OK, I'm back from my trip to Portland, I'm beginning to be rested up from the rigors of the drive, and it's time to tell you what I went for.
About three months ago I learned of
A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin, a major exhibit on one of my favorite authors, being held in a museum in Portland. "Well, that's nice, pity I can't get to it," I thought, but then I determined that, health permitting, I would. I'd driven to Portland before. The first weekend in February was the closing dates of the exhibit, and it appeared the ideal time to go. So, subject only to a health scare that nearly canceled the trip at the last minute, I went.
Oregon Contemporary, as the museum is called, is tucked away obscurely in a corner of the Kenton district in north Portland. Its roughly two-and-a-half rooms of exhibit space were occupied entirely with this one exhibit. The captions, I was told, were written mostly by UKL's son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, and they were fabulously informative about her background, her writing habits, inspirations and motivations, and much more. I told the curators that I hope this information winds up in a book sometime. There was an associated book with this exhibit, but it was an anthology of UKL's writings, not a catalog.
By the entrance hallway are three cases with personal artifacts ranging from her own drawings of her childhood homes (the house in Berkeley and the ranch in the Napa Valley) and a childhood teddy bear (one of many stuffed animals about which, the caption told us, she wrote stories), magazines in which her stories were published, including that one issue of
Playboy, her protest-march handbag festooned with buttons like "Question Authority" and "Reality is a Crutch," on to her Nebula for
Left Hand (no Hugos on display) and her Library of Congress "Living Legend" medal.
Beyond this in the main room was a large section devoted to maps. That she made maps first and constructed invented worlds by exploring the map was a major point in her creativity. Wall displays showed many maps that had been seen before and some that were new to me: a
map of Orsinia (published only in the Library of America Orsinia volume, which I hadn't seen) confirms its resemblance to Hungary, which I always found more of a model than Czechoslovakia, the other preferred candidate.
On a table lay computer tablets loaded with videos about UKL's map making, with headphones to listen to the narration (which also appeared on the screen). These told of everything from her inspirations - among them, her father's maps of Indian lands in his anthropology books - to her map-making techniques. One video showed a glimpse of a different version of "Some of the Places and Peoples Known to the Kesh" than was published in
Always Coming Home; expressing regret to the curators that it wasn't on the wall led to the revelation that it's
on UKL's website.
Other videos discussed artists inspired by UKL's maps, including Michael Everson, who found two unpublished maps in UKL's papers at the University of Oregon, one of the planet Athshe from
The Word for World is Forest, the other of an unknown land labeled in an unknown alphabet. Everson has redrawn these in a more professional style, but if the result has been published I didn't find out where.
A cubicle set up in the middle of the room contained UKL's original manual typewriter and another of the same model as the hum-less electric typewriter she eventually got. Attendees were encouraged to sit down at both and write their own compositions. I didn't do so, feeling too humbled by UKL's work to attempt to compete, but I did give advice to some younger attendees flummoxed by how the manual typewriter worked, especially its lack of a number 1 key. I advised that custom was to use the small l in its place rather than a capital I. Also in the cubicle was a binder of replicas of numerous rejection letters, mostly of the early version of
Malafrena she sent out in the 1950s, including the oft-referred-to but never previously seen letter in which Alfred Knopf said that 15 years earlier he'd have published it, but couldn't afford to do so now.
Two other items enlivened the main room. One was a tree, a model construct built of wood, on whose branches and roots were perched copies of almost every book UKL ever published, including a few translations, which attendees were invited to peruse; alas places to sit and read were lacking, although some younger people did settle on the concrete floor. And in a corner, which did have some seating, was a video display giving continuous runs of an hour-long film, "Views from Open Windows: Conversations with Ursula K. Le Guin." This was made by Arwen Curry, but is not the documentary I'd already seen; it was Curry's own interviews with UKL interspersed with clips from speeches and earlier interviews, including her appearance at the 1975 World SF Convention. Curry's interviews were both at UKL's home in Portland and at Kishamish, the family Napa Valley ranch. Lots of choice quotes; and at one point when the Blue Angels fly overhead at Kishamish, Ursula gives them the finger, on camera.
In the other room, a series of display cases showing her drawings and paintings - all of real-world places; books that inspired her (a vast selection, along with a card with a quotation to the effect that all the books she read inspired her), and a series of manuscripts and letters showing the editorial process at work on
The Tombs of Atuan. Also in this room were a number of artworks by others inspired by Le Guin, including an animated film showing kites (or possibly balloons) in the shape of cats gazing hungrily on others in the shape of fish.
But the reason I wanted to come on this weekend is that Saturday evening, Todd Barton, composer of the Kesh music in
Always Coming Home was giving a special presentation. This was in a hall to the side of the exhibit space. He talked about the process, how Ursula had secretly auditioned him when hearing the music he'd written for plays as house composer for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; how she sent a poem for his first setting, and he wrote back asking, "Do the Kesh speak English?" which led Ursula to take six months off to create the Kesh language; how they created the nonexistent instruments electronically; how LC at first refused to copyright the music on the grounds that they thought it was field recordings. He played recordings of some of the songs, recordings of the background material for others while he played or sung live; and he had the audience join in to sing the "heya" chant, but though it was a large and packed attendance, it didn't have the heft or moving quality of the time we did it at Mythcon. Barton did mention the Mythcon celebrating
Always Coming Home at which he also performed the music, though he didn't remember the group's name. But this did give me the opportunity to introduce myself after the program. I walked up and said, "Todd, I wanted to say hello," and gave my name. "I was the chairman of that conference you mentioned." He was astonished to see me, and we spoke warmly of the memories. I was relieved, though, that he didn't ask after the woman on our committee who did most of the Kesh cultural lifting, because then I would have had to report that she sadly died in a traffic accident some years later.
Withal, this was a highly satisfying exhibit and program, and it was worth the trouble of driving to Portland for it.
