Guerrillas Without Guns

If you haven't heard of yarn bombing, it's a sort of guerrilla knitting (or crochet)project--knitters/artists/troublemakers make knitted cosies for public objects--trees, statues, park benches, lampposts, stop signs--nothing is safe from Yarn Bombers.

The kind of yarn that's used is generally cheap, ugly acrylic yarn, mostly rescued from thrift shops, spiced up with some furry novelty yarn perhaps.

The goals are many fold--making personal the mostly arid public spaces in a city, subversion, appropriation, political statements of one sort or another, assertion of the craft of knitting/crocheting, also just the fun of putting something funny or pretty or odd in place to surprise passersby.

The interesting thing about knit bombing is that IT DOESNT DAMAGE ANYTHING- EVER! I love this--I think I probably could destroy a weapon of mass destruction, but anything less, I wouldn't.

Knitta, Please is the group of Houston TX knitters who are the first to practice this version of street art--they started in 2005. The group is down to one member, but did just complete a fabulous project for SXSW--a set of knitted stairs--it's beautiful--check it out--first photo above.

http://knittaporfavor.wordpress.com/

As wonderful as all yarn bombers are, I just discovered an even more spectacular practitioner--Juanita Canzoneri is an artist in Colorado Springs--her primary medium is glass mosaic. I'll let her words speak to her path to becoming VideoKnitter:

Confessions of a Video Knitter

My problem: How to responsibly get rid of my video tapes.

Because the product is mixed plastics and metal, it doesn't recycle. If you only have a couple tapes I'm sure your conscience won't bother you about putting them out with the trash. However, if you're like me and have a couple hundred, that's another issue entirely. In 2008 I found a huge box of tapes my husband had relegated to the garage. He said to get rid of them when I asked why they were there. Confronted by this ethical dilemma, I did some research and found that the most reasonable way of doing this was to crack some open and see what could be done with them beyond filling up a landfill or two.

After playing with a variety of working styles, what I enjoy most is knitting/crocheting elements and assembling them into fiber art pieces.

She uses the video tape for yarn bombing, but also makes sculptures & jewelry and bags--they are not all black as you might imagine, but painted with a special paint for plastics--she's made some interesting stuff. She also includes a card that tells what was on the tape! I just love this. Unfortunately, I can't link to a picture from flickr, to show an example, but here's the link to her set.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcanz_studio/

and the link to her blog

http://videoknitter.weebly.com/videoknitter-blog.html

Doesn't get much greener than this--

John Wells, a former Manhattenite & Upstate NYer has migrated to the desert in West Texas.

IN October 2007, Mr. Wells bought this land — a 40-acre parcel — for $8,000 in cash, adding a 20-acre tract for $5,000 a year and a half later. It took nine days and $1,600 to build the shell of his one-room house, the first structure in a compound that now includes four shipping containers under a soaring arched roof planted on a lacy framework of metal trusses, all of which he made himself. He gave it all a fancy moniker, the Southwest Texas Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living Field Laboratory, but you can call it the Field Lab for short.

He is truly living off the grid--makes me wish I could build things--a disadvantage in attempting this kind of life--I can cook, make soap, sew & knit--but building structures & systems is way out of my skill area. If you have to hire people to build your set-up you are spending big bucks, alas.

Anyway, check out his blog--he's an entertaining writer-

http://thefieldlab.blogspot.com/

also, make sure you look at the slide show of the Field Lab in the NYT article--just gorgeous!

It Ain't Easy....

Although we may mock absurd attempts at Greenwashing, trying to live more lightly on the Earth is something to be desired--but it's not a simple matter--is it better to keep driving that old, less efficient car , keeping it out of the junk stream, or buy a new, energy efficient car? Only one of many decisions to be made daily.

Here's a really interesting resource-- developed to help product designers determine which is the best way to go green. Keep following links--there's a wealth of info here.

http://www.utexas.edu/research/ceer/che302/greenproduct/pages/whatisgreenproducts.htm

Unfortunately, true environmental performance is rarely so simple. Products and the processes used to manufacture them consume energy, utilize non-renewable and renewable materials, and generate emissions. In creating designs, product designers are continually forced to make decisions that involve trade-offs between multiple environmental impacts.

Nature Red in Tooth & Claw

I live in the country, with animals domestic & wild. I have no vision of Nature as fluffy & sweet. I've witnessed a flock of chickens with their heads ripped off by raccoons. My husband was startled by-- and startled-- a bear this summer as he was walking out to get the mail. I've seen what my well-fed cats do to animals smaller & slower than they are.

I love the ocean, yet am terrified by what it can do--I've sat on the beach & heard later that two people drowned there that same day--rip tides.

So, it's clear that the very nature & meaning of Natural is somewhat problematic...and that's why this is my favorite quote of the year

Do you object to vaccination? You'd probably object even more to smallpox.

It's from this article in The Chronicle of Higher Education by David P. Barash.

http://chronicle.com/article/Two-Cheers-for-Nature/125651/

A really thoughtful discussion of our ideas of the meaning of Nature, & our connection to it, a& responsibility for it. Another excellent remark:

As beautiful as it is bountiful and awe-inspiring, life proceeds via the taking of life, and is therefore no less likely to be ugly, amoral, and awful. And we are stuck in it, up to our necks ... and more.

The Burger That Won't Die--Truth or Lie?

There's been tales of a 12 year old McDonald's burger passed along the internetz--and of course, I'm willing to believe the worst of McDonalds (aren't we all).

But J. Kenjii Lopez-Alt, being a scientist, wanted to test whether this was true --

Thus far, I haven't located a single source that treats this McDonald's hamburger phenomenon in this fashion. Instead, most rely on speculation, specious reasoning, and downright obtuseness to arrive at the conclusion that a McDonald's burger "is a chemical food[, with] absolutely no nutrition."

--and did so, brilliantly here--

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html


His results are pretty interesting--I won't give them away, but, just a warning--don't eat the Big Mac you just found in a pocket--the plain burger's ok, though if you're desperate.....


(thanks to CanadianChick for this)

Sun Chips Redux--forced to be less Green by customers.

Apparently the compostable, bidegradeable bags that Sun Chips are so proud of are TOO NOISY--so some FB Fans went to work to solve this terrible problem--guess it was hard to hear what Snooki is saying over the rustle of the bags--so good-by save the Earth.

http://gothamist.com/2010/10/05/sun_chips_ditches_biodegradable_bag.php

Zombies & Grim Reapers Run for Life

just got this press release from the Yes Men--about my favorite ironically titled run--Dow's Run for the Water

April 19, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DOW THROWS A DISMAL PARTY, FEW ATTEND
Underattended "Run for Water" plagued by death, zombies, and dozens of "Dow spokesmen"; truth seems to run free

Video: Yes Men video coming soon here; other video here
Stills: Yes Men pictures coming soon here; numerous others here
Contact: Whitney Black (803)466-3786; press@theyesmen.org

Brooklyn, NY -- Bucolic Prospect park in Brooklyn, NY played host to a bizarre spectacle on Sunday, as a dramatically under-attended Dow-sponsored "Run for Water" was infiltrated and turned upside down by hundreds of furious activists, including a hundred dressed as Dow spokespeople.

New Yorkers who came to the park expecting a light run followed by a free concert found themselves unwitting extras in a macabre and chaotic scene as runners keeled over dead, Dow-branded grim reapers chased participants, and a hundred fake Dow representatives harangued other protesters and and handed out literature that explained Dow's greenwashing program in frank detail.

The actions called attention to Dow's toxic legacy in places like India (the Bhopal Catastrophe), Vietnam (Agent Orange) and Midland Michigan (Dioxin Contamination), and to the absurdity of a company with serious water issues all over the world sponsoring the Live Earth Run For Water.

After race cancellations in London, Milan, Berlin, and Sweden, on-site Dow brand managers were in damage-control mode. But their job was made harder by the hundred fake "Dow" spokespeople who loudly but clumsily proclaimed Dow's position ("Our race! Our earth!" and "Run for water! Run for your life!"), spoke with many runners, screamed at the other protesters, passed out beautifully-produced literature, and all in all looked a whole lot better than the real Dow reps, who seemed eager to make themselves scarce.

"I don't know what's going on here," said Tracey Von Sloop, a Queens woman who attended the race. "All I know is these people are both crazy, and Dow is f*ing sick. I'm outta here."

The event was the latest blow to Dow's greenwashing efforts, the most visible element of which is the "Human Element" multi-media advertising campaign, one of the most expensive, and successful, marketing efforts in recent history. It even won an "Effie Award" for the most effective corporate advertising campaign in North America.

"Effective," perhaps -- but also completely misleading. To name just a few examples of Dow's water-related issues: Dow refuses to clean up the groundwater in Bhopal, India, site of the largest industrial disaster in human history, committed by Dow's fully-owned subsidiary, Union Carbide. As a result, children continue to be born there with debilitating birth defects. Dow has also dumped hundreds of millions of pounds of toxic chemical byproducts into wetlands of Louisiana, and has even poisoned its own backyard, leaving record levels of dioxins downriver from its global headquarters in Midland, Michigan.

"We thought it must be a joke when we first heard that Dow Chemical Company was sponsoring a run for clean water," said Yes Woman Whitney Black. "Sadly, it was not. One of the world's worst polluters trying to greenwash its image instead of taking responsibility for drinking water and ecosystems it has poisoned around the world? What an awfully unfunny way to start off Earth Week. We decided the event needed a little comic relief."

Irony was piled on irony throughout the race, which Dow absurdly claimed was going to be "the largest solutions-based initiative aimed at solving the global water crisis in history. At one point, organizers were caught on tape dramatically throwing out excess water left over because of an embarrassingly low turnout.

Groups organizing the action included the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, New York Whale and Dolphin Action League, the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, the Wetlands Activism Collective, Global Justice for Animals and the Environment, Kids For A Better Future, The Yes Men, and hundreds of assorted volunteers, activists and mischief makers.