In honor of the 12th and final day of Christmas, I offer an illustration from Johannes Kepler’s ponderings on the origins of the snowflake. Too poor to buy a Christmas gift for a friend, Kepler penned an essay instead, “On the Six-Cornered Snowflake” (Strena Seu de Nive Sexangula). The short pamphlet, written in 1611, begins with Kepler crossing the Charles Bridge in Prague and noticing a snowflake land on his jacket. He goes on to ponder the geometry via a detour into Neoplatonism. Thus was born the first work of crystallography. If only we could replace the commercialism of the season with well crafted essays!

Hope you are all staying warm or cool (hello Australia!).

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Happy New Year everyone!

I thought I’d first let you know how Kelly is doing. Recovering from open heart surgery, even for a young healthy person like Kelly takes time. Leaving the house for more than an hour is still a great effort. She’s not up for blogging just yet but we hope to record a podcast soon so that she can tell the story of her aortic misadventure.

Speaking of the podcast, I want to thank Eric Rochow of Garden Fork for recording an episode of the Root Simple podcast that I will put up tomorrow. The podcast features an interview with a very gifted photographer named Babs Perkins.

As for New Years resolutions, after trying both publicly announced resolutions (a big mistake) and privately held resolutions (also unsuccessful), I’ve decided to forgo the idea altogether in favor of a vague notion of just staying positive, grateful and keeping a sense of humor about life. We have a lot to be thankful for, in particular Kelly’s recovery and being surrounded by many kind and compassionate people including you, our dear readers.

Do you have plans for 2017? What would you like to accomplish this year?

Erik and I want to send you all gifts of love and light at this, the darkest time of year. Whatever you celebrate with your friends and family, be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or Competitive Pie Gorging, we wish you all the very best.

I wanted to take this moment to thank you all for your love and prayers since my aortic dissection on November 25th. (It’s been a whole month already? Time flies when you’re on narcotics!)  I feel like I have been held aloft by love all this while, and have been humbled, amazed and moved to tears by the kindness shown to me by everyone, from complete strangers, from surprising quarters, from my nearest and dearest. My survival of this event is a miracle, flat out. And I don’t know how to process that, except to live forward in deep gratitude.

It is not easy for me to write yet–the brain moves slowly and protests at too much labor. I’ve wanted to tell my story here, because so many people want to know more about what happened to me, but I’ve realized it might be a while before I can write that much. However, I can talk, so Erik and I will be doing a podcast about our adventure very soon.

But I wanted to share one thing here and now, partly because I know many people don’t like to listen to podcasts, and partly because it is perhaps the most important lesson I learned in all this, and it seems particularly relevant during the holiday season, when we gather with our friends and relatives.

On Black Friday, in the emergency room, when they figured out what was going on with me, the atmosphere became suddenly very grim indeed. The surgeons told me I would be operated on as soon as they could prep the room, and that it was basically the most serious surgery that could be done and that I may not survive it. After they left, the sweet nurse in pink scrubs who’d been with me all night said to me, with tears in her eyes, “Honey, I’ve been a nurse for a long time and…well, you need to call your loved ones. Now.”

Okay, so imagine being in this position. Imagine having to call your mom and tell her, in roundabout terms, that you might be dying soon. You may not see her again. To be sure, many are not even granted that much grace before dying, but my point here is that there are no words. Words are simply inadequate in moments like this. I don’t know who can summon eloquence in a crisis, and “I love you”, however true, seems hollow and of cold comfort when you think it may be your last time saying it, and it must somehow hold the entire weight of your regard for that person.

So the lesson here is to live every day like you are dying, so no words are necessary when the end comes, and those you love will know very well that they were loved fiercely every day that you drew breath. Never let them doubt it.

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If I had broad dictatorial powers we’d return to a pre-19th century version of Christmas: just another day on the liturgical calendar with optional drunken carousing. But that pre-commercial hope is as vain as the elimination of daylight savings time or the quest for a decent doughnut. We just have to resign ourselves to a certain amount of mutually assured destructive gift exchange. Towards that end, I thought I’d offer some suggested gifts, mostly obtainable online, for the urban homesteady types in your life. Most of the links are to Amazon, and we get a small cut of the proceeds, which helps keep our webmaster in kibble.

But First . . . Charity
Of course, rather than buying unneeded crap that will only clutter our already messy houses, we could agree to give to a charity instead. This season, due to our national “orange swan” event, Kelly is favoring the National Resources Defense Council. In addition, I suggest the Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic, that provides medical care and counseling to needy folks right down the street from us here in Los Angeles. On Black Friday you can also shop at Patagonia, which is donating 100% of sales that day to environmental causes. Or you can make your own gifts. Everyone gets jam!

Incerto: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile

Speaking of orange swans, Nassim Nicholas Taleb has gathered four of his books into one mega-cranky boxed set. Taleb’s genius is in pointedly pointing out the faulty ways the “adults” in our culture deal with randomness and complex systems. In my humble opinion, if you’re into permaculuture you should also read Taleb.

The Rye Baker: Classic Breads from Europe and America

As a hopeless dabbler, I envy people who obsess and focus on just one thing. Baker Stanley Ginsberg is one such person and he spent years researching rye breads in both Europe and America. He’s gathered them all into one book, everything from Swedish flatbreads to a classic American deli rye. If you want healthy, sourdough fermented wholegrain breads, this book is for you.

Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes

Planting in a Post-Wild World came out last year, but I think it’s still the most interesting new book on gardening and landscape architecture. Rainer and West describe a difficult to summarize philosophy that bridges the “wild” and human constructed landscapes. Along with Taleb and Kat Anderson’s Tending the Wild, this book should be on the bookshelf of all gardeners and permaculturalists. 

A New History of Western Philosophy

If, like me, you managed to get through school without a shred of philosophical training, do yourself a favor and take a stab at this book. Kenny writes clearly, though I won’t say that the whole book is easy going. But just grasp a fraction of the content of this book and you’ll understand how $50 concepts like epistemology and ontology underlie assumptions about everything. Yes, such seemingly mundane things like gardening and construction work take on a whole new meaning once you dig into the preconceptions that we make about meaning and reason. I’ve come to enjoy beginning my day with a passage from Kenny’s book. 

Ship’s Cats in War and Peace

There’s no nice way to say this. I’m a crazy middle-aged cat dude. The similarly pitiful cat-lover in your life will enjoy this strange and obsessively researched book, though they will develop a lifelong hatred of Ernest Shackleton (the bastard shot the ship’s cat!). You will learn two important facts: the celebrity cat phenomenon is definitely not a new thing and sailors spend a lot of their time sewing special cat hammocks.

Vegetable Seeds

Who should you trust with your vegetable varieties? How about our friends the Italians? They know a few things about tasty vegetables. My favorite source for years has been Franchi, a family owned company that dates back to the 18th century. Franchi’s American importer is Seeds From Italy. But wait, what about climate change and drought for those of us in the arid Southwest? That’s were Native Seed/SEARCH comes in.

Silva Ranger 515 Compass

Let’s say you don’t want to end up wandering in the desert drinking your own urine, like two of my fellow LA hipsters ended up doing recently. You’re gonna want a compass. No, you can’t use it to rate the park on Yelp or Instagram yourself drinking your own urine. Kids, what the compass is useful for is figuring out where you are and/or where you’re going when that cellphone of yours has no signal. What I like about this particular compass is that it has a sighting mirror, critical when you’re getting your bearings. But don’t forget that the compass is, pretty much, useless without a map. Thankfully, you can download USGS topo maps for free.

Leatherman Rebar

Leatherman makes many different versions of their iconic multi-tool, one for each of America’s varied lifestyle categories. There’s the Leatherman Hipster, the Leatherman Accountant, the Leatherman Tech Bro and the Leatherman Internet Troll. OK, I just made all that up, but they do have the perfect tool for the person in your life, like me, who is little more than a low-grade, mostly incompetent building supervisor. Let’s say you need to do some dodgy electrical work, bad tree pruning or slice a muffin in half. The Leatherman Rebar is the tool you want. Here’s what it’s got: needlenose pliers, replaceable wire cutters, electrical crimper, knife, serrated knife, wood/metal file saw, small screwdriver. large screwdriver, phillips screwdriver, awl w/thread loop, ruler (8 inches), bottle opener, can opener, wire stripper, lanyard ring. I’m especially fond the wire stripping capability. If you need anything more than that you need to re-prioritize your life. I deploy my leatherman rebar at least once a day and wear it on my belt at all times.

Solavore Sport Solar Oven 

Consider this thing a solar-powered slow cooker. We were sent one by the company for testing and what I like about it, over other solar box cookers, is the ability to cook two pots of food at once. Civilized people need some rice with their stew.

SolSource Solar Grill

We did a video on this cool solar grill recently showing how you can use it to . . . deep fry! Looking somewhat like a James Bond villain prop from “Moonraker,” the SolSource’s mirrors focus the sun into a supremely hot point. Consider this a grill to compliment your Solavore oven. Together they form a supremely self-righteous outdoor kitchen that will function perfectly well in the post-zombie apocalypse outdoor entertaining combat theater.

Fencing lessons

Let’s say the significant other and/or the kids in your life are spending a lot of time on the couch playing the latest video game like the kid in the Ukrainian fencing studio ad above. Why get the same first person shooter experience with a little exercise thrown in? Fencing is an odd, three in one sport: foil, epee and saber. Like video games, fencing has electronic scoring and you even get multiple lives! Most adults do epee (it’s all I’ve ever done) and, traditionally, kids start with foil. Equipment costs are minimal but you will need to spring for one-on-one lessons. I dearly love running and riding a bike, but fencing has the added benefit of providing lessons in strategy. It’s a mental workout that’s often described as “physical chess.” The sport requires you to think several steps ahead of your opponent. If you’re a local, I can’t say enough good things about Fortune Fencing in Monrovia–it’s a friendly and mellow place (no yelling coaches). If not fencing consider some other lessons. Research has shown that money spent on experiences makes us more happy than money spent on things.

Want to pick up something that’s not on this list and support Root Simple? Just click through any of the links above, and a portion of your purchases will help us without costing you a cent.

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