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Sunday, November 16, 2008
Changed Addresses
After two years of being frustrated with the complexities of Expression Engine, I’ve gone over to WordPress, which is sooooo much easier to work with. My new blog is called Soiled Hands, and you can find it here: http://soiledhands.wordpress.com/.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
A Man Named Pearl
I saw a very inspirational movie last night. I know, I distrust the word ‘inspirational’, too. But trust me. The title: A Man Named Pearl. It’s about an African-American sharecropper’s son living in the poorest county of South Carolina who became this stunning environmental artist. His medium: topiary gardens. His name: Pearl Fryar. The movie: A Man Named Pearl. The guy Pearl was clearly obsessed, but he was supported in his obsession by his own energy and vision and the love of his family and community. Highly recommended to any gardener who has ever met with blank stares when they talk about the pull of gardening.
Monday, June 09, 2008
On the Road
I’m on a road trip from Los Angeles up to my brother’s house in Sacramento. I’m writing this at a flea bag hotel near the start of Highway 99. When I checked in, the woman at the front desk (60ish with lots of tattoos) asked if I was from out-of-town or not. I told her I’m from Brooklyn. She said, “Good. I’ll give you one of the better rooms. The locals tear things up too much.” Across the street is the legendary Buck Owens Crystal Palace.
My route here was 101 to a canyon road that took me to Malibu, where I followed Highway 1 up the coast to just past Ventura where I caught Highway 33 up through Los Padres National Forest. That was an amazing road. Hairpin turns, rugged mountains, and banks of Matilja poppies in full bloom. However, it was distressing to see all of the dying oaks.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
My Walk with Chris
My friend Chris Carlsson is in town promoting his terrific new book, Nowtopia. The premise of the book is that there’s a new politics of work that has separated itself from the market. People are doing things because they need doing, and because they get creative and social satisfaction from doing it. Chris looks at “vacant lot gardeners” along with pirate programmers, outlaw bicyclists, bio-fuel developers and the like. It’s very fascinating and compelling. What I like about his premise is that it links what community gardeners are doing with renegades from the market to give a vision of an very vital, very anarchic movement.
So Chris came out to East Bushwick and I gave him a tour of the community gardens in the neighborhood. We also stopped by the Biko Center, which is the Afro-centric community and cultural center about a block from my house.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Photo Gallery
I need to learn how to use the batch entry feature of the photo gallery for this damn program—or probably better yet, transfer to an easier to use blogging program. Anyway, I’ve uploaded a bunch of photos taken over the past couple weeks to Picasa: click here
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Who says community gardening has lost its edge?
This has been a crazy period. I’ve been busy gardening on the weekends and work has been insane with an upcoming fundraising “event.” God how I hate that word. Call it a party and be done with it.
Anyway, a couple weeks ago I spent a Saturday cycling around gardens in my neighborhood of Bushwick and Ocean Hill. At the Secret Garden, this totally wild, one-acre site hidden in the middle of two blocks of row houses on Linden Street near Broadway, the folks were doing a major clean-up. They had filled up a huge dumpster with discarded furniture, auto parts, building rubble—and there was a lot more to go. This fellow found a discarded gun. Not a toy gun. A real gun. And they said this was the second gun they had found.
The “event” happens on Wednesday. After that I can relax into summer. I’ve been making many new gardening friends, so expect many more blog posting and pix.