A place for kvetching and severe bloviation, and where discussions on interesting topics like urban farming, crime fighting, cooking and eating, biodiversity, drinking, sports, and unpopular music come to die.
But first, I just want to say thank you to Tom Watson (from Kansas City) for getting me to believe the impossible could actually happen--even if it was just for a little while. So....Adam Yauch has the cancer, which leaves a headline spot open at Outside Lands. It will be interesting to see who they have to back up the Brinks truck for to take their place.
1. This isn't life threatening, but get well soon, MCA.
2. It seems like so many people are getting cancer these days, even kids I went to college or high school with. I would have bet my life savings that cancer rates were increasing at an unprecedented rate and I would have told you it was because of the chemicals they intentionally or unintentionally put in our food, water, and air. But according to cancer.gov, new incidents of cancer have been decreasing since the early '90's. Shows what I know.
3. The Outside Lands twitter page has asked for suggestions on who to add. I'm glad I'm not the person who has the responsibility of signing a major artist to a festival and just over a month to do it, but it's nice that they're looking to the fans for input. So, who ya got?
I would say to get some cool up and coming band or somebody with local history, but this is the headliner of a $90/day festival, so they're going to have to get someone with a Name to compliment DMB and Pearl Jam. I just hope it's something just a little unexpected. So far, the lineup is pretty insipid and designed to appeal to the broadest audience possible.
Is "Food Inc." a movie for the average person? "Food Inc." is the new documentary* about the way we produce and eat food in America and the latest attack on Nutritional-Industrial Complex. It basically takes Michael Pollan's and Eric Schlosser's writings and reduces them to an easily consumable 90-minute documentary.
Being familiar with just about all the stories in the film, I found it easy to follow and still found myself outraged at the actions of the government and the corporations who are most responsible for our Western diet and all the diseases that come along with it: cancer, obesity, and whathaveyou. Towards the end, I started wondering if they weren't trying to present too much information or spending too little time on certain aspects. I found myself wanting to hear more about the court cases Monsanto brought against farmers, more from Joel Salatin, or more about what people can do to get involved. I was a little surprised the letters C-S-A weren't mentioned even once.
So I was left wondering if it's a movie that is perfect for elucidating the average viewer who eats at McDonald's and buys groceries at Wal-Mart or if it was simply another sermon to the converted to make us high-fallutin' liberals feel better about spending half our income on fancy food. I honestly don't have a good feel for what the answer to that question is.
And maybe I don't have a great answer to that because so far it has made barely more than a million dollars at a mere 83 theaters** (compare that with 4300 for Michael Bay's latest defecation on celluloid). It still has yet to hit one major outpost in the Corn Belt that I know of, Kansas City. I suspect, though, that the movie is probably intentionally enjoying a slow release so word of mouth buzz can spread. Its $2,900 average per theater puts it way ahead of mainstream movies like "My Sister's Keeper" and "Year One."
So it's proably going to take more time to see if this movie will have any crossover appeal or if it will get lumped in with all the other indie documentaries like "King Corn." I do know that some farmers near where I grew up weren't that impressed. I feel like farmers are the real heroes of the film, but I can see how my grandparents, who grow commodity crops in Pratt, KS, would get upset that Big City-types think that they know what's best for folks on the farm.
So if you've seen the movie, now would be a good time to tell me what you think. And please see if you can't get a somebody who isn't converted to go see the movie and report back. *Follow link for trailer. **http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Whatever Works"[insert pun about how well or not well you think the movie works]
Discolure: I am complete Woody Allen apologist. I may recognize the occasional fault in some of his films but I have enjoyed every single one of them on one level or another.
After seeing the man himself in the stands at the marathon Wimbledon final on Sunday, it was a no-brainer to see "Whatever Works" last night.
There are so many things I love about Woody Allen but almost above all, I love that he continues to work no matter what. Even if he were to acknowledge the existence of writer's block, you wouldn't be able to tell because he would still release one or two movies that year.
I love that no matter what else is going on in the world, I can count on that familiar smile coming to my face as a black screen with plain white type appears, old-timey jazz starts playing and I am informed that Jack Rollins and Charles Joffe were executive producers of the movie I'm about to see (even though Charles Joffe is dead), and I'm about to find out some more universal truths about love, death, and the human condition.
I love that though so many themes and plotlines tend to show up again and again, each film seems to be a different statement from the director about himself. Is the initial tone of this film so much more angry because Woody is pissed about what's going in the world? Is he getting cranky in his old age or is it just because he wanted to write a character who would be easier for Larry David to play? Is there any way his overall theme of telling everyone to stop being so damn judgmental is not influenced by everyone in the world judging him for choosing to ignore society and fall in love with the most unlikely of brides?
I suspect many will deride the movie for not being funny enough, for the characters being a little too caricatured, or for the narration direct to the audience just not working. I don't think Larry David is going to ever be successful at not playing himself, but he definitely excelled in the role as Boris. All of the characters were well cast as well and by the closing credits, they had somehow gone from caricatures to dynamic characters.
For a Woody Allen apologist, this was classic latter-day Woody. In the end, I laughed; I learned something; I didn't feel like I wasted $11.
First, the New York Times reports on rooftop gardens, which I have been saying for a while is the best way to bring health and change to the food desserts in inner cities. We still need to reclaim some of the urban sprawl for farmers--especially for small animal farms--but producing food in the middle of the city on existing infrastructure makes so much sense that I imagine it will sell itself.
Inner cities have become hotbeds for childhood obesity and family disconnect, but the acts of gardening, cooking and eating have been community-building activities for millenia. Bringing back real food and family meals could help rebuild some of our most impoverished. According to Shawnee Mission School District nurse, Nancy Nicolay, who is occasionally prone to hyperbole, some of the worst neighborhoods in Kansas City have been transformed by the simple act of planting a community garden.
Speaking of schools, it looks like the cafeteria might be seeing some of the most attention from the Obama administration. While the President has made some minor concessions to the growing number of food activists, such as a White House organic garden and whathaveyou, I have yet to hear anything that makes me think radical change is coming to the industrial food complex. Michelle Obama, on the other hand, seems to be the one who will be spearheading this issue. She recently said:
"To make sure that we give all our kids a good start to their day and to their future, we need to improve the quality and nutrition of the food served in schools. We’re approaching the first big opportunity to move this to the top of the agenda with the upcoming reauthorization of the child nutrition programs. In doing so, we can go a long way towards creating a healthier generation for our kids."
It's great to hear that the First Lady wants to put healthy and safey on the top of the agenda. She has said that her own children, representatives of our next generation, have been lecturing her about what to eat and have encouraged her to change her eating habits. Hopefully, Mrs. Obama will have the chance to speak with Ann Cooper, the revolutionary lunch lady who tranformed the Berkeley school lunch system and is now headed for Boulder.
Though the dark forces who want to keep things the way they are will come up with a thousand reasons why it's impossible to change our agricultural system, it will much harder to argue that we shouldn't be feeding our kids better while they're at school. The school lunch reauthorization is a great opportunity to fight obesity before it's already hit and to set up the future generation with knowledge about what food actually is.
The mighty Paris of the Plains is getting ready to unveil a one-of-a-kind garden, which seems at first glance to be a combo art gallery and science museum for agriculture. Michael Pollan was given a sneak peek and seemed to be more than impressed by the greatest city in the world's newest contribution to society.
Powell Gardens, which is just outside the city, has spent $9.2 million to produce a 12-acre garden that will used to teach visitors about how food is grown and to inspire them to eat real food. The "edible landscape" is the largest and first of its kind and will open June 14th to the public. No surprise to anyone familiar with the city that Kansas City would be leading the way on this as it has in countless other arenas. (By the way, according to the article, Pollan's crowd at Unity Temple was the largest of his book tour).
Also, check out The Star's photo gallery. The place looks like it will be more a teaching tool than anything, which is good because most actual farms are far too busy and ill-equipped to center their businesses around education. Hopefully people will come to Powell Gardens and then go volunteer on a farm or perhaps even turn part of their lawns into more productive green space.
I, for one, can't wait to get back to the Midwest and check out the newest monument to sustainable agriculture*. * As well as eat some real BBQ and check out the new K.
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