May 2004

Slow Culture

The Ecologist put 50 jewel-like varieties of heirloom tomatoes on their cover the other month to trumpet the rise and rise of the Slow Food movement. They have a great little essay from Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser and a longer print-only profile of Carlo Petrini, the "activist for pleasure" at the heart of the Slow Food foundation based in Bam, Italy.

Happily, this is no dull and worthy activist organization -- the SlowFoodists are out to have a good time. Instead of holding protests, they start restaurants. Member groups are called "convivia" for their celebratory atmosphere. (There's a Quebec chapter, naturally.)

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May 30, 2004 in Environment , Food and Drink | ✍ 2

When in Paris, visit the Tomb of the Unknown Chef

My brother said recently that "Rome fell when they started erecting statues to their cooks." Emperor Vitellus used to spend over $2000 a day on food, and was the patron of the chef Apicius, who was like the Thomas Keller of his day or something.

Martine posts about Ed putting himself under pressure to deliver resto-quality food when friends come over... and conversely, how his gourmet reputation makes others quake at their own lack of mad kitchen skillz.

On the other hand, with well-publicized books and movies raising the issue further, I think about our cultural obesity/anorexia/bulimia epidemic and have to wonder, have we elevated food above its rightful place?

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May 25, 2004 in Food and Drink | ✍ 12

Welcome To The Monkey Vehicle

Kate sends me a link to this excellent article, rant, fulmination, and shot-across-the-bow by Kurt Vonnegut, published in the latest In These Times:

I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver’s license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.

And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t be any more of those. Cold turkey.

Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?

Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

Read the entire piece here.

May 15, 2004 in Environment | ✍ 11

The End Of Suburbia

Tipping you all to this new documentary by Toronto filmmaker Gregory Greene which opened last month in Toronto and is on the festival circuit at the moment.

Greene's credits include work for Bravo's Arts and Minds, documentary series for MuchMusic and more. Hosted by VisionTV's Barrie Zwicker, The End Of Suburbia: Oil Depletion And The End Of The American Dream is the documentary I was seriously considering making on my own.

The 78-minute film examines the subject of Peak Oil through interviews with leading urbanists, scientists and authors including Kenneth Deffeyes, Colin Campbell, Peter Calthorpe, James Kunstler, and more.

Find out more here. And you can purchase the DVD online via PayPal (or cheque) for just $24.95: they're encouraging screenings for groups of up to 50 people. Anyone interested in seeing it? I'll get a copy and we can find a place to watch it and have a discussion.

May 14, 2004 in Current Affairs , Environment , Urbanism | ✍ 2