horizons...and What's On Your Plate?

Medley medley medley, I ended up getting soaked in Chelsea today, I think people like getting caught in the rain. Or like watching other people getting caught in the rain. But in a really sweet way. I was grinning like a soggy dog. The little old ladies who couldn't run out smiled at me. The people in their snazzy duds who couldn't run out smiled at me. We put on our science hats and our poets pens. Everyone was watching for the rainbows.

Hours later it is dusk and I mount a hill at Fort Green Park, the sky is a tumult of cloudless blue and Manhattan is part of a horizon that stretches to the sea, it is the only view where New York seems like it belonged to the world, like the world is a constellation. New York is all a horizon, it is a city about horizons, it's another north star, but it's all a constellation.

We saw this film "What's on Your Plate" at the BAM outdoor film screening, at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn.



The film is directed by a broadly thinking social justice documentary filmmaker Catherine Gund, and hosted by two New York middle schoolers. It is a movie that will be shown in schools and to people who are dipping their toes in the world of more progressive sustainability reform. There are several particularly brave moments in it, especially for a film that could have wallowed in safe yuppy yoga mat zone. Gund brings it into the realm of environmental justice, as opposed to eco-chic.We hear about food deserts in ghettos, Latino immigrants inclination to farms, and they even pull out the statistic that there are more prisoners than small farmers (for a cursory primer on some of the wonderful world of environmental justice, read Van Jones' blazing tract, Beyond Eco-Apartheid).

Gund neatly and provocatively takes an issue that is deeply political and algebraic, and makes it tangible and accessible. The girls have just enough experience living in a city all their lives to be equally in awe of the workings of nature, but worldly and Sesame Street enough to think that growing up vegetarian and eating a plethora of ethnic foods is worthy of a "doesn't everybody?". So to them, the idea of making the food system local and fair is as obvious and inescapable a challenge as buying a prom dress.

My friend Kelly and I met the girls and director afterwards, and they all have that sort of matter of factness about the issue, the way kids go about getting a drivers license or a prom dress or a job, that is refreshing, and well, duh.

Duh. Horizons people, horizons.

(this song is so good, Dance Anthem of the 80s. )

odes & manifestos & everything springy (OR how to lead your revolutions laughing)

You know it aint winter when people start drinking iced coffee in mittens. HA.

Sitting in Gorilla coffee listening to their kickass 80s mixtape with my free coffee thinking about my favorite stuff...

To family members who are talented artists and help you out when you need it and attest to magic out there:
Serendipity and heartstrings, by Catie Ronquillo

Best books on trying to understand our heads:
Detour by Lizzie Simon
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison

Best group making strides and you don't know it:
OxFam Action Corps NYC! WOOT!

SO much hope, growing your own fresh air:



Manifesto on why human rights and environment are one and the same:
- Beyond Eco Apartheid by Van Jones

I've had the great luck to have met Jones a few times over the past few years while working at the Marion Institute (drove him to breakfast at Bioneers once). I've been smitten with his message as the perfect synthesis of human rights and environmental action. Finally his message is catching on, and with him in the Obama administration I am completely exuberant about the possibilities for the future.

Ode to friendship and community:
- Get by with a little help from our friends from Whole Life Times

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity and "showing up":


Ira Glass on getting better at what you do:



Best ode to freedom you aren't singing yet: "Steer" by Missy Higgins,

(And here's a toast to the epic fun of when one of your favorite singer/songwriters and favorite causes mysteriously merge in your favorite city. This was a fabulously upbeat concert (as far as songwriter's concerts go). Higgins turns out to be a big OxFam supporter, and I was tabling for OxFam at this getting petition signatures with my roommate and fellow volunteer/friend. Great crowd, great music, lots of signatures, and she was kind enough to urge the crowd to sign our petition, which was way cool of her.