Smoke Farm, glowing with ideas.
  • SF
  • Smoke Farm, glowing with ideas.

Tickets are now available for the fifth annual Smoke Farm Symposium on Sat, Aug 3, 2013.

This year we have seven presentations, including a philosopher, an architect, an ant biologist, and the American creator of the Occupy Wall Street meme, as well as an excellent dinner.

As Frizzelle wrote in last week's Suggests issue:

Smoke Farm Symposium

For several years, a small, unpretentious, invite-only symposium of scientists, artists, economists, and culinary talents has gathered in the rural splendor of Smoke Farm, an hour north of the city, for a weekend of talks, fireside conversations, river swimming, and camping. This year, the Symposium is open to the public. Speakers include Micah White, editor of Adbusters and cocreator of Occupy Wall Street; Deborah Gordon, an ant biologist at Stanford who studies colony behavior; and David Shapiro, UW philosophy teacher and former LA comedy writer. Stranger staffer Brendan Kiley cocurates the symposium, but don't let that stop you! (Sat Aug 3, Smoke Farm, strangertickets.com, free, $15 $10 suggested donation for dinner.) CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

Talks are free (but please register so we can get an accurate head count). If you want to stay for dinner—made by Monica Dimas of Monsoon, La Bête, and Anchovies and Olives—there's a suggested $10 donation. (Cheap!)

Full lineup and details below the jump. Register for/buy tickets here. Space is limited, so don't dawdle!

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The Fifth Smoke Farm Symposium
Saturday, Aug 3 2013, 10:30 am–nightfall
12731 Smokes Road, Arlington, WA 98223
www.smokefarm.org
Tickets: The talks are free (but please sign up), $10 suggested donation for dinner. Space is limited.

Scientists, activists, scholars, artists, journalists, and others gather at Smoke Farm each year for the late-summer Symposium—a day of lectures and conversation, capped off with a communal dinner by an accomplished Seattle chef. Past speakers have included fellows of the MacArthur and Soros foundations, members of the Black Panther Party, an architect working on environmentally sustainable city planning with the Chinese government, paleo-ecologists, graphic designers, research physicians, actors, and others.

This is our fifth Symposium. The chef will be Monica Dimas of Anchovies & Olives. The presenters will be:

Micah White “The Role of Cascadia in Leaderless Revolution”

Micah White is an editor-at-large for Adbusters and the American creator of the Occupy Wall Street meme.

Deborah Gordon “Ant Colonies, Brains, and the Internet: How Things Work with No One in Charge”

Deborah M. Gordon, a professor of biology at Stanford University, studies how ant colonies operate without central control and the evolution of collective behavior.

Endnotes “Spontaneity, Mediation, Rupture”

Endnotes is a small collective with members scattered across the US and Europe which irregularly publishes a journal of communist theory, including the influential essay “Misery and Debt.” The third issue will be published this fall.

Kathryn Rogers Merlino “The Value of Repair”

Kathryn Rogers Merlino is an assistant professor in the department of architecture at the University of Washington.

Bob Brock “As If Nothing Has Been Gained: Getting Organized Labor Out Of Its Existential Funk”

Bob Brock is from Butte, Montana, and is the Western United States Organizing Coordinator for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Eddie Yuen “Can We Imagine the End of Capitalism Before the End of the World?”

Eddie Yuen is a writer, editor, and radio producer who teaches in the Urban Studies Department at the San Francisco Art Institute. He co-edited The Battle of Seattle: The New Challenge to Capitalist Globalization and is the co-author of Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth.

David Shapiro “My Life: As If”

David Shapiro is a philosopher, a professor at the University of Washington, and the world’s foremost writer of the 327-word essay. His most recent book is titled Yoga, Cycling, and Pot: 99 327-Word Essays on Bending, Biking, Baking, and More.

Monica Dimas Dinner

Monica Dimas has cooked at Campagne, Le Pichet, Spinasse, La Bête, and Monsoon and is currently working at Anchovies & Olives. During the summer months, Dimas and her mother host Mexican dinners where they cook food from her mother’s childhood in the Michoacan region.

Homemade tamales and hibiscus tea, made by Monica's mother, will be available for purchase at lunchtime.

Please join us.