I don’t mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadence
But I can’t feed on the powerless
When my cup’s already overfilled,
But it’s on the table
The fire is cooking
And they’re farming babies
While slaves are working
Blood is on the table
And the mouths are choking
But I’m growing hungry

I don’t mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadence
But I can’t feed on the powerless
When my cup’s already overfilled
But it’s on the table
The fires cooking
And they’re farming babies
While the slaves are all working
And it’s on the table
The mouths are choking
But I’m growing hungry
I’m going hungry

Temple of the Dog, Hunger Strike

I just read an article that Michael Pollan wrote for NY Times back in August. I read Michael’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma a few years back and found it to be very interesting, informative, useful.. the hat-trick in non-fiction books. This more recent article is about the relationships between the increase in processed food and corresponding decrease in real cooking in American homes, and the rise of cooking shows and Food Network, specifically.

Now, once upon a time, when I still watched tv and Food Network was just a baby, I watched it quite a lot for maybe a year or so. I was struck reading this comment regarding Iron Chef style programs:

But you do have to wonder how easily so specialized a set of skills might translate to the home kitchen — or anywhere else for that matter. For when in real life are even professional chefs required to conceive and execute dishes in 20 minutes from ingredients selected by a third party exhibiting obvious sadistic tendencies? (String cheese?) Never, is when. The skills celebrated on the Food Network in prime time are precisely the skills necessary to succeed on the Food Network in prime time. They will come in handy nowhere else on God’s green earth.(link)

You see, I have to admit, one of my favorite shows at that time was one of these competition type deals, although I can no longer remember the name. It was less “dramatic” than many of it’s descendants, but the same elements were there: ingredients chosen by two contestants that then cooked with “their” chef-partner, a standard pantry and a time limit. At the end of the show, the meals presented were judged and one of the two contestants were declared winners. I don’t recall what, exactly they won, but who cares?

The point is, I DO cook… more and more each year and in some ways, that is where it started. I mean, I actually started cooking a little in high school, and a little more once I hit college… but during those times I had a few specialties and rarely tried anything new. Whereas once I started watching the cooking shows, I started looking at cooking differently. Particularly the competition show taught me to look at food as a collection of possibilities. During that time in my life, I didn’t make “recipes” — I walked into the grocery store and wandered the produce section looking for something to pop out at me. Something on sale, or in season, or just… appealing to my senses. Once I found something, then I would continue around the store looking for meats, pastas (or other starch products) and so forth to compliment what I had so far. And then I would go home and put it all together into a meal.

To this day, I rarely use any sort of recipe. When I am canning or baking I will look at a cookbook for inspiration, for times, temperatures, procedures… and then I put it away and do what I think is best based on those recommendations. The end.

In the article, there is lots of commentary on the rise of obesity in this country and it’s absolute correlation with cooking at home. And there is talk about how, we, as a society, can get back into the kitchen and reinvent our relationship with food. The question arises, who will teach future generations to cook? I don’t think that is relevant at all. Cooking is in our very bones… sure, it’s a talent and it is a passion for some of those with talent, but regardless of talent or passion, making food is not something anyone needs to be taught… they just need to step up and do it.

** Regardless of the title… I’ve always kinda disliked Emeril. In fact, when his show started becoming the end all be all of Food Network – that’s when I stopped watching……..

on’t hang on
Nothing lasts forever, but the earth and sky
It’s there always
And all your money won’t another minute buy
Dust. . . all we are is dust in the wind
Life’s too short brothers and sisters
Dust. . . all we are is dust in the wind

Kansas, Dust in the Wind

This valley I live in is a strange place. I’ve mentioned before how the plants here can’t seem to keep track of the seasons…… it’s a function of the high altitude sun, I think. Even in the dead of winter, the sun can be HOT. It can snow one day… like it did last week… and a few days later the snow is gone, and the soil is positively warm to the touch. I know… I was walking around barefoot just yesterday.

Aside from the sun dynamic, the winds are also strange. This is the windiest place I have ever lived – the first summer I was here, we were living in a tent on BLM land for the first few weeks. The windiness was getting to me and we were in danger of getting booted by the rangers next time they came by, so we were looking for alternatives. Luckily, we found one – an eighteen foot Souix tipi in exchange for help collecting firewood and assorted other jobs. The day after we found it, we went up to help raise it. When we returned to our tent to get ou stuff, the wind had snapped one of the tent poles. It was a good day to move!

Yet, for all this, I’ve been told that this is a lousy area for wind turbines. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t make any sense. But since then I have literally stood, braced against the wind and watched a turbine do nothing. Total stillness. Weird. Makes me wonder if, opposed to all conventional wisdom, the turbines here should be mounted closer to ground level. I don’t know if it would work, but it is quite obvious, if you take the time to observe it, that the wind here is high altitude, or ground level and not in between.

Can you imagine it? A wind turbine mounted at ten feet rather than fifty or greater? The big industrial scale ones obviously wouldn’t work… but I wonder what the home scale turbines would do in that situation? What I need to do is meet one of the people here that has one and suggest it. They’d probably just think I was crazy, but then – if it’s not generating power for them, what have they got to lose?

Take a million dollars, baby, put it in my hand;
Put my favorite retouched photo on the soda can.
Put my face on television, say my name a lot; (lot lot lot)
Show your cola in every household, give it all you got;
Better strike while the iron’s hot!

John Fogerty, Soda Pop

When I came home from my trip last week, I brought a small selection of stuff back with me. I didn’t want to get very much as I knew I’d just have to put it all in storage next spring, but I did decide to bring some things to make my life a little more interesting in the meantime. I brought a couple boxes of books – all sci-fi fantasy novels for those quiet winter evenings, I brought a few pieces of clothing (while sending the other eight boxes to Goodwill), I brought my food processor – ’cause I could – and I brought my soda making equipment. Joy!

Unfortunately a few pieces of that equipment has disappeared over the years, and the syphone tube is looking a little, umm, grey…. so I need to replace a few things, but its all small stuff that I can order and have sent to me through the mail. So this morning I’ve been researching, refreshing my memory and figuring out exactly what I need to get. I found a brewing shop out of Colorado Springs, so I’ll call them later and get it all set up.

Next step…. gotta make my starter. It’s a simple process – a couple cups of water, some ginger and some sugar. Every day you add a little more ginger and a little more sugar until the fermentation process is in full swing. Should take about a week. I’ll probably start on that next week so that my soda will be ready for the holidays.

Making the soda itself is an equally simple process. Boil water with assorted flavorings, add sugar to make a syrup, top it off with more water and the starter and then let it ferment. I usually use honey as one of my flavorings so the fermentation process will take a couple of weeks. Then bottle, let it ferment a little longer (to carbonate) and viola! Home made soda.

My most successful effort included ginger, lemon juice, peppercorns and cranberries. I made it up in preparation for an Ish-gathering at my home some years back – friends came from all over the country to spend a long weekend together and regardless of what else was available, everyone went for the cranberry ginger ale, (and the cranberry nut bread I made from the leftover boiled cranberries.)

It will be interesting to see if the process is distinctly different working at high altitude. Everything else is different so we’ll see how this one works out. I already have friends saving leftover 2 litre bottles for me, and I’ll repay the favor by filling them back up again. Who knows, once I get settled somewhere, I may be able to make this into a small scale cottage industry Farmers Market, here I come?

So I just wanted to ask… if anyone has an opinion… what do y’all think of the new look here on eros?

Once upon a time I had a blogger domain and a totally customized look. I loved it. But here on wordpress, that’s not an option unless I want to give them money every year. So I gotta mostly stick with the choices they offer. At least with this one, I was able to include one of my favorite views, ever.

So anyone? Thoughts?

Proclaim eternal victory
Come on and change the course of history
And pull us through
And pull us through

And this is the end, the end
This is the end
Of the world

Muse, Apocalypse Please

I had a really interesting discussion with a new friend while I was traveling. In fact, you could go so far as to call it a debate in that we both put forth conflicting views and we tried very hard to make the other see our point. But it was still a useful discussion because we were both willing to actually listen to the other whereas often, in debate, the only listening that goes on involves looking for points to dispute.

What finally emerged in the discussion was a recognition that we had completely different understandings of a few basic terms. Looking around the ‘net today, I find that he is not alone in this basic, semantic, misinterpretation. So I want to start today by introducing some terms with the standard definition and explication of those terms.

Civilization: A Society using agriculture as its primary form of sustenance, characterized by city development (city: a population center exceeding 5000 residents), social stratification and state level political control, literacy, and extensive division of labor.

Subsistence: The action or fact of maintaining or supporting oneself at a minimal level. (from wikipedia)

Sustainable: Resource usage below replenishment rate.

Agriculture: Food production beyond the level of diminishing returns (ie more total energy is invested in production than is produced)

Horticulture: Food production below the level of diminishing returns (ie less total energy is invested in production than is produced)

Culture: The sum total of ideas, (objects and technologies) produced by a society.

Over the course of our discussion, it became clear that my friend was using “civilization” in place of culture and “agriculture” in place of subsistence. This led to a lot of miscommunications between us and for a time he refused to accept that it mattered what terms he used. He called it simple semantics until finally I pointed out to him that it was like he was talking to an astronomer about the moons in our solar system and insisting on calling them planets. When he finally stopped and thought about it, we could move beyond the semantics and talk effectively. Unfortunately, that recognition came near the end of our discussion, but perhaps that was better as it gave him time to reconcile this idea in his head. Hopefully it will be useful for him later on.

In any case, today I did a google search, looking for other bloggers discussing collapse, sustainability, post-industrial culture and so forth…. and found a hundred (give or take) links discussing “Sustainable Civilization.” Hmmm… so my friend in Madison is not alone.

Sustainable Civilization is a classic oxymoron. It is an impossibility and anyone that tells you differently is, most likely, unaware of the nature of civilization and/or conflating the term with culture. Less often, they’re trying to sell you something as useful as the Brooklyn Bridge. It has become a greenwashing term, designed to convince people that everything will be just fine. But I have news… everything is not going to be “just fine.”

Seriously.

We have global warming, which could, any time now, shut down the Atlantic Conveyor. The last time that happened, European agriculture failed, due to total inconsistency in weather patterns. If it happens again, global weather patterns could cause crop failures world wide – after all, world wide there are only three or four genera of plants that provide the vast majority of our food. And those genera are extremely susceptible to failure.

We have the end of oil upon us. Without oil we have, once again, global crop failures as most of our agriculture is dependent upon chemical fertilizers and automated equipment. And even if the crops do not fail, there is a question of how to get the food to the people as transportation infrastructure crumbles. And if transportation does not fail, who will be able to afford food with the increasing cost of oil?

We have ecological collapse. If neither global warming nor oil dependency is enough to bring us to our knees, then there is the question of ecological devastation. Ask yourself: can we, as a species, survive the total destruction of ocean life? The majority of the oxygen in our atmosphere comes from the same ocean flora that is currently collapsing around us. The rest comes from tropical forests that are also being gradually destroyed. We may be able to survive without the trees themselves, but can we survive without the oxygen they create?

I could go on, but I am not really trying to bring anybody down. The crises are daunting and overwhelming and individually we can do nothing to help. But that is not the point that I am trying to make here. The point is that there is a very real opportunity here.

Civilization is inherently unsustainable. It cannot continue to grow and therefore it will inevitably collapse. The crises are big enough and near enough that it cannot survive much longer. So what does that mean for us, individual people? It means that while many people are going to die – because they can not or will not accept that our way of life is killing us – many other people are going to have the opportunity to chose to live a different way. A better way. One of the ten thousand ways.

I chose a different way. How about you?

** For a complete, well documented and concise discussion of all of these terms and how they fit together systemically, see The Thirty Theses

Plus you gotta dip, you gotta doodle
You gotta eat Grandma’s stroodle
‘Cause she stayed up all night to make it from scratch
You gotta gish, you gotta gash
You gotta wax Grandma’s mustache
And lay out her socks
To make sure they match
Whoa, you gotta help out your Grandma

Adam Sandler, The Grandma Song

I’ve been spending a lot of time cooking since I came back from my trip.

Last week, I made a big ole pot of stew and another of Beef Stroganoff (mom’s recipe, which is rather different from the traditional). I also cooked up a pot of stewed apples with spiced rum and raisins. When I was done, I packed it all up into single serving containers and stuck it in the freezer.

This week, I have a pot of chili coming and I also bought pears, peaches and cranberries to make more fruit conserves. Give me a couple more weeks and I will have enough food in the freezer to keep me fed for most of the winter. That’s actually the plan – after Thanksgiving I will be working a whole lot more and this will enable me to eat real food even on those days that I work for ten or twelve hours. (And those days that are short but I just don’t feel like cooking.)

Now, I said this was a plan, but that’s not entirely truthful. The simple fact is that I like to cook and I have been in the mood to do so the last couple weeks. And when I cook, I don’t do small scale. So freezing is a decent alternative for me now that I am living alone. In fact, when I say I don’t do small – over the years I have attended a number of different unconferences (like this one) and except for the very first, I have taken some portion of the cooking responsibilities on myself. So whether we were at a small conference center with a large, commercially equipped kitchen or hanging out in a camp ground with a few grill pits, I have cooked (and co-ordinated) for up to 30 people at once. And I love it every time – especially when that means that someone else gets to do the dishes!

When I think about my intentions for community, it has gradually wormed its way into my consciousness that I know what my role in any such community would be. I love permaculture design, I’m really digging learning local wild edibles, and I have an absolute passion for taking the proceeds of those activities and turning them into a meal to be shared amongst people I love. So although I have many other interests as well, and even though I sometimes think about all of the other things I would like to be competent at, I am gradually becoming comfortable with the fact that I already have a well defined niche and all the other stuff will simply be hobbies or temporary interests.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that so many of the people I know in this movement have gradually come to think of me as “mom.” As much as I like to give them crap about it, the simple fact is, it really doesn’t upset me at all. There are worse roles to fill, after all

And now we meet in an abandoned studio.
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago.
And you remember the jingles used to go.

Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
In my mind and in my car, we can’t rewind we’ve gone to far
Oh-a-aho oh,
Oh-a-aho oh

The Buggles, Video Killed the Radio Star

So when I left on my trip, I made sure that I had all my little gadgets, my charging cords, cables and so forth. Or at least that was what I thought when I left.

In fact, I had my Zune for music… but I did not have the cassette adapter to play it in the car, nor the microphone cord to plug it into any other sort of sound system. Of course, I completely neglected to bring CD’s because they were extraneous, right?

I also brought the camera and all of its cords – except the cord to download pics to my computer. Luckily, this did not end up mattering as I only took a few pictures the entire trip. Why? Partly, because I realized I couldn’t download the files, so I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t run out of space on the camera. Partly because I’m a moron that kept leaving the camera in the car when it would have been handy. And partly because once I reached the midwest, there really wasn’t any inspiring scenery to photograph. How could I have forgotten?

I also had the computer, of course, and even had internet access frequently. But I found I was completely uninterested in sitting down to write while I was on the trip. What can I say? I only had a week, which meant I had less than an day with most of the people I visited (the folks and the kid got more). So… sorry about that… but not really.

In any case, the most significant result of leaving without all of the cables that I needed was that I spent a LOT of time listening to radio. Sometimes even listening to semi-pop stations. I turned it off entirely a few times when there was nothing good and I couldn’t take schlock any more. But mostly, I made due.

In listening to all of this radio, I discovered something really kind of depressing. I haven’t listened to morning talk shows for quite a while… not since before Mancow pissed me off a decade or more ago. So I had missed this trend – but I noticed on this trip that just about the only thing they talk about anymore is TV. REALLY? I mean, a station in Denver had a call in the other day asking “What is your dorky, guilty little secret.” Every single answer was a TV show. No… I take that back, one person responded with a movie. After the call in they proceeded to go on and on about various prime time tv shows… mostly of the reality show variety.

The only thing that I find more disturbing than this (well, ok, not really. But bear with me) is that I seem to recall hearing that most people chatting with co-workers, lunch dates and so forth follow this same pattern. Now I don’t know this. Noone that I would consider a friend (locally, at least) watches much tv, so we don’t talk about it at all. Even the people I do know that do watch, generally have other things they want to talk about. And maybe part of this is small town, maybe part of it is the “spirit of the old west (whatever that is), maybe its the excess of hippie liberals here (matched almost evenly by the rancher conservatives.) or maybe it is some combination of all these things. (Hell… maybe its the excess of stoners! I’m not really kidding…)

Anyway. I’m curious. If I can get someone to start a conversation here… in your experience, whether you watch tv or not, do you see people around you with nothing to talk about besides tv? Or is it common water-cooler talk, but not all consuming? Do you manage to avoid it most of the time? Or is it simply ubiquitous in your life? Maybe it’s just in the urban environment or amongst people that don’t know one another well enough to get personal? Any thoughts?

Find the place where we escape
Take you with me for a space
The city buzz, sounds just like a fridge
I walk the streets through seven bars
I had to find just where you are
The faces seems to blur, they’re all the same

Half the time the world is ending
Truth is I am done pretending

Gavin Rossdale, Love Remains the Same

I’ve been in love three times in my life. Not including puppy love or crushes, or anything that went unrequited (which I consider to be infatuation at best). Funny thing is, I have found each of those three experiences to be not quite, but almost completely unlike one another. This intrigues me, now that I think about it.

So I guess I should start with where they were not completely unlike. In each instance there was spending time together, sharing stories and experiences and life. There was that sense of caring about anothers well-being, even to the detriment of my own. (I’m working on that, but I expect to a certain degree that’s what love is defined by.) There was sex, and more important; intimacy. And there was the sense of building a life together. This, in my case, is where each one fell apart. Without going into depth, this has lead me to understand that the most important factor in any relationship (whether intimate or within a community) is that each person is following their own path and yet things work out for them to do so together. I discussed this, in a much more raw form than I now see it, some months back in Walk with Me.

So back to these instances of love that I have experienced. With Eddie it was all about passion. In every sense that this can be invoked. And probably part of our problem, because once passion is unleashed it is hard to restrain – or even to want to restrain, in some ways. As a result, we made love passionately, but we also fought passionately. Hell, we went to the grocery store passionately. It became exhausting.

In another case, the relationship was defined by companionship. Shared goals and aspirations, shared interests. But over time, the friendship diminished. The shared goals and aspirations turned out to not be shared. I don’t want to say it was all a lie. I think at one time it was true, but it became not true long before we accepted the fact.

The third case was about joy. Simply being happy in the now. When we were together I didn’t need anything, I didn’t miss anything, whatever happened or didn’t happen was fine, life was just… good. I don’t know where that one would have gone – various complications put an end to it before it began. Because of that, I think this one has gotten stuck in my head as an ideal to aspire to. Perhaps not in a bad way – there are worse things to look for than a person that simply makes you happy to be. But because it didn’t play out, there is no corresponding difficulty associated in my mind. Idealism, I’m really not a fan. But whatever.

The thing is, thinking about all this has brought me back to that question of what is eros?, once more. Like I said at the beginning, I think underlying everything else will always be this caring for someone more than yourself. But beyond that? Maybe beyond that is whatever you need and want in your life right now. And so each experience will always be unique – not only because of the unique individuals involved, but simply because at different points in your life, different wants, needs, priorities define not only who you are but also whom you are looking for.

Of course, I may think about this again in another year and come up with a different answer. But that’s okay. I think asking the question ow and again is useful in and of itself.

I build this garden for us

In this garden
They’ll be no war
No racial prejudice
You’ll be my brother
Of any color
You’ll just be okay with us
We’ll love each day in peace
In hope that we will one day reach
The rest of the world
When they are ready to be teached

Lenny Kravitz, I Build This Garden For Us

A couple of years ago I wrote about intentional communities. Specifically, about my feeling that the biggest hurtle to successful community building being intentionality. It seemed to me (and still does) that in the process of trying to create a new model, we formalize so many things that should be natural that we end up destroying the very community-ness that we are trying to create.

Over the course of a long conversation with my friend Adam last week, I realized that I knew what my next step was. My next step toward building an unintentional community. And as it happens, as I do so it ties in rather nicely with his thoughts on next steps for building our web forum into a more useful tool.

For me, I realized that a lot of the thoughts I have put into eros, philia, agape (the ideas, more than the blog )apply equally to intimate relationships and community relationships. Perhaps that is a bad way to put it. More acutely, community relationships are intimate relationships, even if they are completely asexual. And so, the thoughts I have had about persons within a relationship needing to follow their own path above all are at least as relevant to communities as lovers.

So how to go about creating something without trying to create it? I have this trip planned for next year. I’m going to see lots of people I know and probably meet a bunch more that I have only spoken with online and probably some more that I never knew existed. And I’m going to talk to them. Where are they at in their life? What do they want? Do they have intentions yet, or just vague ideas? How soon are they ready for a change? Describe the image you have in your head of what its like. What is questionable and what is flat out unacceptable?

All of these things were already going to happen. But I only had a vague sense that I would be looking for inspiration, for something that moved me, and a vague hope that i would leave a little inspiration behind once I’d passed. But now I feel a little more directed. Partly because I realized that the biggest hurtle to overcome would be expectations. The ones we know about are rough, the ones we don’t even know are there are much worse. So my goal will be to dig down and discover those expectations in myself and in anyone that I speak with extensively. Because expectations can be modified, dismissed or embraced as is appropriate for each of us – but only once they are out in the open.

I think, once all is said and done, I will still be operating on the principle of “build it and they will come.” But once I have had these myriad conversations, I think I will have a better idea both of what I want and what is needed amongst the long distance “community” I am part of, and I will have the advantage of lots of people knowing what I am building that they might come and join me.

White on white translucent black capes
Back on the rack
Bela Lugosi’s dead
The bats have left the bell tower
The victims have been bled
Red velvet lines the black box
Bela Lugosi’s dead
Undead undead undead
The virginal brides file past his tomb
Strewn with time’s dead flowers
Bereft in deathly bloom
Alone in a darkened room
The count
Bela Lugosi’s dead
Undead undead undead

The Bauhaus, Bela Lugosi’s Dead….. Listen

This phota has been bopping around thru email forwards… no idea of the original source. But it is too well done to not share it. Happy Halloween everyone:-)