A few words before this episode.
Gil who's interviewed here has been laid off since I recorded this episode and the NYC Compost Project and the curbside compost collection in NYC, for which he worked are coming to pass. Curbside compost pick-up will end on May 4 and the Compost Project will be completely mothballed in July, he told me.
However, Gil’s spirit is still high.
“I’m doing okay,” he wrote to me. “I was laid off last month but I received my first unemployment check today.
I’m am blessed beyond words to have my community garden to go to and be outside in the sun and soil basically whenever I want”.
Now, on my side, I am sheltering in place with my wife and three daughters. We never expected to have Zoe, our 21-year-old at home with us again and are enjoying this extra time with her.
I hope you, my listeners are well. Please stay home and stay safe!
In this episode, I am on the phone with Gil Lopez the founder of Smiling Hogshead Ranch an urban garden in Queens New York.
The Smiling Hogshead Ranch started 9 years ago as a “guerilla garden” on a set of abandoned railroad tracks. After many backs on forth with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, they managed to secure a lease.
Today the Ranch is an agriculture farm and community garden by day, and a social club and cultural venue.
-- Gil, I have read that you see the more important effects of community gardens as being psychological, off-setting mindsets of commodification and enhancing ideas of community.
The coronavirus is devastating our economy, deeply impacting our way of life and putting a stop to production and consumption. It is a costly reminder that in order to survive our communities must transition to a more resilient model.
Here are Gil’s recommendations
Book
Basic Call To Consciousness
by Akwesasne Notes
Documentaries (YouTube)
HyperNormalisation: by Adam Curtis
The Century of the Self
Listen again: Divers from the EPIX/ BBC Docuseries “Enslaved”: Diving on Shipwrecked Slave Ships
SETI – Dr. Seth Shostak – Searching for E.T.
Poetism Part 7: Can you describe it all? Scott Stevens on the Cocteau Twins & Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Poetism Part 6: Can you experience? Michael Leon Thomas on Whitehead and Pharoah Sanders
Poetism Part 5: Can you speak for others? Lorenzo Bartolucci on Seamus Heaney and Hozier
Poetism 4: Can you break a word? Gabriel Ellis on SOPHIE and Jos Charles
Poetism 3: Can You Feel It? Johnnie Hobbs on D’Angelo and Amiri Baraka
Poetism Part 2: Are we numb yet? Lisa Robertson and the Airborne Toxic Event with Mitch Therieau
Poetism Part 1: Patrick Rosal and The Doors with Fang Liu
Doug Steinel: Cancel Culture in Classroom
Cargo-Sailboats are Back-at-Sea, Creating a Greener Supply Chain
Bruno Sarda: “Climate change poses a systemic, existential risk to the future viability of your system”
Students Becoming Pro: the Interns Behind the Mic
Navi Radjou: Is Frugal Economy a Viable Alternative to Capitalism and Could it Save our Planet?
How would you go to Zoom School as a homeless youth? We asked Bridging Tech, a charity devoted to overcoming the digital divide
Listen Again: Guns, God & the 2nd Amendment in America - David Treibs Christian & Guns Activist - Prof. Robert Spitzer Constitution and Gun Control Expert, SUNY Cortland
Derrick Jensen: Are We at the End of the World or just the End of our Civilization?
International Women's Day - Listen Again - Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings: Black Feminism, Civil Rights…
Who should get the vaccine first? We didn’t know so we asked a philosopher
Listen again: Eric Marsh - Being a Black man today in America
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