Fickle March

You're like a Cleveland Gray when there's daffodils blooming in the alleys and the sylvan cyclists glide by in the afternoon and when you dream the Guardians of the bridge stretch out their arms and drop their vehicles from a great height and the splash into the river sends ripples to the lake and back again to shore when a mysterious gull flies out of the valley his call bounces off the top of our towering city and then vanishes when you wave your wand and change the melody.

Pop Up Pearl

On May 21st, from noon until dusk, Old Brooklyn along Pearl Road will transform into Pop Up Pearl. For one day, vacant storefronts will showcase Pop UP gift shops, art galleries, restaurants and a more. If you've got an idea to fill a vacant storefront you can participate.

1996-97 was a good year

I had forgotten about the Primitive Radio Gods until Last.fm reminded me to like them. Remembering to like their song, Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in my Hand, reminded me to like Pepper by the Butthole Surfers and Brimful of Asha by Cornershop. It's good to remember to like what you like.

We Are Not Vacant

"Just because we have vacant lots and abandoned houses in our neighborhood doesn't mean we live in a vacant and abandoned neighborhood."

-Barbara Anderson speaking at a Neighborhood Connections holiday party


Need proof? Check out the Re-imagining Cleveland's Ideas to Action Resource Book.

Local Food in Early March

Eating locally in early March means eating from the pantry and the "cellar". We don't have a cellar, but we do have a poorly heated front hallway that works pretty well. Tonight's dinner is soup made from:

• Canned vegetable stock (carrot, onion, garlic and celery from late summer)
  
• Canned Green Beans (From July)
  
• Frozen Kale (From Sept)
  
• Frozen Kohlrabi (From August)
  
• Frozen Zucchini (from July)
  
• City Fresh Garlic (stored from Dec)
  
• City Fresh Cabbage (stored from Dec)
• Dried Adzuki Beans (pantry)

Giddy with the Prospect of Spring

Cleveland Crocus Emerges!

Reducing the Noise

I just spent about an hour unsubscribing to 20 -newsletters and retail email lists that clutter up my email inbox. I also un-joined 3 underused ning sites.

I retained a subscription with the 4 e-newsletters I actually read; feeling light and free about this.

Context is Everything & the Near Future

If you hold your leg in a room full of twenty people, it's not the same as holding it when you are alone by the sea.

The body enjoys participating in the possible which becomes narrowed down to the probable, which fast becomes the actual or what we call the present. . . Perceiving the "probable future" transform into the present invites us to be there right then. There is no point in being only in the present because the body lives and breathes the future. We may live in the present, but we breathe the future.

-Julyen Hamilton
(from an interview in Contact Quarterly by Nancy Stark Smith

The video below (with Hamilton, Stark Smith and someone else) is better with the sound off.