Do I Need Books?

May 30, 2018

...ary doesn’t have and that I think I will read someday. Which are reference books or cookbooks that we regularly use. These latter books I will keep but could probably do without (I lack the iron will of Fumio Sasaki). Interestingly, I’ve found myself reading more now that I can’t access my books. Three days a week I go to the YMCA which is mere steps from the vast Los Angeles Central Library. I can, pretty much, find any book I want there. I also...

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Failed Experiment: Bermuda Buttercup or Sour Grass (Oxalis pes-caprae) as Dye

Mrs. Homegrown

January 31, 2013

Domesticus, Herbs, Mistakes

26 Comments

...when I start a project, but I felt lazy. I don’t know if this is a flawed book or not–I’m not judging yet. It’s on probation. It’s a pretty book, and inspirational in that it makes you want to dye everything you can lay your hands on–hell it makes you want to raise your own sheep and spin your own yarn, so you can dip it in acorn, cabbage and fennel dye, sing some folk songs, dance a dance, compost the solids and acidify your garden soil.with the...

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Acedia Part II: An Internet of Narcissism

Mr. Homegrown

June 21, 2024

Thoughtstylings

...ch my friends helpfully provided just for this purpose. Harpo goes at this book with gusto, shredding the remaining pages and tossing the book off the shelf where it thuds to the floor and scares the cats and the dogs. Lasch had the same fury in his critique of the self centered culture of the 60s and 70s. I suspect much of the revival of Lasch has a lot to do with the fact that the social media that dominates our lives is nothing more than an obs...

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Nomadic Furniture

Mr. Homegrown

February 5, 2014

Design

7 Comments

...ed designers. Nomadic Furniture contains instructions for cardboard seats, bookshelves, lamps made from milk jugs, hexagonal dining sets as well as a two page hymn to the waterbed (ok, not sure about that thoughtstyling). The subtitle of the book sums it up, “how to build and where to buy lightweight furniture that folds, inflates, knocks down, stacks, or is disposable and can be recycled.” You can see more of their work thanks to a recent retrosp...

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The Difference Between Mulch and Compost

Mr. Homegrown

March 31, 2015

Gardening

2 Comments

...upon that subject (As an aside, I think we need to bring back really long book titles and creative spelling). In this book Purchas uses the word “mulch” as a suggested material for a beekeeper’s smoker, “Then make a smoak of mulch and wet straw.” Later uses of the word mulch are also about the use of half rotten straw as a mulch for top-dressing plants. As for why you should mulch, especially here in California, see our blob post Yet More Reasons...

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