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You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Open Thread: Postapocalypticism in the Style Section

Open Thread: Postapocalypticism in the Style Section

by Anne Laurie|  July 28, 20116:11 pm| 19 Comments

This post is in: Garden Chats, Open Threads, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome

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(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)

The political process breaks down, things fall apart, doom hangs heavy in the air… and the NYTimes, ever sensitive to changes in the zeitgeist, moves from sharing tips on “stem-to-root cooking” (That’s Not Trash, That’s Dinner) to a primer on permaculture:

As a way to save the world, digging a ditch next to a hillock of sheep dung would seem to be a modest start. Granted, the ditch was not just a ditch. It was meant to be a “swale,” an earthwork for slowing the flow of water down a slope on a hobby farm in western Wisconsin.
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And the trenchers, far from being day laborers, had paid $1,300 to $1,500 for the privilege of working their spades on a cement-skied Tuesday morning in late June.
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Fourteen of us had assembled to learn permaculture, a simple system for designing sustainable human settlements, restoring soil, planting year-round food landscapes, conserving water, redirecting the waste stream, forming more companionable communities and, if everything went according to plan, turning the earth’s looming resource crisis into a new age of happiness.
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It was going to have to be a pretty awesome ditch…

(Garden Chat and awesome reader pics later this evening; just wanted to share this as a virtual palate-cleanser.)

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Reader Interactions

19Comments

  1. 1.

    scav

    July 28, 2011 at 6:17 pm

    il faut cultiver notre jardin

    evidement in designer gear and the properly chic company.

  2. 2.

    henqiguai

    July 28, 2011 at 6:17 pm

    a simple system for designing sustainable human settlements, restoring soil, planting year-round food landscapes, conserving water, redirecting the waste stream, forming more companionable communities

    Sounds achingly similar to the mission of the old New Alchemy Institute. Shuttered it’s doors within a couple of years after I found out about them after moving here to New England. I really miss NAI.

  3. 3.

    eataTREE

    July 28, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    If there is one thing I cannot freakin’ stand about the New York Times, it is its relentlessly privileged point of view. Ditch-digging, how charming! What a quaint, yet socially meaningful way to spend an evening. It’s as if they don’t know that there exists a substantial fraction of the human race who necessarily have a different relationship towards ditch-digging and don’t engage in it as a form of edu-tainment.

  4. 4.

    Violet

    July 28, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    I’m hoping to take a course on permaculture soon. Trying to incorporate it into my garden.

  5. 5.

    Bender

    July 28, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    It’s official: The White House has lost the debt debate:

    GOP aims to gut Christmas, White House alleges…

    That’s the Fonz in waterskis…

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    July 28, 2011 at 6:25 pm

    In which Betty Cracker finds what might be the most poetic fail video evah.

    http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/the_wile_e._coyote_of_burglars/

    Watch the whoooole thing.

  7. 7.

    4jkb4ia

    July 28, 2011 at 6:43 pm

    I noticed, too.

    It could be a slow process of realization for them–they have noticed that food and gardening are about localism, survival, and reinventing lifestyles for the people who are getting into it now.

  8. 8.

    wonkie

    July 28, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    What does “cement-skied” mean?

  9. 9.

    jl

    July 28, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    I guess the NY Times has snoot up everything and make it seem all so tasteful and overly appropriate in fashion for the not quite rich enough.

    The Yahoo news box gets down to basics
    Foods With the Longest Expiration Dates, Seth Fiegerman
    http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113184-10421-3-foods-with-the-longest-expiration-dates

    America’s Dirtiest Hotels, Jane Levere
    (I guess they figure you can get discounts there, no link, ’cause who wants it?)

  10. 10.

    jl

    July 28, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    Alert Cole. There is hope for the His Tunchness.

    Twenty-nine-pound cat goes on diet
    http://tv.yahoo.com/daytime

    I watched the clip, and the title’s wrong. Should be 35 pound cat goes on diet, and is now 29 pounds.

  11. 11.

    brettvk

    July 28, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    I love the ideas and techniques of permaculture. But charging over a thousand dollars for the course rather dilutes the message. As I sink further down in the “working” class, I’m mustering less patience with the privileges of the wealthy-to-stinking-rich.

  12. 12.

    Steeplejack

    July 28, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    &#042 DVR Alert &#042

    TCM is showing Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966) at 1:00 a.m. EDT tonight.

    Really good movie on a lot of levels. It has a “ripped from the headlines” cinema verité look, the script is excellent, and it’s a tight, tight thriller. And, oh, yeah, lots of political relevance. Shouldn’t forget that.

    Col. Mathieu: “Should France remain in Algeria? If your answer is yes, you must accept the consequences.”

    Watch a trailer here.

  13. 13.

    Steeplejack

    July 28, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    @wonkie:

    “The sky is gray and I am a bad writer.”

  14. 14.

    opie jeanne

    July 28, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    Dear Annie Laurie,

    I really look forward to the garden threads; thanks for going to the trouble.

    How much in advance do you want photos?

  15. 15.

    LanceThruster

    July 28, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    I still find it mind-boggling that in CA it is illegal to harvest rainwater. The claim is that it is taking it from the water company’s aquifers, when in fact when used to keep soil moisure up, it helps maintain the aquifer (unlike in the Great Lakes where bottled water companies pull it pretty much forever out of the local watercycle (see: “Waterlife”), a simply stunning site and documentary.

  16. 16.

    opie jeanne

    July 29, 2011 at 1:39 am

    LanceThruster, is this something new? Because people in California have rain barrels and cisterns to do just that.

  17. 17.

    chopper

    July 29, 2011 at 9:01 am

    i love reading articles in papers like the times about permaculture. they always butcher it.

  18. 18.

    chopper

    July 29, 2011 at 9:02 am

    @Bender:

    sounds like good news for mccain. amirite?

  19. 19.

    Paul in KY

    July 29, 2011 at 9:57 am

    jl, saw that story. Felt sorry for that cat to have such sucky owners. He made up 2 Tunches (well, maybe 1 and a half).

    The cat could stand to lose 10 more pounds.

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