What We Need Is Here

A presence that disturbs me with joy...

- William Wordsworth

A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

To know many songs by heart

From What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics by Adrienne Rich

"The passing on of living history is an essential ingredient of individual and communal self-knowledge . . . The loss can be a leak in history or a shrinking in the vitality of everyday life. Fewer and fewer people in this country entertain each other with verbal games, recitations, charades, singing, playing on instruments, doing anything as amateurs - people who are good at something because they enjoy it. To be good at talk, not pompously eloquent or didactic, but having a vivid tongue savoring turns of phrase  to sing on key and know many songs by heart - to play fiddle, banjo, mandolin, flute, accordion, harmonica - to write long letters - to draw pictures or whittle wood with some amount of skill - to do moderately and pleasingly well, in short, a variety of things without solemn investment or disenabling awe - these were common talents till recently, crossing class and racial lines. People used their human equipment - memory, image making, narrative, voice, hand, eye - unself-consciously, to engage with other people, and not as specialists or "artistes."

For ordinary people to sing or whistle used to be as common as breathing. I remember men whistling, briskly or hauntingly, women humming with deep-enclosed chest tones. Where did it go? A technology of "canned" music available through car radios, portable "boom boxes," and cassette players, programmed music piped into the workplace, has left people born in the 1950s and later largely alien to the experience of hearing or joining in casual mucsic making. . .

Part of the experience of casual singing was the undeliberate soaking up of many songs, many verses. Ballads, hymns, work songs, opera arias, folk songs, popular songs, labor songs, school-children's playground songs. And, of course, with the older songs words changed over time, new generations of singers mis-remembering or modifying. Tunes changed, too, as songs traveled: from England or Wales to Appalachia, from Africa to the Sea Islands, France to Quebec, and across the continent.

To ears accustomed to high-technology amplification and recording processes, the unamplified human voice, the voice not professionally trained, may sound accoustically lacking, even perhaps embarrassing. And so we're severed from a physical release and pleasure, whether in solitude or community - the use of breath to produce song. But breath is also Ruach, spirit, the human connection to the universe."

Partager un Potager : A Community Garden in Central Paris

There is a wonderful demonstration garden right in the center of Paris in front of the l'Hotel de Ville, a 15th century municipal building.  The closest space we have like this in Gainesville is probably City Hall, a plain 1960s building surrounded by concrete and former goldfish ponds. Normally, the area in front of the l'Hotel de Ville is a large paved plaza area with benches and a fountain - not so entirely different. But in early June, raised beds were created in wooden boxes and installed throughout the plaza along with information on "bio" (organic) methods of gardening in small places.

They have fine weather for gardening here in the summer - about twenty degrees cooler than our summers and a little more dry. The garden is beautiful and, everytime I pass it, full of people enjoying it - which is the idea. The word for vegetable garden in French is potager, and the word for sharing is partager, so this potager for partager is also a nice play on words that they use in the informational brochures.

I would love to do this in Gainesville: create a real public space for a garden that would offer education, inspiration, and beauty - things public spaces are meant for.

- Kelli, still in Paris

We need to destroy nature to enjoy it

I was at my parents’ house this past weekend, tucked away in the northwest corner of Georgia—a picturesque area of mountains, forests, lakes and streams. My parents live near the end of a dead end road, on the side of a mountain replete with pines and hardwoods, wild blackberry bushes and flowers of many colors. Their home is situated east to west, so from their back deck and thru the trees you get an extraordinary view of the sunset each evening, gently setting over lush green mountains in the distance.

But apparently, the view is not quite all that it could be. My folks explained to me how all of their neighbors are either cutting down their trees or lopping off the tops in order to get a better view of the sunset. (To my folks’ credit, they’ve refused to go along with this, despite pressure from the immediate neighbors who share the vista with them.)

The absurdity of this is striking (although apparently not to my parents’ neighbors). First, all of these people are transplants to this area of Georgia; no one is a native. They also have homes in Florida, or Atlanta, and elsewhere. Most, if not all, seem to come from intensely developed areas—the west coast of Florida for instance, fromTampa down to Naples. I imagine that one of the first impressions that drew them to want to live in the north Georgia mountains was the abundance of trees. I can picture them, couples recently retired, kids grown and out of the house, taking that first trip, looking around and exclaiming to each other how magnificent to see so many trees, how beautiful they are, how wonderful it would be to live in the woods, surrounded by nature.

After a few visits to the area, they decide to live here part-time, picking out a house on a mountainside, thick with beautiful trees. And sitting on their back decks, they watch the sun go down, filtered through those trees, an enchanting mixture of shadows and fading rays of light. For awhile, they really find it to be a delight.

But (cue the irony)… They start thinking about just how much more beautiful it would be if they thinned out some of those trees. They could get a better photo for the Christmas card next year, an unobstructed Georgia mountain sunset. And so the tractor and back-hoe come out, men with chainsaws and axes show up, and voila! Seemingly unaware of what denuding mountainsides has meant for Californians (think mudslides), the underbrush is gone, the trees have become firewood and the wine glasses clink sweetly, as they take in the bright pinks and faded oranges, light blues and dusky golds of that perfect mountain sunset.

As the tractor did its damage one morning on the property next to my parents’ home, this phrase—popularized as a slogan for all that was wrong with the war in Viet Nam—came to mind: “We have to destroy the village to save it.” Except here, a homeowner is saying to his guest, as they sit on his back deck watching that sunset, unburdened by trees: “We needed to destroy nature to enjoy it.”

Not exactly those words, of course.

- John

Founding Father

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776