127 Apocalypse Now with Father Mark Kowalewski

...t, seem off-topic. But I think it’s safe to say that within the DNA of the urban homesteading, permaculture and ecological movements is a concern with how the world might end and the possibility of either hastening, postponing or avoiding the collapse of human civilization. Then there’s the fact that a significant portion of U.S. government officials believe in some form of a “rapture.” Of course there are many divergent opinions on the nature of...

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131 Learning to Smell the Roses with Kendra Gaeta

...tion Beyond perfume–who works with scent The Smelly Viles Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles Perfumers Apprentice + Flavors Apprentice (An amazing source for small quantities of scents and flavors) The smell of the International Space Station If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to rootsimple@gmail.com. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. Closing...

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Paleo Grift

...eisure before the toil of agriculture is an idea that pops up often in the urban homesteading and permaculture scene. While I’m sympathetic to complaints about modern agriculture, I’ve long thought that this Golden Age narrative sounds too simple, too much like the “noble savage” archetype, the idea that if we can somehow just get back to “nature” all will be okay. This notion of a idyllic distant past was the subject of an excellent episode of th...

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Worst of NextDoor

...nity is somehow more “open minded” than other parts of the country or that urban people are more progressive than rural people. These are stereotypes that I’ve been guilty of harboring in the past. We are all, myself included, easily sucked into the sort of hateful trolling that Silicon Valley has found a way to monetize on social media. How do you keep people glued to a website like NextDoor? Just offer the spectacle of your elder neighbors teari...

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Who Needs Windows?

...all those Amazon warehouses, or Los Angeles’ hidden and still functioning urban oil wells. Our window free tour will visit some misguided office buildings, a Masonic temple and a trade school. So turn on that glaring bank of florescent lights, sit down in a dark cubicle and let’s take a windowless journey beginning with the headquarters of America’s most mediocre chocolate factory. Hershey’s Chocolate Headquarters 19 East Chocolate Ave. Hershey,...

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