Speakeasy – this Sunday

Avatar photo
Events

Just a reminder that Homegrown Evolution will be speaking at the Smart Gals Speakeasy this Sunday August, 17th at 7 p.m. in Los Feliz. We’ll do some hands-on apartment gardening, play some games and listen to the music of our friends Triple Chicken Foot, who will bring their brand of foot stomping roots music to what will be a fun evening.

Location and details:
Mt. Hollywood Underground
4607 Prospect Avenue, Los Feliz
Admission: $15.00
Information and passwords: 323.302.2257 or www.smartgals.org
(not just for chicks)
Remember the passwords: “Polycultural Evolution…”

…Spread the Word

Salsa Dancing in a World Without Oil

Avatar photo
Events
1 Comment

For those of you in the Los Angeles area here’s some events to mark on the calendar:

SALSA SALSA

What: Salsa Salsa, a Celebration of Love Apples

Type: Public Art Event in which we make salsa while dancing to salsa music together.

When: Sunday, August 17th, 3 to 7 p.m.

Where: Farmlab, 1745 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Free to the public

SALSA SALSA is a harvest festival inviting the citizens of Los Angeles to come make and taste tomato salsas while listening and dancing to salsa music. SALSA SALSA is a celebration of public space and the culmination of the LOVE APPLES project in which 72 tomato plants were installed on 12 traffic islands in LA and carefully tracked to see which thrive and which perish, à la Survivor. LOVE APPLES is a collaboration between the art collective Fallen Fruit (www.fallenfruit.org) and Islands of LA (www.islandsofla.org). The artists of Fallen Fruit investigate urban space, ideas of neighborhood and new forms of located citizenship and community all through the lens of fruit. Islands of LA is an art project that is turning traffic islands into territories of art to create community, foster discussion and explore the use and availability of public space.

LOVE APPLES is an experiment in public space in the city of Los Angeles, imagining new ways in which such spaces could be utilized to make our communities more livable and engaged. It promotes community awareness, sharing, food safety, public resources, and organic gardening.

LOVE APPLES is also a celebration of public art and of activated citizen artists. The festival doubles as a thank you to the range of artists, arts and community organizers whose assistance in response to the Department of Public Works’ concerns helped rescue the project. These include: Dorit Cypis (Foreign Exchanges), Jenna Didier of Materials & Applications, Jon Lapointe & Otoño Luján of Side Street Projects, Jay Belloli from The Armory Center for the Arts, and Zazu Faure & the others in the Glassell Park community gardeners. In particular we’d like to thank Al Nodal and the Department of Cultural Affairs, including Joe Smoke, Pat Gomez, Nicole Gordillo, and Felicia Filer. Cultural Affairs came to the meeting with us and we think it is awesome to see them so visibly supporting new public art in LA.

We are thrilled to hold this event at Farmlab, a project by the artist Lauren Bon which serves as a catalyst for community involvement and change through the development of art actions, projects, and otherwise. Farmlab is dedicated to the preservation and perpetuity of all living things.

PLEASE JOIN US from 3 to 7 p.m. on Sunday August 17th at Farmlab (1745 N. Spring Street) to make salsa and dance together. Meet new people and talk about the future shape and texture of life in this city, including the artists and organizers listed above. Bring your homegrown or street-picked tomatoes and collaborate with your neighbors on new and remarkable salsas. Bring a friend – this event is free to the public.

Life After Oil

The Environmental Change-Makers of Westchester (Los Angeles) present a series beginning September 14th called, “Life After Oil:Designing the Transition”. From their announcement:

Join us as we explore the Transition Towns concept that is catching on like wildfire in the UK. What Can We Do about peak oil and global warming? The answers are in our neighborhoods and communities.
Through the Transition concept, we take a positive, forward-thinking view of what the future will hold for our area in the time beyond oil.
  • Sunday, Sept. 14, 6pm – Movie “The End of Suburbia” followed by community discussion
  • Saturday, Sept. 20, 9am-5pm – “Designing the Transition” – a full day conference exploring the Transition concept
  • Thursday, Sept 25, 7-9pm – Peak Oil Community Discussion – the first followup event to the Transition conference
  • Thursday, October 23, 7-9pm – “Power Down”

Location, details and registration information here.

The High Cost of Golf

Avatar photo
Lawns, Thoughtstylings
14 Comments

Though I’m partial to my Xtracycle cargo bike, once in a while I’ll rent a pickup truck to haul some big items. Yesterday it was time to get a bunch of straw bales to use as bedding for the chickens. While driving by a public golf course on the way to the feed store, the windshield suddenly shattered startling me and my passenger, Ari of Islands of LA, who had come along to help out. Instictively, we ducked thinking that someone was shooting at us. Though my heart was racing, I soon realized the culprit: a errent golf ball sent hurdling over the fence by some anonymous, impossible to trace Tiger Woods wannabe. We circled back to the club house to file a report with the manager of the course and begin the long tedious process of settling the insurance claims.

So what does this have to do with urban homesteading? A lot. It’s time for another anti-golf rant. Here are my problems with golf (especially municipal golf courses):

1. The colossal mis-allocation of land. Wouldn’t a lot more people benefit from a large community garden instead of a golf course? Most people in Los Angeles and many other big cities live in apartments and don’t have any space to grow their own food. Meanwhile, waiting lists for plots in community gardens grow longer for lack of space. Most neighborhoods, of course, have no community garden at all. According to the City of Los Angeles’ 2006-07 budget, city run golf courses account for 1,500 acres of LA’s meager 8,520 acres of developed park land, meaning that 17% of park land is devoted to wealthy, middle-aged men with a taste for polo shirts and plaid pants.

2. Unfair subsidies. That errant ball came from a course owned, paid for and maintained by the City of Los Angeles. I’m sure the municipal courses bring in revenue (the city budget reports $18,000,000 from golf course use fees), but I doubt this offsets their costs (I was unable to find the cost of golf facilities in the same budget–coincidence?). I suspect we all pay for these city golf courses through our taxes. The city of Los Angeles operates the largest municipal golf course system in the United States according to the Mayor’s 2008-2009 budget. I love sports, participate in a few and believe that recreational facilities should be subsidized. But I also believe in a return on that investment. We should subsidize recreational facilities that encouraging physical activity, health and well being. Investing in initiatives and facilities that get people to exercise pay for themselves in the long run in reduced health care costs and a healthier, happier population. But is golf the kind of exercise we should subsidize? No way. Especially since on many courses, including some municipal courses in Los Angeles, players are required to drive a golf cart to speed play and increase the number of people who can use the course at any given time. I also believe in democracy. I say let’s put it to a vote: should the city fund golf courses or soccer fields? I suspect, in Los Angeles, soccer fields would win by a landslide.

3. Water. We’ve got a many year long draught here in the southwestern U.S. that shows no signs of letting up soon. Modest water rationing requirements are in effect, but that municipal golf course green I was forced to visit looked, well, very green. The amount of water used to irrigate the world’s golf courses could support 4.7 billion people at the U.N.’s daily minimum according to the Worldwatch Institute. Let’s not even get into the deleterious effect of herbicides. And while we’re on the topic of water I’ll point out that the two city running paths I use have no drinking fountains.

4. Golf kills. If I had been on my bike or going for a run I could have been killed by that ball. The supreme irony is that the stretch of road on which my rented pickup truck’s windshield was shattered is the same spot where the Department of Water and Power puts on a lame, drive-through Christmas light show that is, in effect, a city sponsored multi-month traffic jam. They ban bikes during this period because they say it isn’t safe. My friends Stephen and Enci have pointed out to our city officials that banning bikes on a city street is a violation of the state vehicle code that defines bicycles as vehicles. So far the light show, despite opposition from neighbors and the Sierra Club is poised to continue this winter. But I digress. Let’s just say that I’ll think twice before I ride down this street on a bike again, and it won’t be because of the light show.

The Griffith Park municipal course, from whence that windshield smashing golf ball originated, is the birthplace of the municipal golf course system in the U.S. It’s well past time for government subsidized golf to end. Let’s tear up those courses and go for a run, play some soccer, create wildlife habitat and plant some food.

A Grand Tour

Avatar photo
Resources, Urban Farming
2 Comments

Say howdy to Wendy and Mikey, intrepid homesteaders from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Thanks to the wonders of internet video we can all see what they’ve been up to: a long list of activities that includes, papercrete, oyster mushroom cultivation, DIY drip irrigation, vegetable gardening, rainwater harvesting, dome building and more.


The Grand Tour from Mikey Sklar on Vimeo.

Wendy and Mickey blog about their activities at blog.holyscraphotsprings.com.

Here at Homegrown Evolution we’d like to start featuring more profiles of what you, our readers, have been up to. Please drop us a line, a link, a video or some photos–we’re interested in any effort, from the simple to the grand.

Say . . . Smart Gals Speakeasy

Avatar photo
Events
1 Comment

Homegrown Evolution will be making a special appearance on Sunday August 17th courtesy of the Smart Gals. We’ll be doing a hands-on apartment homesteading demo and delivering a crazed Powerpoint (hint: more info on the Texas Centaur). Here’s the 411:

Sunday, August 17th, 2008
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Mt. Hollywood Underground
4607 Prospect Avenue, Los Feliz
Admission $15.00
More information and the passwords: www.smartgals.org (don’t forget to look at the Smart Gals website to get the password!).
323 302-2257
(not just for chicks!)

The image on the right is a bookmark we created for the occasion.