account for the enormous energy volunteers from the Pacific Northwest counterculture pour into their summer celebration year after year, decade after decade? Yearlong committees deal with a Page 36 RAIN Spring 1993 Volume XIV, Number 3
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