A Year after The Age of Limits: 5 Responses to the End Times

...there’s some pretty fishy stuff involved here in regard to race and class, urban vs. rural, and suppressed desires to blow out our neighbors’ brains with shotguns. Example: Any cult/religious belief that Something Big is going to happen to exalt the believers and sweep away the unbelievers. The attraction here is not only increased availability in desirable real estate, but also the assurance that you are special, chosen, and right in all things,...

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078 Mark Lakeman on City Repair

...the community architecture and planning firm Communitecture. He is also an urban place-maker, permaculture designer and community design facilitator. And if you’re on the West Coast of the US, you have a chance to participate in a series of workshops this month. For more information visit marklakeman.net. To find out about events in Los Angeles visit change-making.com. If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 5...

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An Echo Park Weed Salad

There’s nothing like a little urban blight to produce an excellent salad. While not impoverished (not unless you consider dilapidated $600,000 bungalows a sign of destitution), our neighborhood ain’t exactly Beverly Hills, meaning that in terms of landscaping it’s a little rough around the edges. And the edges–parkways, cracks in the asphalt, neglected plantings were, on this warm February day, overflowing with weeds. Edible weeds. We explored th...

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How to Build Walls with Pallets

...and jetsam. Mattresses, rotting couches and headboards accumulate, forming urban coral reefs under the blistering sun. It’s difficult to figure out a use for these objects other than as art. For utilitarian needs, such as building walls, we must turn to the many pallets that also litter our streets. Sketchup model by Ron S. But pallets can be tough to work with. The wood splinters easily making disassembly a tricky proposition (watch the Garden Fo...

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Julian the Apostate’s Sleeping Advice: Sleep on the Ground and Your Mattress is Freeeeeeeeeee

...pains later in life. It’s possible that the softness of our mattresses are making our muscles and bones weak, just like the terrible running shoes and orthotics that ruin our feet and collapse our arches. It turns out that the last pagan Roman emperor has ideas about how we should sleep. Ammianus Marcellinus’ Roman History Book I, contains a description of emperor Julian the Apostate’s austere sleeping habits: And when the night was half over, he...

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