transparency

a note on money:

since some of you have asked, here's the scoop on abovegroundpool and money. doing all the paperwork to become a formal 501c3 is time consuming and expensive. so agp is set up as a business. we're hoping to give uncle sam less (or no) money this year by showing losses in the business. not proper tax resistors yet, but it's something.

and yes, agp is selling some stuff on etsy. that's mostly to raise money for good causes (right now for catskill animal sanctuary, in honor of world farm animals day). but also because a business isn't legit unless they've got some receipts.

don't worry, nobody's making any money off this free archive: take the stuff and run with it!

mudpie

cob oven and rocket stove on stone base, originally uploaded by abovegroundpool.

I have experience with mud. As a kid I participated in a race through an obstable course built in a foot of mud (and loved it). As a young adult I trekked to sulpher mud baths in the Northeast of Brasil, and relished the mosquito relief my full body mud coating gave.

Now comes the earth building chapter! I've been interested in cob for a while (a building material made of clay, sand, and straw or wood chips). I'm inspired by wonderful adobe buildings in the desert, kept cool by their foot thick earthen walls. I dream of living on radiant heated earthen floors, but understand the importance of starting a little smaller.

I was thrilled this weekend to participate in building a cob oven and rocket stove for Phillies Bridge Farm Project in Gardiner, New York. It was a wet weekend, so although we got the oven and stove built in two days, we'll have to wait for drier weather to cut the oven door, remove the sand, and fire up. You can see the all the steps from base to plaster here. You can learn about cob ovens here and rocket stoves here.

The short and sweet is that the rocket stove is the super efficient element, while the earth oven heats slowly then stays hot for a very long time, baking incomparable foods and bringing people together to enjoy breads, pizzas, etc. They are both a pleasure to use. And, I must say, a pleasurable project to spend the weekend on. How often do adults get to play in mud for two days straight?

border crossing

I'm reading Sandor Katz's book The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved. It has all kinds of nuggets in it, but I came across something that really stuck: "illegal aliens" or "human invasive species" connected with plant and animal invasive species. He says:

Freedom demands that borders be as porous as possible. Open borders allow for cross-pollination and exchange; ironclad borders are expressions of totalitarian control. And generalized prohibitions on "invasive aliens" are oversimplistic and inflammatory. "Alien species do not come from Mars," the popular science magazine Discover reminds us; "they are not 'other.' They are very much of us, by us; we are the main agent of their spread." Seeds migrate via birds and the wind [[and nation defined borders change]], so "native" is not a static state.

He goes on to talk about how GM giants Monsanto benefit from the destruction of so-called invasive plant species (in effect controlling diversity), while individual seed savers trying to continue their family's generations old heritage foods are stopped at borders. Concerned environmentalists have picked up the invasive=bad, local=good lingo. It's similar to industry like slaughterhouses benefiting from the labor of underpaid undocumented workers, while blue collar workers wonder if they can't get jobs because of the flow of immigrants. The either/or language is deceiving us.

I'm inspired to revisit Xicana writer Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera, which embraces crossover.

tumbling weeds

Always homesick for the Sonoran Desert, but far, far away in the northeast, I consider myself a bit of a tumbleweed, blown far from home. The tumbleweeds pictured are by Patrick Dougherty and can be found at the Desert Botanical Garden. They are actually made of willows, not salsola. I often think of "tumbling" back to my beloved desert home, but can't justify doing so: The population there grows in leaps in bounds, far more people than the land and its aquafers can support.

I was thrilled to learn about Desert Harvesters, a grassroots organization that teaches Tucsonans to harvest rainwater; plant local food trees; and harvest, process, and store that food. Pictures of happy people eating mesquite pancakes with prickly pear syrup abound. My favorite grocery ever, the Food Conspiracy Coop is participating in the eat local challenge with other respectable groups like the Community Food Security Center, who help people learn to identify existing wild foods and how to "glean" them. These efforts make me want to be home to learn more about thriving (lightly) in the desert.

I'll be good, and instead go looking for lamb's quarters and burdock growing around my current home. As the temperatures drop, tonic teas have an allure of their very own. A good Leslie Marmon Silko or Barbara Kingsolver book can give me a taste of the Sonoran Desert, while I tune my senses to the specific smells and flavors of the Hudson Valley.

funny money

Back in the day when Park Slope, Brooklyn was the neighborhood with the highest concentration of dykes in the U.S., I lived in an adjacent 'hood, and belonged to a group of gals who bartered our skills: haircutting, tax preparation, legal advice, painting and construction, cat/dog/bird/rat sitting, and most often, help moving. The Barter Bank was formalized enough that you had to put in time in order to get help, and you were able to draw on the skills of people you didn't yet know. Barter is a fabulous thing, as is just plain giving each other a hand. But it's hard to live in our world without money. Getting something you need without paying for it seems as queer as a 3 dollar bill.

The banks are mighty shaky these days and a U.S. dollar not worth a whole lot, so investing in your own town, in it's food producers and craftspeople seems even more important.

The Berkshire region of Massachusetts has produced its own local currency so that people and businesses can use money in a straightforward way, and still commit to supporting each other. The local bank accepts and distributes BerkShares, and all the local businesses accept them. However, the Dunkin Donuts and and Rite Aid that have popped up in town don't. It seems to be working. Local businesses are thriving, and millions of dollars have been kept local. If you weren't able to keep chains and box stores out of your town through zoning laws, you may want to look into local currency!

Thirteen dollar bill is by Jason Polan. Berkshare artists are Bart Elsbach, Morgan Bulkeley, Janet Rickus, Joan Griswold, Warner Friedman, and Michael McCurdy.

hide

Animal architecture is fascinating. As autumn begins, the cocoons of moths impress, and prolific spiders build complicated funnel webs. All the spinning and weaving makes me think of another wonderful fiber artist, Magdalena Abakanowicz.

A Russian-Pole who lived under first Nazi rule then the Soviet Occupation, Abakanowicz bristled in art school when forced to reiterate Stalin's socialist-realist aesthetic values. Later, without the academy to please, she gathered abandoned ship ropes from the shores of the Vistula River, split them into sisal string, and wove huge, abstract cloaks, that double as safe cocoons or blankets and death shrouds or stripped animal hides. She needed to make flexible work to fit in her tiny apartment. These enormous bodies came forth from her cramped life in Warsaw.

Abakanowicz always works in multiples, mobs, swarms. She refers to unique qualities appearing within herds, even when the "brainless entity" takes over. Because of the drone and press of crowds, she says she prefers solitude, at the same time being acutely aware of needing to belong to a tribe.

When I was an impatient 18 year old in a weaving class, I was completely taken with Abakanowicz's work, slowed, made thoughtful. I still am made silent by it. I can see wanting to be enveloped in it, then feeling smothered by it. Both comforted and aware of some kind of violence, trapped.

more than one issue

Can thinking meat-eaters can be better advocates for animals and the environment than self-proclaimed vegan animal activists? A comparison of writers David Foster Wallace (who penned Consider the Lobster for Gourmet magazine) and Matthew Scully (Bush II's speech writer who also wrote Sarah Palin's RNC speech) gives pause.

tool talk - sewing machine

I don't know how to sew.

There I said it. But it hasn't stopped me. My mom gave me this Featherweight as a hand-me-down. She's an amazing quilter, and wanted some special features. The Featherweight does one stitch style only, and has no bells or whistles. It's tiny and fits in a travel box with a handle. It's easy to use, easy to thread, easy to fix. It's why we were made for each other.

I began slowly enough, hemming pants, altering clothes that didn't fit, making cat toys and simple pouches. But as someone who has always loved fabric, and possessing a d.i.y. gene, I decided I could make other useful things, linens, quilts, bags, draft blockers, banners, the stuff of daily life.

We've had four good years together, and we're still going strong. Since my machine is a pre-1950 model and works perfectly, and I can come up with an endless list of items that I or my friends or my neighbors need or need repaired, I expect we have many years of working together to come.

september 11th

There's nothing more I want to do on this anniversary than treat all kinds of people, different from myself, far from home, everyone, with utmost respect and gentleness.
The billy goat is by Christy Robinson.

refuge

The Hudson Valley has a big glossy mag called Chronogram that features endless pages of advertising, with some local art squeezed in. There are occasionally interesting articles, too, about solar diy workshops or a C.S.A. There is one feature that is consistently worthwhile. It's called While You Were Sleeping, and synthesizes important news nuggets that were either buried in the back pages of the newspapers, not reported in a clear way, or otherwise not given the attention they deserve.

Last month Amy Lubinski included some statistics about refugees, staggering numbers about how many people have fled their homes because of imminent danger. The numbers of refugees have grown exponentially in the last ten years. And the part I didn't know: The vast majority of refugees in the world today are a direct result of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We think of Burma, Darfur, Palestine: but this is our doing.

While the newspapers are worrying over the housing market, while I'm fretting over what my heating bills will look like for the coming winter, we should really be concerned with those who have no chance of saving their homes, towns, communities, and cultures. They may very well not even escape with their lives. It really puts my concept of "home" and the accompanying oil bill into perspective.

more and more war

Martha Rosler brings back her Vietnam era series "Bringing the War Home" to spotlight Afghanistan and Iraq. See the slideshow.

tenuous connections

Artist and ecologist from South Carolina, Danna Ray quietly reminds us that we're attached to one another, to our surroundings. That delicate moss and tiny sprouting plants are of great importance. That in our world, devastation and beauty occur together.

The way her work makes me feel reminds me of my first trip to Staten Island.

This NY borough is famous for it's enormous garbage dump, visible from space. I first went to Staten Island when in art school, to see a collection of Fluxus work that included several feminist and queer artists I respected. I was transported from my by-the-side-of-the-freeway New Jersey existence to beautiful old buildings, built by the navy, in a large and lovely park. I didn't see Fresh Kills on that trip, but was thinking about garbage canyons anyhow when I saw the Yoko Ono piece that has continued to resonate for me. Her piece consisted of smashed teacups carefully pieced together and glued, placed on a table and chairs, ready for the ritual of having tea together.

Sitting down with another person for tea is such a small act in the face of something as horrible as the Vietnam War (about which the piece was made). Small but critical. Sitting face to face. Seeing one another, acknowledging one another's value. And connection.

It's worth cobbling together our broken lives, our broken spirits, our broken earth.

fear and anger, anger and fear

Since when is anger a bad thing? It's a response all animals have to disturbing situations and it helps us, the same way that pain stops us from causing ourselves greater harm.

People who are afraid to face their discontents like to write off activists as not being in charge of their anger. Bush made reference to the "angry left" at the RNC this week (though of course calling centrist Obama "left" is laughable). What sane person wouldn't want to riot?

I think anger is an incredibly valuable response to all kinds of things, and it's one of the ways I know I'm alive, and conscious. I don't only feel anger: I (and all those other "angry activists") are driven by love and hunger and other passions.

I get weary of being asked why I insist on acknowledging my anger. Silence = Death may be an old school slogan, but Act Up knew what they were talking about. Silence and the lack of truth telling keep us in our place, keep us numb, keep us isolated and questioning our own sanity. Not speaking makes sexual abuse able to go on, allows all manner of violation to occur.

Speaking up and fighting for improvements is about being alive. I fear the outcome of numbness and complacency far more than I fear anger.

Without anger, I am as dead as one of Annette Messager's sparrows. The ritual of clothing and protecting them and treating them gently doesn't make them any less dead.

eye of the beholder

I'm from the desert, which many people think of as ugly, lonely, hot, and prickly: barren. It is not unfamiliar for people to consider what I love to be strange or unpleasant.

I laughed when I came across a link that listed these photos as being of the world's fugliest plants. Some of the best genetalia look-alikes, maybe, but "fugly" isn't what I'd call them. It's thought of as déclassé to plant purple, orange, and pink flowers together. Instead, the tidiest, the most controlled of gardens are respected. No weeds. No mixing. Trimmed. It says a lot about who we are.

These plants are performers, loud, garish in the most appealing of ways. They are out of control.