Viggo Mortensen on the Early Show

Viggo Mortensen seemed a bit sleepy in his appearance on the CBS Early Show on Wednesday, Sept. 10. I really enjoyed his comments about carrying around the 8 gauge shotgun.

The first day I said to Ed, "Look, I know it's in the book; it's an important part of the character. But it's a big gun, and it's going to be a long couple of months if I've got to do this every day." But by the second day I kinda liked it. And I said I want to have it everywhere. I want to have it when I'm in bed, when I'm having dinner, when I'm walking down the street. And it is kind of intimidating. It was like my scary friend, you know. It had a psychological effect. It's like that thing that you fight sometimes -- the obstacle becomes your friend. So it was all right.

Viggo reading in Portland

I'm finally going to see Viggo Mortensen in person! He has been filming The Road in the Portland, Oregon, area, and will be reading this Friday evening, May 16, as part of the Voices of a People's History tour.

(I'm driving up Friday afternoon from Corvallis. If you are interested in car-pooling, please contact me!)

In addition to Mortensen, the evening features readings by performance poet Staceyann Chin, poet and musician Tevino Brings Plenty, singer Shontina Vernon, Portland student activist Sarah Levy, actor Michael Ealy, teacher, actor, and musician Eric Levine, editor and author Anthony Arnove, and other fine actors and activists.

They will be reading from Voices of a People's History of the United States, edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. Voices is the primary-source companion to Howard Zinn's best-selling A People's History of the United States. It features the words of rebels, dissenters and visionaries from our past — and present.

Here is a video excerpt, read by Viggo Mortensen:


The performance is sponsored by the Illahee Lecture Series and is a benefit for Voices of a People's History of the United States, a 501c3 created to encourage civic engagement and to further history education by bringing the rich stories of dissent and activism in the United States to life through public readings.

For more information, visit HowardZinn.org. Tickets are available online through the Illahee Institute. As of Monday morning, May 12, they have about 50 tickets left.

If you can't make it to Portland, consider visiting Democracy Now! for video and audio of one of a May, 2007, show. An audio CD, Readings from Voices of a People's History of the United States, is also available. And see Wikipedia: A People's History of the United States for in-depth discussion and analysis of the books.