Posts tagged with "Happenings"
Stuff going on in Ithaca
By Ari | Jun 12, 09 12:37 PM
I just made two Google Calendars, for Ithaca events and for Ithaca Freeskool. Both are pretty empty right now because I'm hoping the folks I invited in start adding their own stuff - I didn't want to do the fun, easy part.
I hope that having collaborative, public calendars will help us all to avoid conflicts when scheduling stuff - and that this could be a useful place for progressives to post stuff, a one-stop shop. Right now it's hard to stay on top of all the progressive stuff happening in Ithaca - what calendar should you subscribe to, where do you look? Everyone has their own calendar but it's hard to find it all in one place. So maybe Ithacalendar can fill that gap. Thanks to everyone who thought of it last night at Shira's DIY filmmaking class!
If anyone wants to be an editor on either or both of the calendars, and if I haven't yet invited you (sorry, I'm doing this rather haphazardly, any omitted invites are not meant to be slights!), please let me know and I'll get you access.
More: Activism | Happenings | Technology | What we're up to
Rooftop Films: Spread the word
By Ari | Jun 3, 09 12:38 PM
If you're in NYC this summer, go check out Rooftop Films, a film series dedicated to showcasing new, independent films and emerging bands in unique outdoor locations. This weekend there are a couple of screenings coming up that look great - one has free beer, and both also feature live music. Good times!
Fri, June 5
Trapped Inside the Machine (short films)
A fun, frantic, fantastical program of films about losing your grip on reality, and reality losing its grip on the world.
Venue: on the roof of the Open Road Rooftop
Address: 350 Grand Street @ Essex (Lower East Side, Manhattan)
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Sound Fix presents live music
9:00PM: Films
11:30PM - 1:00AM: Open Bar at Fontana's (105 Eldridge St), courtesy of Radeberger beer
Tickets: $9, http://newyork.going.com/event-602721;Rooftop_Films_Trapped_Inside_the_Machine
Sat, June 6
Stingray Sam (Feature length film)
A dazzling six-episode musical-western comedy that takes place in outer space, written, directed by and starring Cory McAbee, the creator of The American Astronaut. The filmmakers will be in attendance. Watch a trailer at http://stingraysam.com/trailer.html
Venue: on the roof of the Brooklyn Tech
Address: 29 Fort Greene Place (Fort Greene, Brooklyn) MAP
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Sound Fix presents live music
9:00PM: Films
Tickets: $9, http://newyork.going.com/event-602737;Rooftop_Films_Stingray_Sam
More: Film and Video | Happenings | Music and Audio | People we know
Making stuff and doing things
By Ari | Apr 25, 09 09:49 AM
So much has been happening, and I don't think we've posted a general update in a really long time. So for those who are interested...
Shira and I went to Winter Camp in Amsterdam with our friends from freeDimensional back in March. The event was a convergence of networks held by an organization that studies network cultures. People from all over the world came together to work within their network (on whatever their network works on - tech manuals, volunteerism, women and technology, whatever) and the Institute of Network Cultures watched us work and engaged us in learning what networks really are, how they're different from other cultural institutions, and how networks can work together in metanetworks.
We learned a lot. I'm always so challenged and excited by meeting with activists from all over the world - it really shakes up my ideas and understanding and makes me open my mind to other ways of thinking and doing. The hackers and open source folks in particular really spoke to me. I love the idea of technology being free and for the people, and am realizing that I want to help make that happen.
Our freelance business has been booming, which is nice, because traveling costs money! We've been working on some amazing projects for some very cool clients. The people we work with are all non-profits, culture workers, activists, and other progressive folks, and sometimes when I'm doing layout I'm also reading the text I'm formatting and thinking, "holy shit this is awesome!" (I'm talking about you right now, Scenarios USA!) Our clients really are helping to change the world.
However, a lot of work also means tough scheduling - sometimes a project goes longer than planned or an event date changes and suddenly a production schedule that was manageable becomes insanely difficult to navigate. There are only so many hours in the day! Recently I had three long documents (a gala journal, a curriculum, and a tech manual) due on the same day, over and over again, the deadlines constantly shifting as the projects got drawn out with extra edits and last-minute content updates. That was rough. But as I said, our clients are awesome, and even late nights and early mornings and weekend emailing is cool when it's for such amazing projects. It's nice to not only get a check and some nice print samples at the end of a project, but to really feel like whatever you've contributed to is going to make life better for people.
Ahimsa, our vegan intentional living project, is going so well! It's a very exciting process, meeting with people to create sustainable and affordable housing alternatives - the coolest thing is that we have no idea what we'll end up with. This open-endedness is a hallmark of our project; everyone in the group has been so flexible about the final product, which is really freeing. It's life as a design problem: Here are our needs, here are our resources; now how can we meet those needs with those resources? Easy! You go step by step and you can't go wrong. Diana Leafe Christian's Creating a Life Together has been such a help to us. She's helped give us confidence that even if people drop in and out of the project, and even if the project changes and takes on new forms, or splits, that that is progress and that is forming community. (For instance, there seems to be a greater need in Ithaca for increased access to and understanding of mutual aid, so Shira held a meeting that built on other community efforts to help that to form. This is a totally separate project from Ahimsa but is in other ways very related and overlapping. It's cool to see the "multiple centers of initiative" that Diana says are an indicator of a healthy community, in action, right here in our town. This flexibility is more freeing and useful than thinking anyone can come up with a single, perfect solution that will meet all of everyone's needs.)
Where is the project at right now? We're in between meetings, which we've been having every 2-4 weeks in Ithaca. These are consensus process meetings where we've been crafting a shared vision statement and educating ourselves about our housing options. We're gearing up for a spring retreat, where we'll camp out, do some storytelling and make food and music together, and have a bunch of big dialogues that will further define what we're all creating. And we're looking at properties, in case we find something we could afford outright that will allow us to escape the rent race so we can all save some resources and work together more easily. We're thinking hard about whether we want to pay a premium to be downtown in closer physical proximity to the greater community, or get more for our money by living out in the sticks. I'm leaning towards living out in the woods somewhere, personally. I want to do some building! Also, I dig how cheap it is to do natural building and I would like to influence policy by making alternative structures and getting them approved by building inspectors. Every dent we can make in the industrial housing complex with livable, healthy, DIY alternatives, is a step toward equitable housing for us all.
Shira and I have both been very productive creatively lately. Shira played at a house show at Ghost Cat Collective, and we both had work in an Ithaca Underground art show at the Underground Pirate House. Thanks to Ithaca Freeskool, I led a two-session workshop on DIY web design, and Shira's been going to a great photography group. I've been so inspired lately by all of the self-publishing and activism and organizing I've seen around me. When I have ideas sometimes I just write them down and don't act on them - but lately, I've been trying to just act immediately. I made a little zine I've been meaning to make for years, and some Ithaca buttons, and have been passing them around, curious to hear what people think of them so I can make them better.
Finally, it's spring here in Ithaca! I'm taking great heart from the warm wet smells of earth and blossoming trees, and from the sight of green life coming up from the ground so effortlessly and abundantly. I love how the seasons change, and how each transformation impacts us. We've been able to go out in just t-shirts, no hoodies! We've planted seeds! The windows are open and the cats are joyously sunning themselves in windowsills!
This has been a long and rambling post and I've barely covered half of the things that have happened in the past few months, but maybe the above gives you an idea of how deliciously, marvelously, inspiringly jam-packed our iCal is. I feel so grateful every day that I live in such a vibrant (local and global!) community that's challenging me on so many levels to create a better society in the here and now.
More: Activism | Happenings | Housing | What we're up to | Work
Human Scale Living
By Shira | Feb 24, 09 03:28 PM
A big part of why living in Ithaca has been so good for us is its small-but-not-too-small size. With a population of 60,000 (30,000 of which are students at Cornell and Ithaca College), there are plenty of people to create culture and innovation. But at the same time, it only takes a few social events to realize that this is a "small town." When I meet someone new, I'm no longer surprised to find out they know at least one other friend of mine, or that they've even "heard of me" - which always makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
When we were living in New York City we had a lot of great friends and yet we didn't ever have a sense of community. Part of this was that we dabbled in a lot of different subcultures - independent filmmakers, freegans, socialists, lesbians, radical marching bands, artists, academics, recreational volleyball players - instead of choosing one to call our own. These groups rarely overlapped and I found myself doing a lot of code-switching. Our friends were ideologically and geographically dispersed. The distance between a Red Hook freegan and an Upper East Side grad student is a lot greater than a few subway transfers.
Back in college I took an amazing course called Architecture as a Cultural System in which we explored, among other things, the concept of Human Scale. This is the idea that humans are best suited to live in an environment that is designed to meet their spacial needs. This means walkability, easy access to necessary resources, closeness to the ground and appropriate population size.
According to Wikipedia, "Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150."
Ari and I counted, and in just the last week, we've had 25 different friends over to our house, some of them more than once (you know who you are...Joe). Our friends Jeremy and Teresa came over for dinner on Sunday, Ari taught a freeskool class on web design on Wednesday, we had a ton of extra veggies from our CSA share so we had a potluck/cooking party with a bunch of folks on Thursday, more friends stopped by on Friday after watching Milk together at Cinemapolis (the art house theatre on The Commons), on Saturday the Phillips family came to stay with us for the weekend and Ben and Grace stopped by to join us for dinner and on Sunday we had our second official founders' meeting for Ahimsa Ecovillage with eleven guests, including three kids.
The amazing thing is that there are numerous ways in which all these folks are connected outside their relationships to us. This makes for a very tangible social fabric and a feeling of interdependence that I haven't truly experienced since sleep-away camp as a kid (I went to the socialist Jewish kibbutz-like Camp Moshava for six summers.)
As we move forward with Ahimsa, our sustainable, vegan ecovillage project, human scale will be a key concept. How can we create a community that is big enough to create innovation and cross-pollination, but small enough to maintain accountability and trust? How many people does it take to be self-sufficient? How will our size and location (rural vs. urban) impact our connection to the broader Ithaca community? I don't know the answers yet, but I'm loving the process of finding out. In the meantime, I'm enjoying being part of the monkeysphere.
More: Economics | Education | Environment | Family | Food | Happenings | Health | Housing | People we know | What we're up to
Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #6: Economies
By shirari | Feb 4, 09 02:33 PM
Tune into the Wednesday, February 4th edition of our podcast to check out our snappy new format! We've broken the show into three segments to make it easier for folks to selectively listen to parts they're interested in:
- Local Updates, in which we tell you about wonderful and exciting new developments in our local area, the Fingerlakes region of New York. You'll hear about permaculture organizing, the new Ithaca Freeskool calendar, and a new vegan group. (We can't wait to go to their pizza party on Friday!)
- Be the Change, in which we give you two tips, both of which, now that we think about it, are pig-related. (And yet, somehow, relevant to a general audience. We think.)
- Discussion: Economies, in which we look briefly at some issues with non-profit funding, venture capital, microlending, and global capitalism, as well as with socialism and other isms, before giving an overview of different interesting alternatives (featuring copyleft, coworking, freeganism, CSAs, relocalization, and other awesomeness).
Links mentioned in the show:
Hook up with other Fingerlakes Permaculture folks at flxpermaculture.net
Ithaca Freeskool
Ithaca Zine
Ahimsa Ecovillage
Ithaca Vegans Yahoo Group
Vegan Chai is so over bacon!
Ari's Twitter
Find a local CSA at localharvest.org
If you listen to our podcast, tell us what you like about it, and what could be improved! And if you don't listen to our podcast, why not? Tell us what you might like to hear, so we can do a better job of it. Thanks and peace to all who tune into this edition!
Previously:
Previous show notes
More: Activism | Animals | Economics | Environment | Food | Happenings | Housing | Human Rights | Music and Audio | Oppression | People we know | Politics | Shirari Peace and Love Podcast | What we're up to | Work
Historical
By Shira | Jan 20, 09 02:00 PM
My brother Amit left an inspiring poem as a comment on our blog:
On Martin Luther King Day
On the eve of THE Inauguration
I ask
What if
What if
Martin had not been shot
Ghandi
John
John
Yitzchak
What if
Children
Millions of Children were not murdered
The Indigo Girls said it better than I
"These are the questions
Stacked like wood
These are the answers
Here is potential gone for good"
I read that an 80-year old grand-child of slaves will see a Free man become our president.
What if
Wise Grand-parents and
Wise Grand-children
Made
Peace
Now
?
Thanks Amit!
The last few days have been very emotional to say the least. The main commercial artery of Ithaca, State Street, has been dually designated as Martin Luther King, Jr. Street.
And now, we can finally say that Barack Hussein Obama is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
There's no way that one man can live up to all of our expectations, but for me, the most important thing is that Obama's election has restored my belief that this country can move forward and be a positive force in the world again. Thank you to everyone who voted and worked to get Obama elected!
More: Happenings | Politics
Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #5: Top 8 Activist Strategies
By Shira | Dec 16, 08 05:51 PM
December 16, 2008 - 71 minutes - 95.5MB
After an update about Ithaca, Shaleshock and our vegan ecovillage project, we discuss our top eight best practices for changing the world and conclude the show with some ideas for a d.i.y. anticapitalist holiday season.
Show links:
- Tortillas and Cider, Delivered to Our Doorstep
- Ahimsa Ecovillage: A vision for a low-cost, low-impact, vegan ecovillage in or near Ithaca, New York
- Green Nettle Dacha
- Shaleshock
- Read Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World by Thich Nhat Hanh
- Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
- Read Shira's article Change-a-lujah! A Conversation with What Would Jesus Buy? Filmmakers Morgan Spurlock and Rob VanAlkemade
Some Places Worth Donating To (there are so many more, here are just a few):
- Arts Engine supports, produces, and distributes independent media of consequence and promotes the use of independent media by advocates, educators and the general public. Donate
- East New York Farms! is a collaborative project whose mission is to organize youth and adult residents to address food issues in their community by promoting local and regional sustainable agriculture and community-based economic development. Donate
- freeDimensional is an international network that advances social justice by hosting activists in art spaces and using cultural resources to strengthen their work. Donate
- The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. Donate
- Just Vision is a nonprofit organization that informs local and international audiences about under-documented Palestinian and Israeli joint civilian efforts to resolve the conflict nonviolently. Using media and educational tools, they raise awareness in order to encourage civic participation in grassroots peace building. Donate
- Scenarios USA is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that that uses writing and filmmaking to foster youth leadership, advocacy and self-expression in under-served teens. Scenarios USA asks teens to write about the issues that shape their lives for the annual "What's the REAL DEAL?" writing contest, and thousands have responded with their raw and revealing insights. Donate
- Shaleshock Citizens Action Alliance is a grassroots group of Finger Lakes residents who are concerned with understanding and protecting our communities and environment from exploitation by the energy industry with regards to drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. Donate
Previously:
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DIY Holidays
By Ari | Dec 7, 08 05:53 PM
More: Activism | Art and Design | Economics | Environment | Family | Happenings | Photography
Shale Shocked
By Shira | Dec 6, 08 03:05 AM
There are many factors that contribute to the fertility and productivity of land that are beyond a landowners' direct control. One of the major issues we need to consider in New York State is natural gas drilling. Ever since the development of more commercially-viable drilling techniques around 2000, major oil companies have been going to town on the Marcellus Shale. One of the main ways they get access to the land is by leasing land and drilling rights from local landowners. While this can be a good source of income for struggling farmers, there are numerous environmental impacts including the distribution of toxic chemicals into the soil and water table.
We've been getting involved with Shaleshock, a local resistance group, and we recently designed their logo and a new website. Check out the site to get up to speed on the issues and take action. One thing you can do now is comment on the DEC's draft scope...
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has released a draft scope document that outlines how they will regulate natural gas drilling of the Marcellus Shale. In addition to commenting at public hearings around the state, you can submit your comments via letter or email by December 15th.
Submit comments to:
Attn: Scope Comments
Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation, NYSDEC Division of Mineral Resources
625 Broadway, Third Floor
Albany, NY 12233-6500
Or email to dmnog@gw.dec.state.ny.us with "Scope Comments" as the Subject
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Tortillas and Cider, Delivered to Our Doorstep
By Shira | Dec 5, 08 12:43 PM
A lot of people have been talking about eating local, and the arguments are pretty straight-forward: when you eat local you save energy/fuel, build community, and develop your local economy. Not to mention, your food is a lot less likely to be processed with preservatives and other nastiness.
Eating local in Ithaca is pretty easy and it seems to be getting easier every day. The Ithaca Farmer's Market is open April through December and has amazing produce - plus local crafts, live music and hot food. A lot of the stands are organic and there's even one place where everything is veganically grown - Unexpected Farm from Watkins Glen.
We've been getting most of our produce from the Farmers Market since we moved here three months ago, and supplementing from Greenstar Cooperative Market - where we're members. Greenstar is definitely not 100% local, but they have really great signage, which makes it so much easier to know the distance food has traveled. But as winter sets in, the Farmer's Market closes up shop and buying local produce at the coop gets too expensive, so we decided to join a winter CSA. We just picked up our first share last week and it was an amazing bounty - carrots, potatoes, leeks, cabbage, turnips, garlic, kale, squash, radichio, bok choi, and salad greens.
The cool thing about the CSA model, is that it enables the farmer to get paid up front so that they have the money when they need it most for buying supplies, paying laborers, repairs, etc. And usually, by paying a fixed price at the beginning, the individual CSA member gets a really good deal on a lot of fresh, local food. It is probably the best way to eat seasonally, if you're not growing your own food.
What's really exciting right now is that all these small grassroots distributors are popping up to fill holes in the local market. A couple of months ago, it wasn't uncommon for us to go for a walk and pass by an unsupervised produce stand in front of a house on a quiet residential street.
Recently, our friend Emily was thinking about how there are no local tortilla makers, so she started making vegan, organic, wheat tortillas and delivering them to people on her bike. And then Travis and Ellen announced on the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute's email list that they had pressed a huge amount of cider and could deliver a half gallon or gallon to any one who wanted some.
And these projects are inspiring new ones. A couple of guys who got Emily's tortillas one week, made some hummus to put on them, and it was such a tasty combination that now they're planning on making and delivering hummus. I sampled some of their recipe at the hat band party and it was amazing. I can't wait for them to start distributing!
All this activity has gotten us brainstorming like crazy, especially whenever we meet up with our new friend Joe. He's a true renaissance man - a guy who knows how to build his own house, convert engines to run on vegetable oil, code websites and play death metal. We've been talking about collaborating on a vegan baked goods enterprise in the future.
But with all these microbusinesses launching, it seems like we could take this whole thing a step further. What if once a week, we all met up in one centralized location (maybe a rotating potluck at different people's houses) and we just swap stuff - no money involved. So Emily could bring her tortillas, and Travis brings his cider, and Ellen brings tea, and Dusqkee brings hummus, and Ari brings vegan cookies, and Joe brings vegan muffins, and Danila brings garlic, and Mer and Uriel offer massages, and Rachel teaches yoga, and I bring knitted hats and cozies etc. etc. And instead of paying each other, we would just swap in a mutual aid, take as you need kind of way. And maybe it's one big coop and we all put in cash when we can and take it out when we need it. And there's a local community center with an industrial kitchen and craft studios and workshops. And before you know it, we're a totally self-sustaining community.
This is where we are heading!
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Cool folks we're working with in Ithaca: Ithaca-Area Vegan Meetup Group and Shaleshock
By Ari | Dec 2, 08 03:05 PM
Are you in the Ithaca area, and either vegan or vegan-curious? Come check out the Ithaca-Area Vegan Meetup Group - we have a weekly coffee and tea hour at Autumn Leaves Cafe, 3pm on Sundays. Lately folks have been talking activism, which is awesome! Come over and get involved if you're in town and love animals. Whoo! If you want to help promote, here are handbills and a poster. (Designed by me.)
Another project Shira and I have been participating in is Shaleshock - the site was hacked before we arrived in town and so they haven't had a very good online presence. We're helping to get content up there and organized. It's my first time working with WordPress (I'm usually a Movable Type girl), and it's a lot of fun. Big thanks to Joe for setting this thing up!
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Expanding My Musical Horizons
By Shira | Nov 24, 08 02:41 PM
I've been playing guitar for twenty years. I started taking lessons at the Jewish Community Center across the street from my school in the third grade, after tap class. This guy named Tom taught me how to read music and play classical tunes. Later, I learned a bunch of Flamenco pieces. But really, I've always wanted to be in a band.
I was born in Portland, Oregon and even though we moved to Maryland when I was two, we have strong ties to the Feuer family, who have lived there for decades. Throughout my childhood, we visited them every few years, usually for Passover, when they host a seder with upwards of fifty people. The Feuers know how to have a good time, and a big part of that is music. Everybody plays something, or multiple instruments. Yoav plays the trumpet and can sing like Louis Armstrong. Avi plays guitar and taught me how to play folk music - the first non-classical song I learned to play was Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution" and it was Avi who showed me how to strum. Kimi's son Asher is a year younger than me and he can play a bunch of stuff, including the didgeridoo! In my nostalgic memories, every night at the Feuers was one extended jam session, with the players dropping in and out, spirited singing, and toddlers banging on drums.
Now that I'm a more seasoned musician with a bunch of songs and performances under my belt, what I'm still longing for is the jam. I want a community of people who I can get together with and make music. And I think I'm finding it here in Ithaca! The musical culture in these parts is really strong. When the weather is warm, it's not uncommon to see a person walking down the street playing the banjo, or stumble upon a drum circle in one of the parks.
And I'm jumping in. I haven't done an open mic yet, but I'm going to be performing on December 19th with my "hat band." I went to this party last week where a bunch of folks got together and put their names in a hat. Bands were picked at random and each group is going to perform as part of a group show. The catch is, we're supposed to play an instrument that we're not proficient in. I just got a mandolin a few weeks ago, so I think I'm going to play that! Wish me luck and stay tuned for details...
More: Education | Film and Video | Happenings | Music and Audio | What we're up to
Happy Thanksgiving with Love
By Ari | Nov 24, 08 10:32 AM
Thanksgiving approaches, and if you celebrate it, please consider celebrating it compassionately this year! I've met turkeys at Farm Sanctuary, and let me tell you, they are good people. Sweet, kind, lovey - one little guy made purring noises when I petted him, I'll never forget that - and every bit as hungry for holiday food and holiday love as the rest of us are.
There shouldn't be any room for cruelty on the holiday table - it's just too sad to spoil a celebration by eating a helpless, tortured animal. Instead, try a Tofurky from your local health food store, or just leave out the bird / bird facsimile altogether and chow down on pie and mashed potatoes and all that other good stuff. Use soy margarine and rice milk and egg replacer instead of dairy and eggs, and cows and chickens everywhere will thank you, too.
More info on and recipes for a compassionate Thanksgiving:
Turkeys at Poplar Spring: The Luckier Ones [change.org]
Adopt-A-Turkey Project [Farm Sanctuary]
Gentle Thanksgiving [FARM]
Menu: Vegan Thanksgiving [Serious Eats]
Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes [VeganBits.com]
More: Activism | Animals | Food | Happenings | Oppression
Recycling...The Least You Can Do
By Shira | Nov 13, 08 01:23 PM
Did you know that November 10-16 is International Recycling Week? Neither did I, until it showed up in one of my RSS feeds. Recycling is a good thing, but really, it's the least you can do. If there is a recycling system set up in your region, how could you not wash out your cans and bottles and put them curbside? In Ithaca, recycling actually saves you money because it's free, whereas you have to pay for garbage collection by weight. The problem is that so much public campaigning goes into promoting recycling, and very few people know that there are much more drastic ways to reduce your waste.
For the past month, I've been participating in the Ithaca freeskool reading group on permaculture. We're reading David Holmgren's Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. In Holmgren's chapter on waste, he outlines that in an ideal system there is no "waste" - only material that can be repurposed for food, fertilizer or some other utility.
Most people have heard "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" in which the first is preferable and recycling is only what you should do after you've exhausted use, but Holmgren adds a couple more key Rs to the list - Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle. To refuse is paramount, especially in the United States, which is disproportionately responsible for resource consumption and carbon emissions. To refuse is pretty easy when you start asking yourself "Do I really need this?" before purchasing new stuff.
Repair is another key step. Do you always get holes in your jeans in the same place - how many times have you patched your pants and kept wearing them? It might be easier to get a new DVD player when yours breaks but why not get it repaired - even if it takes a little more time and maybe even more money? The problem with our culture is that we're focused on convenience and money and have lost our understanding of true cost and true wealth.
Recycling is great and definitely something we should be doing as a society, but it is still very expensive and frustratingly limited. Even in a green oasis like Ithaca, there are only certain containers that can be recycled and the rest go to landfills. And don't even get me started on Tetra Paks.
So, while it's International Recycling Week, and I have your attention, why not think of some significant ways you could reduce your waste before recycling? Here are a few things we're doing:
- Buying very little and whenever possible, getting stuff for free or stuff that's been owned and used by someone else first. We're planning on building our future home from mostly salvaged (and natural) materials.
- Buying local to reduce the amount of resources and waste that go into transporting goods across the world.
- Using tote bags instead of plastic/paper bags and buying food in bulk in reusable containers. The Greenstar coop has an awesome bulk food section, including shampoo and cooking oils!
- Fixing stuff. Ari has a knack for sewing and has breathed new life into many pieces of clothing. When the cassette tape part of our stereo broke, we found a shop in Brooklyn that could fix it. Now we can keep listening to our cheesy tape collection from the 80s and 90s and there's one less piece of electronics in a landfill.
- Composting. We're looking forward to having our own land and building a composting toilet. My dream is to convert methane gas produced by our poo into energy. In the meantime, we compost all of our organic material. We drop off our food compost at the coop, but in the spring, well put it into our garden.
So yes, recycling is good, but it's still a compromise when it comes to consumption and waste. Don't forget to first refuse, reduce, reuse and repair!
Previously:
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"President Obama" sounds soooo good!
By Shira | Nov 5, 08 10:14 AM
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Feeling Patriotic
By Shira | Nov 4, 08 03:49 PM
I've been crying tears of joy off and on for weeks now, just thinking about today and Obama being president. I just got back from voting and I'm feeling patriotic.
I can't say that I've ever had a lot of American pride. In fact, in the past eight years, I've often wondered why my immigrant parents didn't choose a more socialist European country to settle in, and yes, I seriously considered moving to Canada for gay marriage and healthcare.
It hasn't helped that I turned eighteen in '98 and the only presidential elections I've had the right to participate in were mired in fraud and disenfranchisement. From the looks of it, the electoral system is still broken. Did you hear that Tim Robbins wasn't on the rolls today? But despite the broken machines and long lines, something big is happening. Something "historical" is happening. Something is changing.
Sure, Obama's hands will be tied on a lot of issues. And he's definitely more conservative than me in many respects. But I don't have any illusions that nation-states will dissolve, and people will work cooperatively for peace across the globe anytime soon. Pragmatic change is still change and I am ready to embrace it.
The day's not over yet, so who knows what will happen for sure. The difference is that this time, if there is a conspiracy to steal the vote, we're not going to take it, and neither is Obama.
More: Activism | Happenings | Politics
The Ithaca Green Buildings Open House
By Shira | Oct 17, 08 04:25 PM
Ari and I spent the first weekend of October climbing on people's roofs, investigating their toilets, and befriending their goats. No, we weren't being inappropriately nosy - it was all part of the 2008 Ithaca Green Buildings Open House!
In partnership with the American Solar Energy Society's National Solar Tour, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, Ithaca Green Building Alliance and the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association organized the two-day event in which twenty-seven sites were open to visitors.
As aspiring owner-builders with a vision for a naturally-built, sustainable ecovillage, the tour offered an amazing opportunity to see what building and energy techniques work locally, and to meet a bunch of really cool people. In addition to a lot of photovoltaic systems, we checked out some amazing living/green roofs, unconventional stoves, outhouses, vegetable gardens, and really, really long driveways.
Folks were using a variety of building-techniques including timber-frame, strawbale, earth-berming and round construction. We also learned, not surprisingly, that a lot of green home-owners love animals. We made friends with many cats and dogs and even a couple of goats!
We managed to visit six homes, but my favorite was the first - Sarah Highland's straw-clay timber-framed house-in-progress. Sarah designed and is building the house herself, with help from friends. It's surrounded by beautiful land featuring a pond, an adorable sauna, and a composting toilet outhouse, which Sarah and Liz lovingly refer to as their "room with a view" and which is also temporarily housing their solar panel equipment.
While some of the other homes on the tour were just as beautiful, Sarah had designed and built the house mostly by herself, which is pretty damn impressive. The masonry stove itself, is something to behold.
All in all, it was a great tour. My take-aways are:
- It's all about the land.
- If you're not too far from the road, being on-grid has some benefits, even if you're generating most of your own power.
- Wood is a beautiful building material.
- Solar systems are easier to maintain if they're not on your roof. Unless of course, if you have a solar hot water system on top of your earth-bermed green roof like the Bensons.
- Water catchment is easy - all you need is a barrel.
- Being a bit of a gadget geek is good.
- It makes sense to design a home where you can age in place.
- Salvaged and vintage stuff is awesome.
- Make friends with your local saw mill.
Here are some of my favorite photos from the tour...
liz says she likes big "crazy" ideas like bike generators - me too!
approaching tina macdonald's place
visitors on the bensons' earth-sheltered living roof
the bensons' roof is so cool...
Hopefully it won't be too long before our home is part of the Ithaca Green Buildings Tour...
More: Animals | Economics | Education | Environment | Film and Video | Happenings | Housing | Photography | What we're up to
Spreading the Word About Ahimsa Ecovillage
By Shira | Oct 6, 08 04:03 PM
On September 20th, 2008, we presented our idea for Ahimsa, a vegan ecovillage, with members of Club Veg Southern Tier and the Ithaca Area Vegan Meetup. The discussion took place at Smart Monkey Cafe where the group convened for a delicious vegan meal. Thanks to Ben Bristoll for video taping the event and to Bill Huston for taking photos!
Ahimsa Ecovillage Discussion from Shira Golding on Vimeo.
I love this photo of us. Doesn't Ari look like a visionary?
Photo by Bill Huston
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The Grandmothers Speak - October 5th, Ithaca
By Ari | Sep 10, 08 09:51 AM
We're going to this event on October 5th, The Grandmothers Speak. Thirteen indigenous grandmothers from all over the world will do a prayer of healing for the earth, something even this 1/64 Cherokee atheist is excited to see and hear. You can visit the grandmothers online here.
More info and tickets. Read on for a longer description of the group and the event.
Continue reading "The Grandmothers Speak - October 5th, Ithaca..." »
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An update on Ahimsa, our vegan ecovillage project
By Ari | Sep 9, 08 10:35 AM
Club Veg Southern Tier has invited us to the Smart Monkey Café outing they've planned with The Ithaca Area Vegan Meetup Group. If you're in the area, please join us - you can RSVP here.
We've just updated and improved the project webpage and ic.org listing. We hope that it now provides a clearer and more useful way to get involved than our previous request that people email us (which we always took waaaay too long to respond to). It also provides some guidance as to where to go from here, once you've joined the list. And finally, it now answers a lot of questions that kept coming up in our discussions.
If you're interested in community living and would be willing to live in a sustainable, cruelty-free way in or around Ithaca, we want to meet you! Check out the page for more info and to get involved.
Previously:
A community can look like this
Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #2: Housing
Ahimsa Ecovillage
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Strange Overtones
By Shira | Aug 8, 08 12:02 PM
"Strange Overtones" is the name of the new track just released by David Byrne and Brian Eno. I was just listening to it a few minutes ago, and I could not keep myself from getting up and dancing. It's pretty awesome. You can download it for free from the album site - I guess they're experimenting with new distribution techniques a la Radiohead with their album, In Rainbows.
I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know much about Byrne a few years ago, but he'll definitely be a part of what I remember about our time living in NYC, which is rapidly coming to an end! And apparently he likes some of the same stuff as us. He was in the same movie theatre as us when we saw the amazing Korean monster comedy The Host at the Sunshine and I spotted his glistening white hair in line at McSweeney's "The World Explained" fundraiser for 826 NYC in April 2007. He also curated what was definitely the best concert experience I have had in many years - the "Welcome to Dreamland" show at Carnegie Hall, a showcase of the "freak folk" movement featuring Devendra Banhart, Vashti Bunyan, CocoRosie and others.
Most recently, we checked out Byrne's installation "Playing the Building" at the Maritime Building en route to the Figment Festival on Governor's Island. Here's a little video clip...
So now I have to start learning more about Brian Eno. Our paths haven't crossed nearly as much, but coincidently he did the music for the 1997 BBC series "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand (embedded below), which I was just watching a few days ago on Google video. It's a great introduction to the way that buildings are shaped by humans and the environment. So can I assume that Eno shares our passion for permaculture and natural building? Just maybe...
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Camp it up with Rude Mechanical Orchestra - Party tonight, NYC!
By Ari | Jun 27, 08 02:18 PM
CAMP IT UP! with the RUDE MECHANICAL ORCHESTRAFriday, June 27th at DCTV
87 Lafayette Street, NYC (just south of Canal)
$0-$20 suggested donation - $20 gets you a special gift!
Doors open at 7pm
Wear something CAMP-y!
HELP US GO PROTEST THE RNC! ***Bike valet! Silent auction! S'mores! Stripes! Khaki shorts! Fun!
Buy a raffle ticket and win your chance to have the RMO perform at a personal event of your choosing! Yes, we're serious. 1 for $3, 2 for $5, 10 for $20. Available now until the party. Your event must take place after our tour and be in one of the five boroughs.
Also featuring:
Veveritse
Inner Princess
Melora auf Rasputina
Frank London
Jennifer Miller of Circus Amok!
DJ Dusty Walker
And, of course, the RMO*** In August 2008, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra is taking our show on the road - in a low-impact, environmentally-friendly manner (no stretch SUV limo for us). We will be converting a school bus to run on waste veggie oil and traveling cross country for a two-week adventure -- to cross-pollinate with progressive grassroots organizations and other amazing movers and shakers, and to loudly register our dissent at the Republican National Convention. Along our journey, we plan to raise awareness about and support groups and individuals fighting against racism, sexism, homophobia, war and violence in all its forms. So come party with us and help one of the hardest-working bands in town send our rabble-rousing brassy selves to speak music to power!
Previously: Send the Rude Mechanical Orchestra to the RNC
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My photo is in the "Click!" show at the Brooklyn Museum!
By Shira | Jun 26, 08 04:12 PM
This is the photo I submitted to the Brooklyn Museum's "crowd-curated" show, "Click!" and...it's going to be in the show!!! Can you tell I'm excited? You can explore the show online or come see it at the Brooklyn Museum, June 27–August 10.
There's also a panel this Saturday on Governor's Island as part of the Figment Festival:
Click! Panel Discussion
Saturday, June 28, 11 a.m.
Governors Island
Brooklyn Museum clicks with the crowd at FIGMENT 2008, a celebration of participatory art and creative culture held on Governors Island. A panel discussion about the process and outcome of Click! will be held on Saturday, June 28, at 11 a.m. Panelists include James Surowiecki, New Yorker financial columnist and author of The Wisdom of Crowds; Jeff Howe, contributing editor of Wired magazine, who coined the term “crowdsourcing”; Eugenie Tsai, Brooklyn Museum’s John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art; and Shelley Bernstein, Brooklyn Museum’s Manager of Information Systems and the organizer of Click! The panel will be moderated by Nicole Caruth, Brooklyn Museum’s Manager of Interpretive Materials and a freelance writer and curator based in Brooklyn. Please note: In order to make the panel you must take the 10 or 10:30 a.m. ferry, which depart from South Ferry and are free of charge. Specific travel instructions can be found on the Figment Web site. The panel will take place in Perkins Hall. Seating is limited.
We went to the Figment Festival last summer and it was awesome - hope to see you there!
More: Art and Design | Environment | Happenings | Media | Technology | What we're up to
Happy List
By Shira | Jun 5, 08 07:20 PM
There is a cat posse in our apartment, same-sex marriages are going to be recognized in New York State, my cousin Amir starred in this Borat spoof (it's a video for his high-school graduation party in Haifa), crop circles on google earth, using skype as our land line, Senegalese hip-hop at the eighth annual Media That Matters Film Festival Awards Ceremony, visiting Ithaca last weekend for a co-housing workshop at EcoVillage, looking for an apartment in Ithaca and finding an awesome one!!!, the plants in our window pots are starting to bloom, Obama is the democratic candidate for president, sharing our art and music this weekend as part of Bushwick Open Studios, picking up our first Hearty Roots CSA share of the season in Williamsburg, women's turkish oil wrestling at Galapagos, Renegade Craft Fair at the McCarren Park Pool June 14-15, Pineapple Express at BAM with Director David Gordon Green, tank tops, summer...
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Check Out Our Music and Art at Bushwick Arts Festival This Weekend!
By shirari | Jun 5, 08 05:45 PM
This weekend (June 6-8) is the Bushwick Open Studios & Arts Festival and we hope you'll come check it out!
We'll have art and photography at the Nut Roaster Studio as part of a group show on display all weekend, and on Sunday night Shira is playing her music as part of a music festival at Don Pedro's. Here are the details...
Shirari Art and Photography
Mighty Tanaka Group Show
Saturday, June 7th - Sunday, June 8th
12-7pm
Nut Roaster Studio
120 Ingraham St., Brooklyn (at the corner of Porter Ave.)
L train to Morgan Ave.
Google Map
Shira's Live Music
Bushwick Open Studios Music Festival
Sunday, June 8th
Shira is scheduled to go on at 10pm
Don Pedro's Bar and Lounge
90 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn (between Boerum St. and McKibben St.)
L train to Montrose Ave. or J/M to Lorimer or G to Broadway
Google Map
www.myspace.com/shiragoldingmusic
We'll be in the neighborhood all weekend. Hundreds of artists will be having open studios, and there are tons of events including an art parade, cabaret and more.
More: Art and Design | Happenings | Music and Audio | What we're up to
Join Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping for a Final Fabulous Worship this Sunday - NYC
By Ari | May 29, 08 01:18 PM
We're going to a cohousing workshop at Ecovillage at Ithaca this weekend, so we can't make it, but I wanted to give a shout out for Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping and their big party this Sunday, 2pm, at the Highline Ballroom. (Tickets $12; scholarship tickets available - contact Reverend Billy.) It looks 100% awesome, and a fantastic opportunity to wear crazy clothing:
We'll celebrate Mayor of the Sideshow Dick Zigun and Bearded Lady Impresario Jennifer Miller. We'll promise to Take the Devil out of Developer and Put Free Speech back in the Parks! Save Coney Island! DRESS UP FOR CHURCH! Embracing our inner Freak-a-lujah! and always creating the beyond-organized-religion approach to theFabulous Unknown, please, come to church wearing YOUR SUNDAY BEST! Faeries, Rubulads, Amoks and side-show specialists – Put the ODD Back In Your GOD!
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Guerilla Girls meet Barnstormers - Saturday, NYC
By Ari | May 15, 08 12:19 PM
We just heard about a cool event happening on Saturday at the Bronx Museum: A "Collaborative Day of Performance" that goes 12-6pm and includes, among other wonders, a collaborative "Satiric demonstration" by the Barnstormers and the Guerilla Girls. If you don't know the folks in question yet, check out the video below of the Barnstormers in action. Now imagine it crossed with feminist art activism. I think this is not to be missed. More info can be had here: Bronx Museum Events.
(Via the Bluestockings Feminist Book Club)
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Stop 'N' Swap on Saturday - NYC
By Ari | May 8, 08 09:59 AM
Build It Green is having a Swap Fest Block Party this Saturday in Queens, 11am-4pm. Like a Really Really Free Market, this is a great opportunity to get rid of stuff you're not using anymore (and maybe pick up some stuff you need), in a really local/community-centered and environmentally-friendly way.
Build It Green is a very cool place to wander around any day. If you need any low-cost salvaged building materials (or even furniture), this is the perfect time to get to know these guys and to check out the warehouse. Good stuff!
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E-waste recycling event at Tekserve Mac shop - NYC
By Ari | Apr 10, 08 03:55 PM
Our favorite Mac shop and my one-time employer Tekserve, who recently sold us our new and amazing video editing system (THANKS!), is having their second annual Electronics Recycling Event, together with the Lower East Side Ecology Center. These sorts of environmentally-friendly shenanigans are just what I'd expect from Tekserve, home of "Fair Weights and Square Dealings." The event will be April 26th-27th, right here in NYC.
More tips on recycling things you just don't know where to recycle:
GrassRoots Recycling Network
EcoCycle
GreenDisk
More: Activism | Environment | Happenings | People we know | Technology
Earth Hour, Blackout Sabbath, and other symbols of sustainability
By Ari | Mar 29, 08 10:37 AM
Today I was happy to see Google blacked out in support of Earth Hour, tonight's hour of energy awareness (8pm - 9pm). Turn out your lights to participate, if you're into it.
However, reading about Earth Hour, I couldn't help but think Rufus Wainwright's Blackout Sabbath - 12 hours of no energy use at all, on the summer solstice, June 21, along with setting personal goals for sustainability - is a lot more hardcore. The World Wildlife Fund, who's behind Earth Hour, should have talked to Rufus and set their sights a little higher, pushed people a little harder!
On Rufus' short sample list of actions one can take for the environment, he even includes going vegan (my fingers are SO crossed right now that he'll join our vegan ranks... c'mon Rufus, you can do it...). Veganism is such an obvious step toward sustainability that it gets a little infuriating when I see Treehugger and WorldChanging and the like continually ignoring it as an option and suggesting people find "sustainable fisheries" and "happy meat", as if that solves much else besides making people feel a little better about oppressing animals.
I don't think I'm going to participate in Earth Hour, but I do think I'll do Blackout Sabbath. I loved the blackout too, and I think it could be magic to spend that time making art about the earth and the future, or writing by (vegan!) candlelight about the times to come and how we can make it beautiful. I like setting goals for myself, and I like participating in consciousness-raising events like fasts and the like, because I like, well, raising my consciousness. These events are symbols, but important ones: They're fissures in the wall of separation we put up between our energy-consuming, self-centered, here-and-now lives - and the future, our children's future, the future of the earth. We don't like to look over there, to see what we're actually setting up for ourselves. If it takes an hour (or 12 hours) of reflection and awareness to really take a good look at what we're doing and how we can change, then that symbolic act is a very useful one.
But in the end, we need more than just temporary observances and symbolic acts, right? If you're out of a room for over two minutes, there shouldn't be a light on in there. If you've got appliances with power indicator lights on them that are plugged in all day, they're just sitting there sucking up energy, and should be unplugged until they're needed. If your home just doesn't stay cool in the summer or warm in the winter, maybe you need to fix your insulation so all of that energy doesn't just fly our the window. In every situation we have the power to make decisions that add to the problem, or that make the world a better place. There are easy little things we can all do every day, all day, to go beyond symbols and toward true sustainability. What do you do? And do symbols help, or distract from this larger, deeper movement?
More: Activism | Animals | Environment | Happenings | Music and Audio | Oppression
Celebrate Foodswings' birthday - Sunday, NYC
By Ari | Mar 26, 08 10:24 AM
On Sunday, March 30, the delicious and amazing "vegan fast food joint" Foodswings in Williamsburg, Brooklyn will be hosting an anniversary party. If you are in NYC and like fake meat and french fries and milkshakes, you must go! There will be three menus to choose from: their mighty-fine regular menu, the midnite munchies menu, and the elusive, long-cancelled brunch menu, which you can only take advantage of during parties like this one. Foodswings catered our vegan wedding and we still get compliments about the tasty, tasty food from our mostly-omnivorous friends and family, over a year later.
Plus, you can't beat the atmosphere, or the neighborhood. You've never seen such tight pants, or such decked-out bikes, or such fun hats. Foodswings is a great place to pick up hand-drawn punk show fliers and read a copy of Arthur Magazine or the Onion. It's also right around the corner from Cinders Gallery, one of our favorite galleries in NYC, and from The City Reliquary, home of the Giant Pencil Collection and numerous labeled chunks of cement from exotic locations like Coney Island. In short, it's one of our favorite corners of NYC. See you on Sunday?
More: Animals | Food | Happenings | People we know
Fight Military Recruitment in Schools
By Shira | Mar 1, 08 07:21 PM
The New York Coalition of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) have recently released a curriculum that helps teachers educate their students about military recruiting tactics. The goal is to empower students with concrete information and to make sure they know about alternative ways to access education and career-building tools after high-school.
Ari and I had the pleasure of designing the cover for Camouflaged: Investigating How the U.S. Military Affects You and Your Community, which you can preview and buy online through Lulu.com.
If you're a teacher who want to get involved, you should come to the meeting this week...
NYCoRE's Counter Recruitment Project Meeting
Thursday, March 6, 5:30-7:30
CUNY Graduate Center 34th St. & 5th Ave., Room 5489
Please bring ID
Topics of discussion include:
- Bringing teachers together to develop a workshop for other teachers around unpacking military recruitment in New York City Schools and across the country
- Outreach to bring teachers and administrators from Upper Manhattan neighborhoods to the workshop
- Strategizing ways to share the ideas developed by New York City teachers in NYCoRE's recently released curricular guide Camouflaged
- Developing ways to be a voice in the events acknowledging the anniversary of the war in Iraq
And here are some great videos about recruiting and the impact of war on veterans from Media That Matters: No Child, All That I Can Be and Night Visions
More: Activism | Art and Design | Books and Writing | Education | Film and Video | Happenings | Oppression | People we know | Work
Arts Engine Meets VH1's Pop-Up Video
By Shira | Mar 1, 08 01:25 PM
A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of putting together a video for Arts Engine's big 10 year anniversary party at Southpaw. Having recently left the staff after almost six years to join forces with Ari, it was a pretty nostalgic experience. I'm not sure this will be in any way entertaining for folks not intimately familiar with the ins and outs of Arts Engine/Big Mouth Films, but feel free to take a look.
More: Animation | Film and Video | Happenings | Work
If I Blog Today, Will the Entry Only Appear in the Archives Every Four Years?
By Shira | Feb 29, 08 06:42 PM
Ari and I met up with Laimah and some of her friends to check out the WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution show. We went to a panel about art and activism, walked through the galleries and then ended up in the cafe downstairs.
That's when I felt something hard and sticky on the bottom of my shoe. As soon as I saw what it was, I figured it must have been on the floor in the bookstore, where I had been browsing. I pictured the stacks and the Theory section, somewhere in limbo, unlabeled, being consumed into other subjects.
So I turned around and walked straight back to the store and went up to the guy behind the little counter and handed it over. He took it from my hand, smiled, said thanks, and then tossed it straight into the trash. So I took it out of the trash and kept it.
HAPPY LEAP YEAR!!!!!
More: Art and Design | Happenings
Vegan Ice Cream Tasting!
By Shira | Jan 29, 08 03:43 PM
A couple of weekends ago Ari and I went to a free tasting of Wheeler's Black Label Vegan Ice Cream at a tiny gallery in the East Village called Little Cakes. The two flavors we tried were peanut butter chocolate chip and espresso, and they were both delicious.
The company is based in Boston, but they're planning on expanding their distribution. To get the word out, they're throwing free tasting parties around the country, and anyone can volunteer to be a host.
While I have mixed feelings about vegan facsimiles of animal products -- they usually are highly-processed and not nearly as healthy as whole foods -- I still "need" an occasional fix, and am looking forward to the day that Wheeler's is in my grocer's freezer. Once you taste some, I'm sure you'll agree, even if you eat dairy.
Crafting Protest
By Ari | Jan 27, 08 08:15 PM
Yesterday Shira and I hit a panel at the New School called "Crafting Protest", the result of a collaboration between women working around the intersection of crafting and activism. Liz Collins, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Cat Mazza and Allison Smith showed us presentations on their amazing projects, and dropped some science.
Shira's Flickr photoset Crafting Protest at the New School - January 26, 2008 includes links to the panelists websites and such. And these are my drawings made while at the event:
More: Activism | Art and Design | Clothing | Happenings
