No Impact Man - The Movie

It's been a long time since I've cried at a movie. But that's exactly what I did last night watching the new documentary, No Impact Man. Not crying really but weeping, appreciation and laughing tears. I fell in love with the whole family it's about; Colin, Michelle and Isabella.

While I was aware from news bites that there was a guy in NY that had given up everything (I never considered what he was gaining) I didn't read his blog or follow. Then Beth at Fake Plastic Fish had an interview post with the guy, Colin, which had me take notice. After that the Green Phone Booth posted a review of his book. I was interested.

I went to the movie with a friend who has never carried a canvas bag; not unlike Colin's wife, Michelle. While I learned new low impact tips from him I was his choir in the audience. More importantly, Michelle related to the audience that had yet to hear the siren's green call. Her distaste for worms, choice words for bike riders; her melt down at giving up caffeine. She spoke from the beauticians chair getting her hair colored and from her air conditioned office at Business Week sucking on ice. And then she cooked her first dinner. We were all changed.

On the way out of the theater my friend asked, "Do you think the growers would refill the plastic shells I buy berries in if I return them to the store?"

I tried not to cry again.

The big ahhh factor is their daughter, Isabella. She was a mimicking sprite; as happy in the dark as she was in the garden.

Admittedly I was biased toward the documentary from the beginning as Colin shopped for local food with flour sack towels and cloth produce bags. He spoke all my favorite things about sourcing food from near by. But he didn't overload our plates with food. He moved on to transportation, household cleaning products, cosmetics; the source of our power. He polished himself up for politics, volunteering, for talking to audiences. And while people were watching him, he was listening to the people doing the watching. Which is where he earned my final respect. He didn't flinch at the truth of criticism but neither did he give up in the face of it.

I'll likely read the book, but the movie was instant gratification, a night out; it was entertainment and inspiration. I give it a five out of five stars and recommend it to any audience. It's a love story, a comedy, drama and adventure. And strange enough to the way most of us live to nearly be considered sci fi.

I'd love to know how the movie impacts you if you have a chance to see it ( here's the schedule). And take a friend. They'll thank you.

A Nation of Farmers

Before I began blogging, I lurked at other people's blogs. I roamed the green blogosphere and soaked up everything I could on Climate Change, mass extinctions, Peak Oil, and such. One of my favorite blogs to hang out was at Sharon Astyk's Casaubon's Book.

At that time, Sharon had not yet become a published author. Then, she was just a prolific blogger. Very prolific. Every other day or so, she wrote a long tome about Peak Oil, living on a farm, low energy living and all other kinds of topics that made me think but even more made my stomach hurt. And, while I thought Sharon was probably right when she intimated that "this is the end of the world as we know it", I got tired of walking around with a burgeoning ulcer and a overheated heartbeat.

I quit reading Casaubon's Book (though I do take a peek from time to time). She's still writing those wonderfully long and thoughtful posts that will make you lose sleep . . . or plant a vegetable garden that can adapt to climate change or can something or learn a new skill like knitting or sewing. Any way, I moved on to other bloggers and began writing my own blog. I planted a Victory Garden in my front yard. I flexed my cooking muscles. I started knitting again. I trimmed my waste line. And I didn't question where some motivation might have come from.

Sharon has published two books since I abandoned Casaubon's Book. I reviewed the first, Depletion and Abundance, here earlier this year. It was vintage Sharon. Easy to read. Prolific. A little "end of the world" for me. Felt like a compilation of her blog posts rather than new material.

I hesitated to pick up her second book, A Nation of Farmers, from the library last month. I sort of figured that I could just stop into Casaubon's Book for my Sharon fix.

I'm glad I ignored my first instinct.

A Nation of Farmers is far from the heavy rhetoric and instructional root cellaring of Sharon of old. Instead of focusing on how to grow food on several acres in upstate New York, this book brings food growing - and even more importantly food cooking - to all of us. Even me on my oh so tiny lot in the urban Bay Area. Sharon and her co-author, Aaron Newton detail why it is so important for this country, this planet, to have a million new farmers and two million new cooks. Where we, as a nation, went wrong and how far off we really are. How we can grow and cook our own in urban, suburban and country settings. How we start over.

The book even comes complete with fantastic, frugal, low energy and high nutrition recipes from various bloggers including our very own Chile!

The book was realistic, easy to read and, considering the subject matter, relatively optimistic. Moreover, it was inspiring. I'm not sure anyone could finish this book and not go outside an plant a garden or into the kitchen and cook a meal from scratch. It instills meaning and pride in much of what we already do and motivation to do more. Note: I am no longer a Victory Gardener. I'm a full fledged farmer . . . and quite possibly a chef.

I recommend A Nation of Farmers to all shades of green. It's not too heavy for those of us on the lighter side but still plenty informative for those forest green types. I rate it 4 out of 5. Read it and then go grow something.

Novella Carpenter/Farm City Audio Interview

I've always wanted to do this. To post an audio link of an author of a book I love. The link isn't a review, which is what we mainly do here, but there are so many ways in addition to a review to enter a book, a story or to gain new information. And I loved this book so I'm going to do it. Here's the link.

Last Friday Novella Carpenter, the author of Farm City, The Education of an Urban Farmer, was interviewed on KQED, The Forum. Listening to her was as fun as reading the book. I laughed, I learned, I clapped for her while sitting alone in my office.

I hope you do to.

If you've heard a good author interview lately let me know and I'll put a live link to it at the bottom of this post.

Farm City: The Education Of An Urban Farmer

(First posted on 6/25/09 at kaleforsale)

I finished the perfect summer read, Farm City, by Novella Carpenter. The trouble is I finished it on the first day of summer. Now what do I do? I don't think anything is going to beat this book.

Farm City is a memoir but it's also bits and parts of how to, or how not to make a garden in the ghetto; on squatted land with an eventual farm yard of animals. The story reads like a novel. The characters are naturally characters; I fell in love with everyone. Except the prostitute looking butcher - there has to be someone not to like.

Novella is quirky, smart, driven and she has a seriously good heart. She made me laugh a lot and look at my own neighborhood with new eyes. There's a deserted house nearby with a sunny front yard that would be a perfect urban garden. The idea had never crossed my mind before. That's what this book does. Novella finds possibility and assistance in places generally looked away from. All is not pretty on the urban farm. Even when I was laughing.

To start with she's farming in Oakland, not Mayberry. A homeless man watches over the garden and offers constant advice. She hauls in free horse manure, forages from local dumpsters to feed the animals. She meets the neighborhood in the garden, invited and not. Even with the weeds and fish heads, I have to admit though, it sounded like fun.

The cute guy is nearly done with Farm City. He laughs out loud too. Stays up too late reading. "Where are you now?" I hungrily ask him. He tells me and we talk about it. It's almost like getting to read the book again.

Which is what I'm going to do - read the book again. That is unless I find an empty lot I can garden.

Rating: Definitely five stars
Recommended for: Gardeners, Gleaners, Memoir Readers, Social Activists and People-that-like-to-laugh

Book Review: Seedfolks

I first heard about Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman from a post or comment right here on the Bookworm. Anybody want to take credit so I don't have to search the archives? Anyway, I am so glad I was able to find a copy in my local library.

Seedfolks is a short work of fiction about a community garden in Cleveland. The writing is amazing in that the story is told by 13 individuals, each with their own chapter and each in the first person. Fleischman strings these 13 stories together into a whole in such a way as to explain how he once won a Newberry award. The literary technique is amazing.

More than that, though, I found the book to be both pleasant and entertaining. Fleischman explores different cultures and how different people find healing through their work in a garden. In reading the story, I only wished that it had actually happened. But maybe Fleischman's work will inspire people somewhere out there to be seedfolks themselves. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars for gardeners and those who enjoy a light read.

Book Review: Seedfolks

Time began in a garden. So too did community, according to the beautiful novella, Seedfolks, by Paul Fleischman.

Seedfolks documents the journey of an inner city empty lot, clogged with old refrigerators, bed springs and beer bottles, from trash pit to community garden. Various members of the community garden - all from different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities - tell how they came to be involved in the garden and what it meant to them. Some find new life in the garden, new purpose. A pregnant teen mother uses it to come to terms with her child while a young man leverages the garden to court an old flame. Some find business opportunities and others sanity.

A short book, Seedfolks is just what the doctor ordered. And just what my blogging cohort promised me it would be. The global crises we face - climate change, mass extinction, an ocean of plastic - are often overwhelming and even paralyzing. The answer, for me, is to instead focus on what I can affect. To build local connections, to make changes that empower one's self and one's community, and to build hope. Seedfolks offers all those three things in abundance.

The book is appropriate for older children but I think adults would treasure it just as much. I give it 5 out of 5 stars and urge you to check out a copy from your local library and then get growing - a garden, a community, a home, anything.

The Botany of Desire

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed both of Michael Pollan's newer books, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defence of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, I was eager to delve into Pollan's past to discover his many other insights into the wonderful world of food. I was not disappointed.

The Botany of Desire is the historical recounting of four plants that for Pollan represent mankind's greatest desires: sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control. However, rather than use the four corresponding plants (the apple, tulip, cannabis (aka marijuana), and potato) merely as symbols of desire, Pollan takes us on a journey to discover how our desires compliment and compete with those of these four plants on an evolutionary scale; in other words, how we have co-evolved.

How easy to assume that mankind has manipulated nature throughout his history, yet Pollan hypothesizes that these plants have taken their turn in manipulating us throughout the millennia as well. Could it be true that are but a pawn in the evolutionary scheme to spread the seed of living things that have existed far longer than we? Pollan remarks that although we are in awe of the wolf, it is the "domesticated" dog that has it's every need met by man. Have we domesticated the canine, or have they domesticated us?

Perhaps his deepest insight was the idea of perception. Deeming ourselves the grand masters of the universe, we falsely assume we manipulate it at will, choosing for ourselves which forms of life are valuable and which are not. But stepping back into the larger picture, we must ask ourselves if this is fact or simply our perception, which can be greatly misguided as we see but our own egotistical interpretations of what is and is not. How beautiful though that for some 250 pages, we can delve deep into the world we so rarely consider, what Pollan refers to as "the plant's-eye view of the world;" a world that is far more vast, wonderful, and inspiring when we "imagine a very different kind of story about Man and Nature, one that shrinks the distance between the two of us, so that we might again begin to see them for what they are and in spite of everything will always be, which is in this boat together."

Recommended: for the environmental philosopher in all of us.

Rated: 4 out of 5 stars.

The Heirloom Tomato, From Garden To Table

I haven't read The Heirloom Tomato, nor do I have a copy to refer to but I did get to see the author Amy Goldman speak yesterday. She's a storyteller.

I nearly didn't go. The event was at lunch time, across Market Street, my shoes were uncomfortable. How interesting could tomatoes be? Ha! Amy Goldman is not a little gardener with a couple of pretty tomatoes. She's Chair of the Board of Seeds Savers, she trialed 1,000 varieties of tomatoes for her book in which she features her favorite 200. And if I understood her correctly she grew all 200 varieties in her garden. She's a heavyweight in the tomato world.

And a heavyweight in the seed world. She calls hybrids and GMO's, "tools of industry," and our ability to save seeds necessary for food security.

Amy Goldman described the taste of tomatoes like someone who knows their wine. She used words I've not associated with tomatoes. I want what she's having, I thought. And she's having some good looking tomatoes with snappy names: Bonny's Best, Reisetomate. Aunt Gerties was one of her favorites. There was White Beauty, Cassady's Folly. Radiator Charlies had a funny story. There were Roman Candles and German Pinks. Not any of which are likely to be found in a grocery store. These are not tools of industry. These are tomatoes to bring from the garden to the table as the title suggests.

The book is a display piece, glossy photos, recipes (that sound good), growing information. It was all I could do to leave without buying a copy. I still want it and I'm not a cookbook or coffee table kind of a girl. But I do like a good tomato and this book has a couple hundred to choose from.

"Keep them alive," she said. "Save the seeds." Check out the book and you'll likely be inspired too. I was.

As anyone else seen this book or heard of Amy Goldman? Are you growing tomatoes with names of old relatives or faraway places?