good friday

My grandma died almost 20 years ago. They say things happen in threes, and that particular three was that my friend Darrin died, Operation Desert Shield began in earnest and my Grandma died.

Darrin was cremated, and because of that, I don't think I ever accepted that he'd died. Where the hell was the body? Why was nobody singing Ave Maria? He died on Christmas, someone performed an opera he'd written at the funeral, nobody mentioned him being queer, and then the war really picked up, with people leaving my classes to go fight. I went to some protests and borrowed a five inch black and white tv so I could watch the footage of bombs dropping at nighttime. I continued working the late shift at Yogurt N More, without Darrin.I took my bevy of foster kittens to visit Grandma in the nursing home, and got freaked by all the people who were so desperate to get out, and would grab my hands when I tried to leave. She couldn't swallow, and the staff could never quite remember to sit her up before feeding her. I don't remember when her birthday was, not even what season, but I do remember that she was buried on Good Friday. In my head I've made Good Friday her day.

Gram would be 110 years old this year. The exact same age as my house.It seemed significant in some way that she was buried on Good Friday, a holy day that I'd tried to respect in all the right ways, but with my usual failure at praying. I did all the stations of the cross and inhaled incense until I was dizzy, and spent what felt like forever in perfect silence. That year, we flew to North Dakota with the box of her ashes, and buried it in the grave of the husband she hadn't seemed too close to, and that I'd never met. It was a military graveyard, the ground was freezing my feet through my shoes, and there were deer there on the next hill. I remember reading Susan Faludi's Backlash in the back seat of the car, and feeling very adult and very kid at the same time. I didn't have any money or nice clothes, so my mom had had to buy me a dress.The dramas of Holy Week and the dramas of Passover blend in my head, even though I know they're not the same. The image from Passover that sticks is the blood of the lamb over the doorway in order that your house is passed by the angel of death. I'm more an amulet person, I suppose, than a blood sacrifice person, and my version of this is blueing. I could swear I knew that people in Morocco put laundry blueing on their door lintels as protection. I'm convinced I've seen pictures where it's rained, and the blueing has left stains running down the doorjambs and the door itself. I was sure that people painting their doors and even courtyards blue came from the tradition of safety through blueing. According to the internet, I might have made it up.I used to hang those little blueing tablets tied in cheesecloth bags in my own doorways. Bundles of Ocotillo branches above the door, blueing hanging into the passageway. I had to protect myself.
Maybe by talking about smearing the blood and hanging the blue to avoid death, I'm blending them with Ash Wednesday, too. It's weird, you have to admit, seeing people walking around with an acknowledgment of their mortality on their face all day. I'll be safe over here, behind my amulet.

sickly sweet

Freakin' Splenda is haunting me! Twice in one weekend our household shopping was cursed by accidental purchases of products containing Splenda.

We don't buy too much in the way of processed food, so I think I've grown slack in the world of ingredient reading. How else can I explain being pressed to create bright colors of frosting in a pinch, breezing through some nasty chemical ingredient list on a tub of super processed frosting to make sure there was no egg or whey or lard, and realizing, while frosting a bright yellow cupcake with candied lemon peel on top, that the reason the consistency was so gluey was because it was reduced sugar frosting? Gross on top of yuk. It was too late to go back. I figured this is what I get for taking short cuts, even though I'd been asked to bake for a party, and I'm totally not a baker. I had no intention of eating any of the cupcakes, and warned everyone at the party, most of whom didn't care, that the beautiful pastel colors were made of poison.I claim some innoncence: I had been in a daze. The party was a naming ceremony and first birthday party for twins born to dyke moms, and conceived via in-vitro fertilization after years of fertility treatments. When I went on the frosting run, I'd just been at the gym listing to a podcast about Liza Mundy's new book about ethics questions and medical issues when children are created through fertility treatments, surrogacy, and sperm donors. The famous octoplets have given us a peek, but there are a whole lot more issues, many of which these very moms had experience with. It was a terrifying listen, having direct impact on this family I love, and most specifically on the smaller of the twin girls, clearly robbed of nutrition and everything else by the bigger, stronger one, and having just suffered whooping cough and pneumonia. I knew my arguments for adoption for well-founded, even though everyone is sick of hearing them! The party featured lots of cute, happy kids, however, and was so warm and sweet and supportive that my freakout melted.

The frosting was called out by one of the moms, who I'd pressed to stop using Splenda. Since she didn't care much about poisoning herself, I'd used the Huntingdon Life Sciences angle, a convincing one. Splenda was tested on 12,800 animals to "prove" that it's safe. Hello, we already know it's poison! Like how we know jet exhaust and cigarettes are poison, but we're still "testing" that on dogs. HLS exists specifically for crappy products like fake sweeteners, with hundreds of animals suffering every day because of it. All vivisection is grotesque, but nobody, no matter how uninformed, can pretend that product testing is okay. I was thrilled she remembered.So we left the party all warm and fuzzy, shaking the nasty fake sweet. Or so we thought. A person sometimes craves pickles. This sometimes happens when one's own stash of ferments from last summer is gone, and when that person is not on the lower east side of Manhattan with access to Guss' barrels of brine. So we're at the market and decide to splurge on a jar of fancy pickles. At the last minute, we feel guilty about spending the money and run back and swap the expensive pickles for a jar of Vlasic bread & butter pickles. Go home, go to crack them open, and see that they're made with Splenda.Insert string of expletives here.

Here's why I love belonging to a farm. Here's why I'm starting up a winter C.S.A. in my town. Plain old good food. Delightful treats. Good planning instead of shortcuts. No poisons. No animals harmed. Feeling completely spoiled without ever accidently eating shit like Splenda.

humanure mainstreamed

Humanure hits the NYTimes! If you're unfamiliar with the concept of using your own poop to fertilize your food, begin your education here, then continue here. The Humanure Handbook is a must-have for your outhouse reading rack.

scruples

(and a merit badge for community building)

I'd intended a while back to give Lagusta an abovegroundpool merit badge for being a sharp, funny, kickass, feminist, vegan, local chef extraordinaire, and sharing that experience with the rest of us. But hadn't gotten around to it.

I've been distracted from writing the entry by the fact that my friend is being beaten up, and from figuring out steps to take to prevent things from escalating. I don't want her to be murdered, I don't want her to continue suffering through beatings, and I don't want this guy to hurt anyone else. What I've learned talking to the lovely people at domestic hotlines is that I can't be the one to end it.

Years ago I had a horrible weekend with friends in CT. The whole setting was confusing to me. I was both attracted to and repulsed by the plush lifestyle I was experiencing, where it was okay (and even encouraged) for a pack of adult friends to raid the house, eat and drink and use everything in it, do nothing more important than play badminton and swim in the private lake, and run the well dry. I was meeting one of my friends' little sister for the first time. This fourteen year old girl (again rich, not underprivileged) lived on a diet of morning-after pills, wore pants that were so tight and low that her pubic hair always showed (the tiny bit that hadn't been shaved), and had no interest at all in engaging with any of the [queer] women or gay boys assembled. She only wanted to talk to [straight] boys that were attracted to her and she kept inviting over, but didn't even seem interested in them. I didn't learn much about why she was dour and self-destructive, but it really set a vibe for the weekend. I remember this was the first time I ever saw an episode of Sex in the City, and in this setting, sitting next to this poor girl, who, by the way, I didn't like, but did empathize with, was completely unable to find any humor in the show. I'm sooo not anti-sex, nor anti clothing that someone thinks they might look sexy in. I don't pretend kids aren't sexual. But it messed me up to see this kid so bitter about [clearly unsatisfying] sex already, so defined by it. She isn't alone, of course, but meeting her set the stage for the rest of the weekend.

Toward the end, we played the game Scruples. Round after round, I learned things I wished I'd never had about these people I thought were smart, I thought I liked. The guy I knew best of this crowd ended the game by admitting he hadn't intervened, or called anyone else to intervene, when he once overheard a woman being brutally attacked. After a futile argument that bewildered me, (It wouldn't change anything. I didn't even know her.) I had to leave. It's very possible that screaming woman was raped, beaten, or killed. I've never hung out with any of these people ever again.

Intervening, calling the cops, getting help quick, somehow, is the right thing to do in an emergency like the one my "friend" didn't respond to. From a domestic violence hotline I learned that when physical or sexual abuse is happening (to an adult), and it is not an immediate emergency, it is dangerous to call for intervention unless the victim is on board. If the victim is still seeing the perp, letting the perp into her* space, and he's* angered about being reported, he'll often hurt her worse than usual, or kill her. They recommend that, until she's ready to end the situation, to 1) Set up a code for emergencies; and 2) Keep a journal of incidents with times, dates, and details of the attacks, ideally with pictures of the visible injuries. Because of course the bulk of the injuries aren't visible.

I also recently read about pets in domestic violence situations. Like the people who stayed in their homes with their animals to try and weather Hurricane Katrina, people who are being abused often don't want to leave their animals behind, delaying getting help, most for months. Indeed, those animals often suffer at the hands of the same perps. There are some experimental domestic violence shelters that offer animals shelter as well. The animals have proven to be of great comfort to the women in the shelter where interviews took place. We all know the statistics showing that animal abusers often turn out to be abusive toward other people, too. Now we see that fear of animal abuse (like child abuse) often stops people from getting themselves out of dangerous situations.

And what does this have to do with a New Paltz blogger?

Well, I recently read her writing about the murder of a friend of hers, and that is part of what galvanized me to seek out professional help in dealing with my friend who is suffering. It's important, and also not the first time that Lagusta's writing has been inspiring to me. From discussions of how and why to make your own tempeh to making a bicycle-driven clothes washer, and this morning's reflection on the middle class environmentalist's failings when it comes to development discussions. It is really nice to know there's someone sane and passionate and articulate in the hood, sharing her experiences and thoughts in hopes of making her community/ies stronger.

I'm grateful for her generosity, her anger, her irreverence, and all the times I've cracked up reading her blog. Cuz we all really need that. (Oh yeah, she runs a vegan home meal delivery service and a vegan truffle business. But it's her writing I'm into at the moment.) So the repurposed "My Community" merit badge goes to Lagusta and her blog, Resistance is Fertile. Thanks for bringing your vegan eco feminist chef fury to the Hudson Valley and to the web!

*Obviously, these pronouns are interchangeable. Men hurt men and boys and girls, women hurt other women and girls and boys and men, trannies get hurt by men and women, etc., etc.

the real cost of prisons

It's fascinating watching the Rockefeller Drug Laws be knocked back a bunch of steps. Drug arrests and arrests of vendors or homeless people in public space are so much of what the NYPD is about. The entire Hudson Valley is covered in prisons, many of which are filled with people being held for absurdly long sentences on drug charges. The bulk of the arrests were made just for possession. Of course those people should be freed.

It has an interesting edge, though, because for the first time in decades, prison populations may shrink, and some prisons may close. Of the three prisons near my home, at least one is filled primarily with drug offenders. Maybe two. (Different people give different reports, and prison websites are useless.) One expert on Democracy Now said whole upstate towns would be closing down when their prison closed. It feels really strange to live in a town that may see collapse because its evil main industry is being challenged.

Reading an entirely different article about Queens County Farm Museum (agriculture in the city, we like that), they make reference to sending animals to slaughter at a slaughterhouse on Long Island that uses prisoners as workers for "job training." More like training your free workers, a.k.a. slaves, to be killers. Crazy!

Things like this shouldn't surprise me. After all, we live in a country where people couldn't figure out where Timothy McVeigh got his killer instinct. Duh, the military! There's nothing quite as brilliant as locking up innocent people and training them to be killers.

Image from the book The Real Cost of Prisons, from PM Press.

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.

books behind bars

People in prison are always starving for books. A central aspect of survival in a cage is letting one's mind go elsewhere, continuing to learn, and often to organize. Keeping one's mind active, and as free as possible.

Programs like the Alabama Prison Arts & Education Project (run by a friend, I'm proud to say) are pioneering, and rare. This specific project is amazing in that it hasn't just built a library for inmates, it isn't just providing literature and art classes. It's political, and focuses on works by Southerners, by African Americans, by activists and prisoners. It's not a one-off, sending a James Patterson book and calling it a day. It provides context and support as well as inspiration.

Most prisoners are not in facilities with these kinds of programs. And that's why Books through Bars, Books behind Bars, Books to Prisoners, Prison Book Program, and many other similar organizations are invaluable in helping to fill the need.

Additionally, many independent bookstores and book trading services work with books-to-prison programs.

Please donate your books!

culture & ferment

I just took a fermentation workshop with Sandor Katz, food activist and wild fermenation fetishist.

I am interested for a couple of reasons, the first of which is flavor: many of my favorite foods (miso! pickles!) are fermented. AND THEN, all the emphasis on fresh, local foods doesn't make much sense without preservation techniques. Without them, when the C.S.A. and home garden seasons are over, it's back to wilted, airplane-shipped produce from greenhouses far away.

Canning seems a bit challenging to me, but fermentation is easy—low tech and without dangers. And really tasty. And really good for you.

The workshop was a lovely afternoon spent with a nice group of people on a beautiful farm. The bonus was to learn that Sandor is queer and an AIDS activist, and has lived (healthily) with HIV since the 80s. (My first tipoff was the book dedication to an ACT UP comrade.) He lives in a queer intentional community in Tennessee.

It's funny how people become known for one thing, yet we all turn out to be as three dimensional and multi-colored as a bucket of freshly chopped veggies. This picture shows our group's "bruiser" releasing the juices of our veggies by squeezing them. Those very veggies are fermenting right now, in their own juices, in my basement.

recycled reading

Used Book Cat, originally uploaded by trp0.

so you live frugally, but can't find the books you really want to read at yardsales. or you live in an urban setting where all the independent bookstores have closed down, and borders seems like it only carries magazines and 20 bestsellers. or you love to read, but don't always know what comes next, and can use a recommendation.

i'm all of the above. which is why i'm a big fan of bookmooch, and why i benefit by convincing you to use the service. it's book trading, just like you do with your friends, but on an international scale, improving your chances of getting to read those small press or rare books you're after.

it's a freecycle, excellent at de-cluttering your life, but focused solely on books. there are other services (library thing, good reads, etc.), but mooch is just about trading, not much else. get on there, and send me your good books!

fierce pussy

While we're talking about street tactics and fags and stuff....

It seems I missed the Fierce Pussy book launch and show at Printed Matter!

Fierce Pussy was a early nineties group that came out of ActUp NY, and whose fast and dirty street art warms the heart.

activism on wheels

Erin Davies had a rainbow sticker on her car, which "inspired" someone to vandalize it with spraypaint, writing "fag" and "u r gay." Instead of having it cleaned, she took a road trip in the fagbug to talk about hate crimes, meeting with the lovers and families of murdered queers, talking to high school groups, talking to anyone who was interested or angered.

She had some interesting experiences on the road, with both letters of support and hate mail left under her wipers, her windows being smashed, multiple people trying to clean off the writing themselves, and constant parking issues, since nobody wanted to deal with the slurs.

She's now made a documentary of her trip, and is working on a book. If you're interested, check out more of her story, her photos, and her press coverage on fagbug.com.

all creatures, big and small

So, I work in publishing, for a good little company that puts out social justice titles, many about animal rights. This past weekend I found myself at a conference, once again, hawking books. I ended up hanging out with Rory Freedman, who I've become friends with over the past few years, and who is the powerhouse behind the bestselling book Skinny Bitch (and a followup cookbook). If you're not familiar with Rory or the book, it's animal rights disguised as sassy chick lit slash hard as nails advice about how to live better. She's been on the Today show and Ellen and all kinds of surprising places for a vegan activist. She's pretty and small and healthy and vegan, and that's her schtick.

This is someone I've had heated discussions with about the potential correlation between cilantro haters and those who can't eat spicy food (vs. the rest of us who live for cilantro and heat). People I have idiot conversations with while eating too many samosas are not usually the same people doing the boob tube talk show circuit.

But Rory's made it big, and I think she's done animals a good deed. She hasn't simplified animal rights, it's not a sexist approach (as some have suggested), and she hasn't dumbed it down. Though she's appealing to a Cosmo crowd who care too much about how they look or want to lose weight, that isn't really her thing. The thesis of this book is that beautiful people are compassionate people, good to themselves, to the earth, to other people, to animals. Not that all vegans are skinny (she knows me, right?), or that everyone need fit a certain body type.

So cheers to this hard ass girl from Jersey, doing a bang up job for animals and women. (What woman doesn't benefit from getting out of the animal abuse cycle?) Read this hilarious book, and know that when Rory calls you a whore, she means it lovingly, and when she talks about pus, she's doing it for your own good.

pedestrian

Yesterday, in Newburgh, NY, I saw a man get stopped by the police for walking down the street. Sirens, lights, the works. He was walking on the shoulder of a road at an intersection where 5 years ago there was farmland, and now there are strip malls: "essential" things like B&Ns, Lowe's, Mobil stations, Chili's. It was illegal for him to be walking down this road because there is no sidewalk (like most roads these days), and, I'm guessing here, because it is considered a highway by the town of Newburgh. On an already hot and sweaty afternoon, in a landscape covered with black asphalt, this man wasn't allowed to walk home from work. (The Talking Heads song Nothing But Flowers comes to mind here.)

I was flabbergasted, and feel that, for me, this felt like the beginning of the end. I saw all this happen from a car, no surprise, but was so horrified, it makes me want to want to walk and ride my bike exclusively. I'm so repulsed by a culture that makes it illegal to walk in this place that has so recently been taken away from people, and handed to corporations. Sickened by this class crap, that tries to require people to have cars by not funding public transportation.

I'm inspired to give my friend John Francis, of the organization Planetwalk and the book Planetwalker, another read. John didn't ride in cars for twenty-two years to protest oil industry abuses, and has many an interesting story to tell from his journeys. And, bonus, he's another banjo player!

propaganda

Behold Josh Macphee of the organization Just Seeds and books Stencil Pirates, Reproduce & Revolt, and Realizing the Impossible (discussed here).

Forgive the wonky photography.

These two lovlies were purchased by a friend at an art auction fundraiser for political prisoner Daniel McGowan a couple of years ago. I love the suggestion of 50's suburban domestic life and of Christian propaganda mixed with anarchist politics.

animals of iraq

A beautiful and heartbreaking new coloring book from Nick Manske.

small world

I work in publishing and went to a big book conference last week. I had two highlights: One was meeting Billie Jean King, and getting to tell her all about trans artist Tara Mateik's Battle of the Sexes performance at the Guggenheim. BJK was super nice and very interested in the artwork. She acted surprised that people were still thinking about this 1973 event.

The other people I got to meet are the great minds behind the Homegrown Evolution blog, and I got my hands on a copy of their new book. Good stuff. It felt like seeing old friends (because of that internet intimacy thing, where I feel like I know them well even though we'd never met). Creep factor aside, check out their fine work! (They're not animal activists, YET.... Don't let that deter you from the other good info in the book.)

caught cutting

I read a lot of mediocre books, which makes me even more picky and critical of the good ones. When a book actually surprises and inspires me, I'm all that much more excited.

AK Press is an important cooperative press running out of Oakland, and you should support them. Last year they published another book by political art boy wonder Josh MacPhee called Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority. I didn't love everything in this book, but I was oh so grateful to have access to information and images contained within. It was part of the inspiration for starting the abovegroundpool free activist archive. I'm always on the search for interesting political work, or images of the activism taking place around the world. [Current obsession: the rich history of Olympic protest.]

And I chose this page of the book to show a sample of, because it made me laugh out loud. There I am, cutting my own hair, both proud of being self-sufficient, and a little embarrassed by the resulting chops and my lack of willingness to leave it up to the professionals.

The point is this: there is a rich history to activist art. This book helps us begin to track it.