Saturday Linkages: First as Tragedy, Then as LARP

January 30, 2021

...downs to pool parties: how Covid rules vary around the world As Kate Wagner of MacMansion Hell put it, “None of you are ready for this real estate listing.” You have until 6:30 p.m. today EST to view Der Fliegende Holländer, the last Met opera filmed before the pandemic Car Lanes to Become Bike Lanes on 2 Major New York City Bridges Those Mysterious Dark Helicopters Were Landing On Multiple Downtown LA Rooftops Last Night The Strangest Operating S...

Read…

Admitting Gardening Mistakes

Mr. Homegrown

August 17, 2015

Garden Design, Gardening

15 Comments

...ost again as much. . . Once changes have been found advisable, though, it is also dangerous to put them off, for whatever is incorrect in the current situation will likely show up again in the execution of the new project. Gardening requires a ruthlessness and lack of attachment that I often don’t have the stomach for. Sometimes you have to embrace creative destruction and curse that fig tree (or, in our case, curse the diseased and unproductive N...

Read…

Netflix Before Netflix: The Tabard Inn Library

Mr. Homegrown

January 26, 2022

Design

4 Comments

...r book. The kiosks could be found in drug stores and other retail establishments. Eaton also had a home delivery book service called the Booklovers Library. The scheme didn’t last long but did result in the creation of a huge mailing list that Eaton attempted to use for other businesses. Does this sound familiar? My local Von’s grocery store has a DVD rental service kiosk out front that still gets use. No, I’m not going to build a Tabard Inn Libra...

Read…

Can our landscapes model a vibrant future? Not according to the LA DWP.

Mrs. Homegrown

July 7, 2014

Garden Design, Gardening, Lawns, Water and Power

18 Comments

...ers on record (winter is our rainy season). Last year’s rainfall total was under 6 inches. The governor has asked California residents to cut their water use by 20%. Apparently, we’ve only managed to cut it by 5%. There’s a strange sense of unreality about the drought. I think that’s because we’re just not feeling it in the cities. Our water is cheap, the taps are running, food prices aren’t terribly affected– yet. So we keep washing our cars and...

Read…

The Great Beekeeping Debate

Mr. Homegrown

August 25, 2016

Animals, Bees

13 Comments

.... What’s not good is the arrogance that comes from thinking that since you understand part of the problem you understand the whole and can immediately start applying technological solutions. As Nassim Taleb has pointed out in his books The Black Swan and Anti-fragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, monkeying with complex systems from a point of ignorance leads to horrible, unintended consequences. Take the issue of varroa mite treatments. Let’s s...

Read…