A Visit to the Reversible Destiny Lofts

...erspacial character is echoed in the Loft itself and its surroundings. The urban hyperspacial maze that is Tokyo makes both the Bonaventure and the Reversible Destiny Lofts seem comprehensible by comparison. The Shinjuku train station, to take just one example, contains a dizzying number of public transit options on multiple levels connected to a massive shopping mall with escalators and elevators leading to what seems like infinite floors of reta...

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Let’s Pedal Together in this New Year

...lane. A journalist called me on Tuesday to interview me for an article on urban homesteading in a pandemic. She asked me what I thought of as the most important activity in the homesteading tool basket. I said that it’s not growing vegetables or canning things it’s getting to know your neighbors and forming communities of mutual support. I am very thankful that our neighbor Jennie, several years ago, started a monthly neighborhood happy hour. Whe...

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A Love Supreme

...te developers. I’m also sticking my neck out because I’ve seen some in the urban homesteading movement drift towards what I’d call a fascist and/or alt-right adjacent ideology and I want to distance myself from that contingent. More on that in another post. I believe that the way we treat the environment, our bodies and our households is on a continuum with the way we take care of all people. Everyone has a right to health care, housing and educat...

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How to Cook Broadleaf Plantain

...ugh MeetUp. And you should definitely check out Pascal’s foraging website, Urban Outdoor Skills. Both of their websites feature “food labs” which have some of the most inventive wild food recipes I’ve seen anywhere. On a recent visit to Urban Outdoor Skills, I was very excited to find he’d developed a cooking technique for broadleaf plantain (Plantago major, the common weed, not the banana relative). Though I know plantain is very nutritious, it i...

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Rainwater Harvesting with Joe Linton

...lage’s website. This workshop is part of a continuing series in “hands-on” urban permaculture and includes: An overview presentation on Los Angeles water issues, including local multi-benefit watershed management efforts. A tour of Los Angeles Eco-Village stormwater harvesting landscape features, including the Bimini Slough Nature Park. A hands-on workshop to build terraced swales to detain and infiltrate storm water This workshop focuses on build...

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