Earth plus Sky equals Food

I have tried to remain aware of the fact that as a New Yorker I, more than most people, am divorced from the source of the food I eat. It's not so bad as the scene in Feed (M.T. Anderson) when Titus visits a fillet mignon farm (or possibly veal farm) where all the meat is growing out the ground) and says, "I really like to know where things come from." But still, it's pretty bad. Driving through Indiana and Illinois this became utter apparent to me. You just drive through mile after mile of corn and soy bean fields - especially when you get off the Interstate and drive on smaller roads. And I know this is obvious but it was still heavy. Food comes from the earth. The sky and the ground get together and make plants that we can eat. There it all is. No packaging or preservatives or signage or any thing. Just food coming up from the ground. That's how it's worked out so we can manage to live. And there it all was stretching out on either side of us as we drove. I was amazed and humbled.

Philadelphia - Gotten to know you

Though we're in the midst of moving 3,000 miles away I still feel like Philly is a natural place for us in many ways. East Coast, mid-sized, music and activism in abundance, we have good friends there, affordable housing. I don't even know what it is about Philly that appeals to me so much because there are certainly other cities with the above credentials. Perhaps that it's a scaled back version of a large city like NYC but not Boston - a city I never see myself living in. It's somewhat large, somewhat cosmopolitan...but not overwhelming. This is quite possibly academic because a move back east is at least 5 years away I think.