The chi of Portland: High weirdness in Nirvana | Kansas.com

PORTLAND, Ore. – Acupuncture is not just for people. It’s also for cities – if the city is Portland.

Adam Kuby has stuck a 23-foot needle into the ground down by the Willamette River and hopes to plant more, choosing locations where he figures the city’s “chi,” or vital energy, needs some help.

Unusual? You bet. Unusual for Portland? Not really.

Because the city apparently has a lot of weirdos in it. The rest of the article goes on to describe some of the quirky events and people to be found in Portland, but honestly most of it doesn’t sound too strange. The guy trying to do acupuncture should win a nutcase prize of some sort.

Among the latest additions to the panoply of Portland’s oddities are Adam Kuby’s giant needles. An artist who arrived from New York four years ago, Kuby says the acupuncture project is an attempt to get people to see the city in a holistic way.

“It is a visual way of expressing what a lot of people already know,” said Kuby. The city is “one organism, one body, one very complex, independent system.”

Other than this nutball, the city’s weirdness actually is very appealing to me as I’ve long been attracted to people and places that aren’t afraid to be seen as different. I don’t know that I’d attempt what the article describes as “Zoo Bombing” at my age, but I might go watch people participating in it. If nothing else it might be a fun place to visit.