Non-fiction Books

This is our ongoing reading list, continually in progress and open to recommendations! We have not read all of them yet... any thoughts on ones you have read or are pining to would be great. It's so nice to talk about books.


ADVENTURE

1. Atchafalaya Houseboat: My Years in the Louisiana Swamp - Gwen Roland
   
2. The Bull Fighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People - Susan Orlean
   
3. Cross Country - Robert Sullivan
4. Death in the Everglades: The Murder of Guy Bradley, America's First Martyr to Environmentalism - Stuart B. McIver
   
5. Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
   
6. The Legacy of Luna - Julia Butterfly Hill
7. The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession - Susan Orlean
8. My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere - Susan Orlean
   
9. Rowing to Latitude: Journey's Along the Arctic's Edge - Jill Fredston
10. Search for the Golden Moon Bear: Science and Adventure in Southeast Asia - Sy Montgomery
11. Small Places - Thomas H. Rawls
12. Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches - Jill Fredston
13. The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise - Michael Grunwald
14. The Tapir's Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest - Elizabteh Royte
15. This Cold Heaven - Gretel Ehrlich
16. Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer
17. A Whale Hunt - Robert Sullivan

COB + HOME

1. Building with Cob : a step-by-step guide - Adam Weismann Katy Bryce
2. The Hand-Sculpted House - Evans, Smiley and Smith of The Cob Cottage Co.
   
3. Home Work - Lloyd Kahn
4. Shelter - Lloyd Kahn
5. The Cob Builders Handbook - Becky Bee
6. Rocket Mass Heaters - Ianto and Jackson
   

COMPOST

1. Composting Toilet System Book: A Practical Guide to Choosing, Planning and Maintaining Composting Toilet Systems - David Del Porto Carol Steinfeld
2. Create an Oasis With Greywater: Your Complete Guide to Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systems - Art Ludwig
3. Diary of a Compost Hotline Operator: Edible Essays on City Farming - Spring Gillard
   
4. The Humanure Handbook - Joseph Jenkins
5. Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants - Carol Steinfeld
6. Reusing the Resource: Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling - Carol Steinfeld David Del Porto
7. Worms Eat My Garbage - Mary Appelhof

EQUALITY

1. The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family - Dan Savage
2. Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage - Stephanie Coontz
3. Thinking in Pictures - Temple Grandin
4. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap - Stephanie Coontz
5. The Way We Really Are: Ending the War Over America's Changing Families - Stephanie Coontz
6. Why Marriage?: The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality - George Chauncey

FOOD + OTHER ANIMALS

1. Animals in Translation - Temple Grandin
2. The Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan
3. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal - Eric Schlosser
4. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals - Michael Pollan
5. Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey. The Sweet Liquid Gold That Seduced the World - Holley Bishop

GOVERNMENTS

1. An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire - Arundhati Roy
   
2. The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq - George Packer
   
3. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream - Barak Obama
4. The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile - Conversations with Arundhati Roy, Interviews by David Barsamian
   
5. The End of Nature and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future - Bill McKibben
6. 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Fight the Right - Earthworks Group
7. 50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst for Change - MoveOn.org
8. Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right - Robin Morgan
9. Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 - Joan Didion
10. How the Republicans Stole Christmas: The Republican Party's Declared Monopoly on Religion and What Democrats Can Do to Take It Back - Bill Press
11. The Prince - Machiavelli
12. Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken
13. 9-11 - Noam Chomsky
    
14. Reefer Madness - Eric Schlosser
15. The Truth - Al Franken
16. Welcome to Doomsday - Bill Moyers

HOMESTEAD

1. Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology - Eric Brende
2. Continuing the Good Life: Half a Century of Homesteading - Helen Scott Nearing
3. Country Wisdom Know-How: Everything You Need to Know to Live Off the Land - Editors of Storey Books
4. The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book - Carla Emery
5. Foxfire Series
6. Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture - Toby Hemenway & John Todd
7. Good Dirt - flower couple
8. The Good, Good Pig - Sy Montgomery
9. The Greenhouse Gardener - Anne Swithinbank
10. Growing Herbs: For the Maritime Northwest Gardener - Mary Preus
11. Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Natural Gardening - Steve Solomon (Territorial Seed Co.)
12. Herbal tea gardens : 22 plans for your enjoyment well-being / Marietta Marshall Marcin
13. Herbs for sale : growing and marketing herbs, herbal products, and herbal know-how / Lee Sturdivant
14. Homesteading Adventures: A Guide for Doers and Dreamers - Sue Robishaw
15. Introduction to Permaculture - Bill Mollison
    
16. Lasagna Gardening - Patricia Lanza
17. Living the Good Life - Helen Scott Nearing
18. New book of herbs - Jekka McVicar
19. The New Organic Grower - Elliot Coleman
    
20. The Next Whole Earth Catalog
21. Permaculture: A Designers' Manual - Bill Mollison
    
22. Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability - David Holmgren
    
23. Rainwater Catchment Systems for Domestic Supply: Design, Construction and Implementation - Erik Nissen-Petersen
24. Second Nature - Michael Pollan
25. Water-Wise Vegetables: For the Maritime Northwest Gardener - Steve Solomon
26. Wise words for the good life : [a homesteader's personal collection] - Helen Nearing
27. You Grow Girl - Gayla Trail

POLLUTION by HUMANS

1. Dancing at the Dead Sea: Tracking the World's Environmental Hotspots - Alanna Mitchell
2. Effects of Air Pollution & Acid Rain on Fish Wildlife Their Habitats Lakes - US Dept Interior
3. Fresh Air for Life: How to Win Your Unseen War Against Indoor Air Pollution - Allan C. Somersall
4. The Future of Ice - Gretel Ehrlich ! (Greenland to Argentina)
5. Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash - Elizabeth Royte
6. Gasp!: The Swift and Terrible Beauty of Air - Joe Sherman
7. The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures at the Edge of a City - Robert Sullivan
8. The Particulate Air Pollution Controversy, a Case Study and Lessons Learned - Robert F. Phalen
9. Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird - Andrew D. Blechman
   
10. Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants - Robert Sullivan
11. The Silent Killers: Indoor Air Pollution - Pete Billac
12. Smoke and Mirrors: The Politics and Culture of Air Pollution - E. Melanie Depuis
13. Toxic Air Pollution Handbook - David R. Patrick
14. Washed Up: The Curious Journeys of Flotsam + Jetsam - Skye Moody
15. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash - Susan Strasser

RATIONALITY

1. Atheism: The Case Against God - George H. Smith
2. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon - Daniel C. Dennett
3. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason - Sam Harris
4. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - Charles Mackay
5. Freethinkers: A history of American Secularism - Susan Jacoby
6. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
   
7. God, the Devil and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory - Niall Shanks
8. Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings - Marcus Borg, Jack Cornfield, Ray Riegert
   
9. Jesus Rode a Donkey - Linda Seger
10. Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism - Michelle Goldberg
    
11. Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris
12. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why - Bart D. Ehrman
13. Why Christianity Must Change or Die - Bishop John Selby Spong
    

SOCIAL + SCIENCE

1. Are Men Necessary? - Maureen Dowd
   
2. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
3. Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism - Daniel Harris
   
4. Freakanomics
5. Keep Your Brain Alive
6. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America - Barbara Ehrenreich
7. The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less - Barry Schwartz
8. Saturday Night - Susan Orlean
   
9. Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife - Mary Roach
10. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
11. Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

To Neil's home town paper: The Muscatine Journal

(written and published in December 2006 - this provoked a lot of online and family debate)


We tried leaning on Iraq pretty hard.
We went over there with enthusiastic young people and vague
marching orders, but with no knowledge of the culture and no
grasp of the language.

The phrase "know your enemy" should apply in 2 ways.
One: to know the customs and motives.
Two: to actually know who it is you are fighting.

Sadly, we seemed ignorant in both areas.

This is of course assuming that it was even noble to enter Iraq
in the first place. A small smattering of paid-off buffoons in the
Bush gang got us deep into this mess. Now, as Keith Olbermann
of MSNBC asserts, they should finally "pull over to ask for directions".
Annoyingly it seems consulting the Iraq Study Group was just a
surface fake. This gang of completely inept chickenhawks will
likely continue its assault on sound reason.

Is it that after 5 years of tragic bumbles in every area they suddenly
took genius pills or received an ethical morality injection and will
decide to listen to the Iraq Study Group ? These Study Group fellas
barely fall outside Bush's small insular circle anyway.
Not likely we'll see any profound change.
I expect more hiding, lies, and evasive no-content answers from
all the Oil Warriors in that short list of first string failures we elected.

Unlike the Iraqis under Saddam WE actually have the tools to remove
this despotic Corporo-Government of ours. The NeoCon and Halliburton
cartel built a decent little 8 year empire with nepotism and Daddy's
name. But all it may take is a little more blowback to get the ball
rolling back in the right direction.

It seems it already is.


by Neil Whitacre

Documentaries

This is our ongoing documentary list, continually in progress and happily open to suggestions. Many of these films are available from Netflix and also in parts on youtube.com, which is turning out to be an amazing source of getting documentaries out to the public. Frontline has a similar way of watching full report episodes in parts on their website - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/

Rural Route Films - www.ruralroutefilms.com/home.htm - we highly recommend seeing this festival if it is anywhere near you and finding the films they screen wherever you can.

Rooftop Films - www.rooftopfilms.com - they were in our building in Brooklyn, NY and screened on the roof and many other locations. They are a great source for all kinds of very unique films.

We hope you enjoy the list!



HAVE SEEN:

1. A Class Divided - Frontline: teacher Jane Elliot, in small town Iowa 1968, lesson on discrimination - brown eyes vs. blue eyes
   
2. Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer - Nick Broomfield, an amazing after story to the real woman 'Monster' is based on
   
3. American Job - Randy Russel + Chris Smith (docu-drama... made by good friends of ours, Randy is a great writer, actor + artist)
   
4. American Movie - Sarah Price + Chris Smith (Sarah is another very talented friend we are big fans of, she has more films below and coming out)
   
5. An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore
6. The Big One - Michael Moore
7. Born Into Brothels
8. Bowling for Columbine - Michael Moore
   
9. Bush's Brain - about Karl Rove
10. Butterfly - about Julia Butterfly Hill
11. Caesar's Park - by Sarah Price
12. Control Room - about Al Jazeera News - extremely unsettling and very thought provoking!
    
13. The Corporation - a must see film !
14. The Education of Shelby Knox - young christian girl in Texas, debates sex education with entire town
    
15. The End of Suburbia
16. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
17. Errol Morris' First Person: The Complete Series - features Temple Grandin
18. The Eyes of Tammy Faye - surprisingly very touching, Naomi cried...
19. Fahrenheit 9/11 - Michael Moore, we got to see this in a super diverse, packed audience in Brooklyn that was very vocal
    
20. 'Grey Gardens
21. The Ground Truth - Iraq Veterans, watched at a moveon.org screening
    
22. Grizzly Man - Herzog + the tragic footage of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard
23. Hell House - wow. please watch this, especially if you haven't heard of Christian Haunted Houses
    
24. History of Disbelief - Jonathan Miller
    
25. Home Movie - Chris Smith
26. Horns & Halos - about the Bush biography 'Fortunate Son' - www.hornsandhalos.com
    
27. How's Your News
    
28. Kon-Tiki - 1950 raft expedition by Norwegian explorer
    
29. Kurt + Courtney - by Nick Broomfield, (who is so good), back story to sad, suspect outcome
    
30. Mad Hot Ballroom
31. The Natural History of the Chicken - PBS, charming
    
32. Occupation: Dreamland - Garret Scott, co-director who we had the joy to meet, he has since passed away. the film is excellent!
    
33. Okie Noodling - fishing with bare hands in Oklahoma, by Bradley Beesley (also see Summer Camp)
    
34. Our Daily Bread - elegantly paced, eery, clean depiction of factory farming and livestock in Europe - very important film http://www.ourdailybread.at/jart/projects/utb/website.jart?rel=en&content-id=1130864824947
35. Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times
36. Reel Paradise - John Pierson accidentally making fun of himself and his family for two hours? set on the island of Fiji...
    
37. Rize - dance movement with roots in clowning, break dancing and an alternative to gangs. inspiring.
38. Roger & Me - Michael Moore
    
39. Search for a Safe Cigarette: Nova
40. Searching for Angela Shelton - sexual abuse
    
41. Spellbound
42. Stevie - by director of Ho0p Dreams
    
43. Suffering and Smiling - Femi Kuti, by Dan Ollman (another friend we are a big fan of, this is his first solo documentary)
    
44. Summercamp! - by Sarah Price + Brasley Beesley
45. This is Our Slaughterhouse - Matthew Boerman, 2003 filmmakers family business, which he worked at 11 years from age 10
    
46. Truth, War & Consequences - Frontline - similar doc as 'Uncovered: The Whole Truth..' (below) but even better
    
47. Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
48. The Universe Within: Nova
49. The Up Series - every 7 years, following kids through adult hood in England
    
50. The Virus of Faith - Richard Dawkins
    
51. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price - sad and important to watch
52. The War Room
    
53. The Weather Underground - anger over Vietnam and racism, violent protest - Sam Green
    
54. When the Levees Broke - about the levee failure during Hurricane Katrina, by Spike Lee + Sam Pollard - very good!
    
55. The White Diamond - by Herzog
56. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
57. Word Wars - about Scrabble
58. Who Killed the Electric Car? - this will make you mad, in a good way, but mad at our government
    
59. The Yes Men - by Sarah Price, Chris Smith and Dan Ollman
    

TO SEE:

1. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony - apartheid, South Africa
2. American Dream - Hormel strike, air traffic controller's union
3. The Agronomist - Haiti human rights activist Jean Dominique
4. Biggie & Tupac
5. Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary
6. Born Rich
7. The Brandon Teena Story
8. The Bridge - San Francisco
9. Brooklyn Bridge: Ken Burns' America
10. Bukowski: Born Into This
11. Burden of Dreams - doc about Herzog
12. Bus 174 - brazil hijacking
13. Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
14. Bush Family Values - we've heard to watch this first, followed by 'The Party's Over'
    
15. Children Underground
16. Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed - Shirley's run for president
17. Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy: (3-Disc Series)
18. Cowboy del Amor - Cupid
19. The Creek Runs Red - hazardous environmental pollution plaguing Picher, OK, by Bradley Beesley (Okie + Summer Camp)
    
20. The Cult of the Suicide Bomber
21. Dark Days - NY underground rail tunnel people
22. Deadline - death row
23. Death in Gaza
24. The Devil and Daniel Johnston
25. The Dream of Sparrows: Iraq Eye Group: Vol. 1, 2005
26. e-Dreams - Dot com frenzy
27. Elegy: The Life and Work of Breece D'J Pancake - about the author, we'd love to see this, 2003, 10 min, Jason Freeman
    
28. Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero: Frontline
29. The Farmer's Wife: 2 discs
30. Farmingville: POV
31. Fata Morgana - Herzog, Sahara Desert
32. The Fearless Freaks - about the Flaming Lips, by Bradley Beesley
    
33. Fire Wars: Nova
34. Florilegium: The Flowering of the Pacific
35. 4 Little Girls - Spike Lee
    
36. Full Frame: Documentary Shorts: Vol. 1 - 3
37. Gates of Heaven - pets, Errol Morris
38. Ghosts of Rwanda: Frontline
39. Gitmo: The New Rules of War - Guantanamo
40. Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner... - Herzog, three docs
41. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
42. Gunner's Palace - Iraq soldier film made at same time as 'Occupation Dreamland' not sure how we haven't seen this yet..
    
43. Harlan County, U.S.A. - coal miner's strike
44. Heir to an Execution - rosenberg, communism
45. Home of the Brave - Viola Liuzzo, civil rights activist murdered
46. How to Draw a Bunny
47. Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral
48. Hurricane!: Nova
49. Incident at Oglala - FBI + Native American
50. Is Wal-Mart Good for America?: Frontline
51. Jesus Camp - featuring Ted Haggard in prime condition... we've seen clips on youtube
52. The Jesus Factor: Frontline - on George W. Bust and Christianity
    
53. Jupiter's Wife - NY homeless woman
54. Kinsey: American Experience - PBS
55. Land of Silence and Darkness - Herzog, blind, deaf woman
56. Lessons of Darkness
57. The Meaning of Food
58. The Merchants of Cool: Frontline
59. Mr. Death: Fred A. Leuchter Jr.
60. Nanook of the North
61. New York: Episodes 1 - 8
62. Newton's Dark Secrets: Nova
63. Noam Chomsky: Distorted Morality
64. Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause
65. Paragraph 175 - Nazi homosexual 'eradication'
66. The Party's Over - we've heard to watch this right after watching 'Bush Family Values'
    
67. The Persuaders: Frontline - Advertising
68. Protocols of Zion - people who believe Jews responsible for Trade Center
69. The Road to Guantanamo
70. Rivers and Tides
71. Searching for Debra Winger - actresses over 40
72. The Secret Life of the Brain: Disc 1 - 3
73. The Shape of the Future - Israel, Palestine
74. Sicko - Michael Moore, release 2007, health care
75. Slacker, Slacker - Michael Moore
76. Slasher - Auto Sales
77. Sound and Fury - deaf children and cochlear implants
78. Southern Comfort - transsexual ovarian cancer
79. The Story of the Weeping Camel - Mongolian Camel Mama
80. Style Wars - PBS, NYC graffiti
81. 30 Days
82. THIN
83. Triumph of the Nerds - Silicon Valley
84. Triumph of the Will - Hitler propaganda 1934
85. The True Meaning of Pictures - Appalachia
86. Tupperware!: American Experience
87. Tying the Knot
88. Typhoid Mary
89. Unconstitutional - Patriotic Act
90. Unprecedented
91. Unzipped - Fashion
92. The U.S. vs. John Lennon
93. V-Day: Until the Violence Stops
94. Voices of Iraq
95. Waco: The Rules of Engagement
96. Wheel of Time - Herzog, buddhist pilgrimmage
97. When We Were Kings
98. Why We Fight - war doc, filmed during Iraq
99. Wisconsin Death Trip
100. With God On Our Side - relationships of Evangelicals and Republicans from 1960's Nixon and Billy Graham throught to GWB's buddies
     
101. WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
102. The Work of Director Michel Gondry

.:. Winterhorse Park .:. Icelandic Horse Farm

Mamo and I before our first ride at Winterhorse together.
With my favorite horse there, Vinur, before a trail ride in Kettle Moraine Forest in Wisconsin.

Officially moving from Brooklyn on Sunday October 1st, 2006

With Jeff here, we're all loaded up and ready to hit the road.
We are eternally thankful to Gail M. + Eric M. who came to help
us early in the morning with fresh Margaret Palca muffins.
They kept us sane, freed the claw foot tub and helped make it all fit.
Got to say goodbye to Sidney, Joey, Justine and to Lucy who was
moving from the Can Factory the same morning. As Justine said,
"The time of the elves is ending." We had a great sunny brunch
we G + E outside up on 5th Avenue (no time for a final co-op trip..)
and then headed out over the Manhattan Bridge, through the
Lower East Side, out the Holland Tunnel and through the stink and
polluto puffs of New Jersey for the last time!

Bye-bye Concreteland !

Mamo Von Fuzz Bear (a.k.a. mother of Naomi)

The fuzz was freed from a very dark long term situation this September
with the help of the energy-filled Mamo Liberation team. Here she is
free and glowing.

The Old American Can Factory + the five year lease

I was invited to move to Brooklyn in September of 2001 to have a five year lease on a huge studio space.

It was lined up the weekend before the - I can't figure out how to write about that. I don't like the numbers nickname. I called it the day the world blew up. Maybe that is a limited view, but those explosions did seem to start the downward political movements that have not stopped.

I had just gotten back from a summer film job in NYC. I'd spent a lot of time downtown, because I'd stay at the production designer's apartment in Greenwich Village. Our schedule was so intense and filled with people that I often ran downtown late at night because it was - for that city - very clean, still, quiet and safe. There were no people at night and I could run all the tension and density out. I liked those tall buildings then. They oriented where south was, since most of the time you'd be north of them. And there mass and at night- just dark, absorbing, massive past real comprehension.

The day of the planes I had to work on a Dremel Tool commercial in a suburb of Milwaukee. It was sunny and surreal and I felt ill. Everyone was slightly quieter but just went about silly commercial crap. But I guess I don't know how you take a time out in this world.

How you take time to be scared or sad.
You don't. You work.
You move the economy forward.

I didn't feel scared about moving, maybe at the time it deepened the connection somehow. I worked hard to save up as much as I could and then cut it - it's hard to stop working when you're making money in one spot and have nothing lined up in the next.

It was the third week in October, I drove a truck out with a new furry friend, an ex-street tough named Meow Meow, who'd been roaming my neighborhood meowing alot and looking for love... right before I moved.

2,000 sq' of space all to myself at first. Not sure exactly how I patched it together in the beginning. I worked some film jobs and as a prop shop, making things for film. Then built out to studio spaces to rent as art studios.

This is too step-by-step explanatory.

I moved to this big space in this big borough of a big five part city.
A city I loved visiting, going to see and adventure everywhere I could.
I felt tough and thrilled. I thought, if I was a writer, I could move here.
I could have a tiny little apartment and live off of the people and the
energy and write.

I don't think I really thought about nature as an entity to have or not have back then. I just thought - space.

If you want any of it - do not move to New York City.

And then I was offered this BIG space

And I needed to move away from the situation I was in. This was the magic rabbit hole. How could I not move? There are those moments that feel like fate and you look around to see if there is a more logical or more comfortable path to take and seem to find none and so you jump in. (not anymore, but...)

Neil came aboard my makeshift pirate raft in the can factory in 2003 and let me know my cat's name was really Jeff. Jeff? I resisted. Firmly. But it was true.

Jumping forward in time for now... we need to get away (peel ourselves away) from this dense city. This incredibly unsustainable economy, layering of humans and all possible matters of profound pollution that are not even acknowledged here by the majority who own million dollars apartments and want nothing of it.

You can have all the money you want, you can drink fancy water shipped from other countries, insulate yourself in wealth, filter the air in your private apartment big or miniscule and take nothing but car services for daily travel, but you are ALL breathing the same air. When you step out side. And you must. And oddly, in all the inumerable posh restaurants and even in Bergdorf's, they are still not pumping in air from the Green Mountains of Vermont, straight to you. You cannot buy that. Rich or poor, you cannot buy healthy air in New York City.

And there is no move towards planting on all possible rooftops and surfaces. It is of this moment and for this moment and when it crumbles, hopefully you have enough money to jet away in time.

At the same time there are brilliant people here, driven, fascinating humans of any type you can imagine to meet. Of every background, ethnicity, belief systems, income. In that human sense, there is nothing else like it and that humanity is amazing.

For us we need out of here and have only stayed this long to save for our future. To breathe clean air, hike, animals, garden or farm, build our own little cob house, a root cellar, hold the reins on our own modest economy.

To live sensibly with an understanding that really we are just animals. Perspective.