Le Phone Freak

May 6, 2019

...Rainbow this spring after one failed attempt to read it in the 1990s. The book is full of loom metaphors such as this one, “While the great Loom of God works in darkness above,/And our trials here below are but threads of His Love.” The loom represents for Pynchon a way to evoke the sinister command and control of the punch card operated looms of the industrial revolution and, ultimately, the semi-autonomous V2 rockets of the Nazis. As novelist a...

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GM and the Red Cars

Mr. Homegrown

April 8, 2019

Transportation

2 Comments

...ing those streetcars. It reminds me of Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism, a book that haunts me every day. In it Fisher describes describes how we all seem to be unable to imagine a future that’s not some dystopian, privatized nightmare of the sort imagined in the 2006 film Children of Men. When I see charts like the one above, taken from a Los Angeles Department of Transportation report, I can’t help but think of Fisher’s book and what Nic suggest...

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The Institute of the Present

Mr. Homegrown

April 1, 2019

Appropriate Technology, Water and Power

7 Comments

...aborate April Fools Day post for today involving the announcement of a new book entitled The Big Book of Anecdotes for Dentists. For, you know, those awkward times when the dentist has to do a monologue while your mouth is full of dental tools. But then I asked myself why am I making fun of people who work with their hands and minds for long hours in order to alleviate suffering? If anyone deserves good pay and days off to golf, it should be denti...

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A Manual of Needlework and Cutting Out

Mr. Homegrown

February 19, 2019

Domesticus

2 Comments

...Please enjoy this manual of the lost art of hand sewing by Agnes Walker published in 1907 and recommended by YouTube sewing sensation Bernadette Banner. What makes the book useful is that, unlike a lot of sewing resources, there’s not a lot of assumed knowledge. The book also shows the high level of craftsmanship expected of young children before the great crappening of the mid-20th century....

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124 Adam Brock on Forming Nurtured Networks

Mr. Homegrown

September 5, 2018

Podcasts

1 Comment

...aining groups I got an email from Adam Brock, author of Change Here Now, a book which uses architect Christopher Alexander idea of a “pattern language” to find solutions to the many challenges in front of us. A large section of the book develops a pattern language for what Adam calls, “nurtured networks.” From his bio: Adam Brock is a Denver-based facilitator, entrepreneur and designer. His work lies at the intersection of urban agriculture, susta...

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