[image by Brian]

Goal for June: Read a book a day. Follow my reading list here.

Free reading’s not just for library books; here are top 10 places to get free books! (first 5 here, last 5 here) Most of these books’re free because they’re online –

Green reading tip: Read free books online.

And below’re 3 short books I read to finish out my 30 books:

Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain: Main difference from the movie: The characters are not as good looking. Also, a few extra flashbacks, more nuanced details. Also, a v. short book — helpful if you’re trying to read 30 books in 30 days.

James Purdy, In a Shallow Grave. The story of a man who returns from war horribly disfigured, who finds a couple helpers to read to him and deliver strange letters to a woman he’s obsessed with. The painful and magical plot revolves around the relationships and friendships between these four –

Clayton Eshleman, What She Means. Poems — many of them love poems of sorts to his wife Caryl, but also poems that explore socio-political issues without hammering you over the head with rhetoric. In his intro, he writes: “The task increasingly becomes to remain open to the voices that appear in the contradictions of trying to lead a decent life while being a whilte American male, and even if poor by current American standards, living with the conveniences that only 1 percent of the world population enjoys.”

Books read:
Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain
James Purdy, In a Shallow Grave
Clayton Eshleman, What She Means

Tags: read, reading

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Switch off everything for an hour — cars, lights, cell phones, etc. — starting at noon tomorrow, Sunday, July 1, 2007.

Why? For One Hour No Power — an effort initiated by Andy a stay-at-home dad in the UK. Everyone concerned ’bout the environment’s invited to simply turn everything off for an hour, “to raise awareness of our collective ability to tackle climate change through our everyday lives.”

Is it cheating if I live-blog a post ’bout my one hour no power, if my laptop’s unplugged and running on its battery?

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Yep, they’re going up. Regular fares for the Big Blue Bus won’t change, but transfer fees’re going up to $50, and various special fares — for students, seniors, etc. — are shifting.

Also, we’re getting a daypass — $2.50 a day for most peeps. More deets on the fares here.

The mini blue system’s also gone into effect — rides running every 15-mins on eco-friendly buses. These aren’t really new lines though — They’re existing lines slightly changed to make ‘em more neighborhood friendly.

Santa Monica residents’ve prolly seen some of these mini blue buses around town already; more deets on the buses and routes here. Happy riding — Get a Little Blue Card in prep if you haven’t already –

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[image by Brian]

Goal for June: Read a book a day. Follow my reading list here.

Sometimes books are not for reading but for looking at.

Green reading tip: Make books into pieces of visual art.

So this tip’s not particularly green, except that turning books into sculptures of sorts means a reusing of books — and reusing’s always eco…. Some ideas juxtaposed with some recent books I’ve read:

My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun -: Sculpted, cut-up, shaped, and lamp-ed books of art. (via 3quarksdaily)

Paul Valery’s Monsieur Teste is a book cut-up — a book composed of fragments, or maybe more accurately, a book as evidence of the fragmentary nature of experience.

In fact while Valery published a slim volume titled Monsieur Teste in 1896, Valery kept scribbling about this Teste figure in his notebooks, using him as a sort of philosophical alter-ego throughout his life: “The systematic use of Me as He.” Or, “I confess that I have made an idol of my mind, but I have found no other.”

The Princeton UP edition I read begins with the original publication, followed notes and fragments the translator collected together.

and I added, repeating what all rather simple-minded people think: “So, what am I doing here?”
“Well…,” said Monsieur Teste, “you are wondering what you are doing here….”

Book spine poetry: Books juxtaposed to reveal new strange meanings. (via 3qd; image from Nina Katchadourian)

Juxtaposing a girl’s coming-of-age story with biblical allusions and dreamlike new myths, Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit tells the semi-autobiographical story of a gal raised by Pentecostal evangelists who slowly discovers her own beliefs and lesbian desires — and gets kicked out of her church and home pretty fast.

Odd thing is, in the end, Jeanette comes back to town to visit her religion-crazed mother. Oranges is in large part a story of family, forgiveness, and redemption — these terms defined very differently, of course, from Jeanette’s original upbringing.

Objectified artists’ books. Book as coffin-shaped love poems to a vampire. Book that pops up. Book as a book of matches. Book as perfume. Book as an illustration of rare flowers.

Eudora Welty’s The Ponder Heart is not an artists’ book — I just happened to’ve read it right before writing this post. The Ponder Heart tells the humorous story of Daniel Ponder, a Southern guy with a rather maniacal tendency to give everything he owns away — and also to marry on a whim. I rate this book mildly amusing.

Books read:
Paul Valery, Monsieur Teste
Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Eudora Welty, The Ponder Heart

Tags: read, reading

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Today’s giveaway’s a copy of Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community, written by Heather Flores. This book isn’t just about growing food. In fact, the book’s vision is a much broader, far-ranging one about building communities and neighborhoods — and movements to benefit these new groups.

Read my review here. If you’d like the book, comment or email by Sunday to get in the drawing, which’ll happen Monday. US addresses only

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• Trash services go platinum via Forever Landfill, a tongue-in-cheek initiative by activist-artist group Heavy Trash. “Forever Landfill is a marriage of spacious plots, remote locations and state-of-the-art systems that could never be duplicated by the public sector.” (via WC; image via Heavy Trash)
• Just drag-n-drop to change your driving directions on Google Maps to fit your desires. Also, try not to drive so much
• Bald eagles taken off the endangered species list cuz they’re now doing well.

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Home Depot might give away CFLs once in a while, but its purported eco-label, “Eco Options,” doesn’t mean shit. As the New York Times points out:

Plastic-handled paint brushes were touted as nature-friendly because they were not made of wood. Wood-handled paint brushes were promoted as better for the planet because they were not made of plastic.

This is really taking eco-labelling down to new lows.

I’m all for the beg-n-borrow method when it comes to home improvement stuff — I mean, how often does one really use a paint brush? You’ll often find your neighbors are more than happy to lend you their rarely-used tools — and by asking, you might make a new friend :)

If that fails, try Freecycle or Craigslist before hitting Home Depot.

And if you find yourself at that chain, know that you’re smarter than this monolith! Evaluate your purchases with a more discerning eye than Home Depot’s extremely loose definition of eco-friendliness, and go home green happy.

[image from Home Depot; Crossposted on BlogHer]

Tags: homedepot, ecooptions, environment

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• For your summer beach mix listening pleasure: Reware’s come out with a solar beach tote that’ll let you charge your iPod, phone, or camera speedily, the better to call your friends over to the beach party then get photographic proof of them partying to your fave playlist. [image from Reware]
• Microwaving plastic into oil. Global Resource Corporation sez a finely tuned microwave’s all it takes to turn plasatic into oil and gas. The big Q, I guess, is what powers the microwave –



• Plastic bags may or may not biodegrade in 500 years, as often cited — especially as a landfill “acts as something like a trash tomb—the garbage within receives little air, water, or sunlight. This means that even readily degradable waste objects, including paper and food scraps, are more likely to mummify than decompose.” [image by envirowoman]
• Brattleboro, Vermont becomes the second US Fair Trade Town. The first was Media, Penn., which I wrote about here.

Tags: reware, oil, plastic, fairtrade

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In LA, with its desert climate, our mayor’s already urged us to conserve water this summer, as we seem set for a “perfect drought.”

Which makes this a good time to look up your water footprint, as Anais of Path to Freedom recommends. This water footprint quick calculator’s a rather rudimentary analysis, though it’s a start.

Perhaps the easiest way to save water is to take shorter showers — I’m usually in and out in 3 mins. You can also put a bucket under your shower while the water warms up — then use that water for your thirsty lawn or garden. That’s what my friend Summer of BTC Elements does. My porch garden isn’t as big as Summer’s; I water it with dish rinsing water.

If you feel up to it, you might even put in your own gray water system with some help from the Graywater Guerillas as I wrote about here; the system would basically automatically reuse your water for you.

As for drinking water: If you’re dismayed by the plastic-encased filters like Brita, consider a ceramic filter. Umbra at Grist recommends them; in addition to the joy of de-plasticking your water, you’ll rest easy knowing ceramic filters have “a proven record of triumphing over water-borne pathogens.” With some DIY spirit, you may even be able to make your own filter.

[water image by Mak Patel; crossposted on BlogHer]

Tags: water, conservation, garden, environment

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[image by Brian]

Goal for June: Read a book a day. Follow my reading list here.

Serendipitously, my friends Traci and Greg just started a Green Grub Book Club. First on the list: Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin. I won’t be reading that for a while since the meeting isn’t until mid-July, but I’m psyched –

Green reading tip: Start a green reading club.

Since I just joined one, I won’t be starting one of my own for now. No reason you shouldn’t though –

Perhaps as expected, I’m more than a bit behind in posting ’bout the books I read so far. Thus, I’m writing ’bout 5 different books I’ve read in the last week in one long post:

Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint: If you’re a Jewish boy who grew up with a lot of sexual guilt and masturbated tons and still masturbate a lot, this book’ll show you you’re not alone. The dude really does whacks off a great deal — which I find difficult to relate to in the sense that I’ve never pursued anything — sexual or otherwise — with such single-minded, dilligent focus. I just haven’t the energy or razor-edged intent, though I s’pose self-pleasure is a better monomaniacal pursuit than most.

Andre Gide, The Immoralist. Honestly, I thought this book would be a lil more immoral — somewhat closer to Story of the Eye or Delta of Venus — than I found it to be. After all, the guy didn’t do anything particularly immoral, in my view. Still, I did enjoy the strange juxtaposition of desire with class, race, lifestyle differences — even if the interstices aren’t directly explored.

Jennifer Calkins, A Story of Witchery. A long narrative poem about one Emily that flirts with all manner of fairy tales, from Alice in Wonderland to Snow White to Wizard of Oz, re-interpreted in a bloody, macabre tone. I’m supposed to write a review on this book for Slope, so more later.

Nuala M. Archer, Inch Aeons. A book of mostly haikus:

Most analysis
of Death remains This-worldly –
Is Death Ever Now?

Bow-
Wow –

Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers. A sort of collection of Borges’ dross, put into a book that begins with a short-prose section, ends with a poetry section. I found the prose much more evocative and pleasurable than the poetry, which seems more weepy and unnecessarily formal than the prose.

Books read:
Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
Andre Gide, The Immoralist
Jennifer Calkins, A Story of Witchery
Nuala M. Archer, Inch Aeons
Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers

Tags: book, read, reading

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