I was there. Mob shmob. I was there from the start, we started dancing to a dj on the side of the street, about ten of us, more and more came until we were taking up a full lane, then we simply started dancing in the full street. It was very memorable and VERY magical, it was a dream in some senses for me, a community dancing in the streets. Reminded me why I moved to PDX. The vibe was great and I was very pleased. Then some more anarchist folks started these chants "whose streets?" "OUR STREETS!!" whose streets? our streets It was fun and fine, and I stayed while it got bigger and bigger. Soon there were maybe 200 people there. I wasn't a fan of the chanting, I wanted to say "just dance guys, just dance, thats why we took the streets, to dance, not as an act of defiance" I guess it meant different things to different people.

But I was still so pleased in the outcome--that we were dancing in the streets--that we stayed and danced for a good hour and a half. Soon the chanting got to me and we left to go to spincycle. As I biked away I met a friend who had seen the fight on 18th street, I kept biking and saw 50 cops in riot gear. I asked what had happened and several of them said 400 dancers surrounded the police and threw bottles at them. I tried to explain that it was two separate incidents--one nice dancers and the other a fight with 15-20 people who threw bottles. But they liked their version better than mine. The story got twisted around, like telephone, but it sounds better with 400 people against two cops than 15.

Too bad, I just hope there aren't tons of cops next thursday watching for dance parties and breaking them up before they get 'unruely'

Is "neighborhood folk" a pejorative? ;) IMHO, there are plenty of people who have lived in that neighborhood for decades but have nothing to do with Last Thursday. I was just curious who was involved.