Yearly Archives for 2007

Salad Table

from University of Maryland’s Home and Garden Information Center (“We answer plant and insect questions!”):

A New Type of Container Garden

“Some Maryland gardeners complain of having insufficient sunlight in their landscapes for a vegetable garden. Many others don’t have the time, space, or knowledge to grow fresh vegetables. Jon Traunfeld, Regional Specialist with Maryland Cooperative Extension has been developing a unique method of growing salad and trialed it last year at the Central Maryland Research and Education Center in Clarksville, MD.

“The Salad Table enables you to produce salad greens outdoors, at waist level, from April through October. It is portable, versatile, low-cost, and terrific for gardeners of all ages, sizes, and abilities. The Salad Table is essentially a shallow wooden frame with a large surface area and a mesh bottom that allows water to drain. You can attach legs of any length you desire or set it on sawhorses or other supports. Smaller versions are especially good for kids and small spaces. The Salad Table can be placed in a cool, low sunlight location for growing tender baby greens, including all types of lettuce, through the hottest summer months! [Click here to download PDF of] our new publication HG 601, ‘Grow Your Own Greens with Salad Tables & Salad Boxes.”

Arthur art directors Mark Frohman and Molly Frances (aka The New Herbalist) try it out…

We'll be right back

from the April 26, 2007 L.A. City Beat:

Arthur Lives Again: Issue 25 won’t be the last!

This particular Arthur saga has a few chapters left in it.

Despite being declared dead by co-founder and editor Jay Babcock back in February, the much-mourned Arthur magazine announced its return earlier this month to the already too-small world of long-form counterculture journalism. Babcock’s negotiations with publisher Laris Kreslins to buy out Kreslins’ half of the mag had reached a seemingly hopeless impasse, but a recent breakthrough finally pushed the deal through.

“The main thing is that he came back to the table and we reached a deal, and I got loans from friends and family which allowed me to buy him out,” says Babcock, who has run the magazine from his home in Atwater Village since its inception in 2002. “I have now gained 100 percent control of Arthur, and I intend to resume publishing the magazine as soon as all the financing is in order.”

Babcock denied rumors that Arthur had received last-minute financial help from some of its high-profile friends, among them Rick Rubin, Dave Eggers, and Matt Groening. “When I reached out, it was to a close circle of family and long, longtime friends,” he says. “We probably will do a benefit or two or auction off one-of-a-kind items to help me pay back all the people who loaned me money.”

Founded in 2002, Arthur found success as a haven for long-form journalism and criticism that covered music, art, and politics with underground sensibilities. Editorial contributors have included Alan Moore, Byron Coley, and Thurston Moore. The magazine also spun off into a series of well-attended festivals, such as ArthurFest, which drew major acts such as Sonic Youth, Yoko Ono, and Sleater-Kinney.

Babcock is currently trying to get the publication’s momentum rolling again before he can set a date for the next issue. “It’s not time yet. All the ducks are getting in order, and then we’ll go for a swim,” he explains. Issue 26, which was all but completed before the negotiations breakdown, will never be published, and most of its features have either found homes at other publications or been posted on the magazine’s website. Nevertheless, his outlook remains optimistic.

“We’ll be back, bolder, brighter, bigger, and freer,” he jokes. “It’ll probably be a little more aggressive. We’ll name names. I think we’ve been pulling our punches to this point and we’re not gonna have to do that anymore.”(Alfred Lee)

YOU ARE NOT HERE.

“Explore Baghdad through the streets of New York! Site-specific access codes can be found throughout the city (see map below) allowing you, the Meta Tourist, to experience the Great City by the Tigris. Upon finding an access code, call the Tourist Hotline (646-862-7769) for free audio guides to all the must-see locations.

“You Are Not Here (.org) is an urban tourism mash-up. This persistent game takes place in the streets of New York City and invites participants to become meta-tourists on an excursion through the city of Baghdad. Passers-by stumble across the curious You Are Not Here signs in the street. The YANH street-signs provide the telephone number for the Tourist Hotline, a portal for audio-guided tours of present day Baghdad destinations in NYC. Through investigation of these points and with or without the aid of a downloadable map, New Yorkers are transformed into tourists of contemporary Baghdad.”

Center for Tactical Magic at Psychobotany

Above: Aaron Gach, Center for Tactical Magic member and “Applied Magic(k)” columnist for Arthur magazine [see CTM’s most recent Arthur column, “Mobilizing Vehicles for Change,” here], talks with audience members Tuesday night after his presentation on plant-human communication at the “Psychobotany” show at Machine Project in Echo Park. Footage:

And here’s a brief 360 view of the space:

Lesbians Claim Credit For Falwell Demise

The Idol of Perversity by Jean Delville (1891).

Lesbians Claim Credit For Falwell Demise

The Lesbian Death Angels, concerned that Rev. Falwell’s followers will misattribute the cause of their leader’s demise to their antigod or to some weenie group like Soulforce, have announced that, in a mass worldwide action, they hexed at 10:30 am today and that the subject of their hex was the Rev. Jerry Falwell. In other words, they are claiming to be responsible for Jerry’s death and wish the world to know that they are proud of it to boot.

“Falwell earned being hexed well into his next life with his post-9/11 comments on that event’s cause made in a conversation with fellow telehatemonger Pat Robertson on Robertson’s 700 Club broadcast”, noted collective member Connie L. Ingus. “Too often when tyrants die — particularly spiritual ones — their past is glossed over into sweetness and light that doesn’t begin to resemble the truth of what they did. Frankly, a heart attack hex was too nice. We should’ve added an addendum to make him come back as an innocent Muslim imam who gets ratted out by a rival faction and ends up in the U.S. rendition program, never to see the light of day again — either that or as an out gay youth in Iran.”

The LDA is the international body of pro-choice radical lesbians who meet in secret and not-so-secret cells, covens, and as individual practitioners each Tuesday morning to try to set the world back on its axis one hex at a time. Previous targets have included rapists who found themselves strangely compelled to walk into police stations and turn themselves in and others. This is one of the few successful hexes they have publicly taken credit for.

“Proselytizing is usually so rude”, said Ms. Ingus. “Under normal circumstances, we’re content just with the effects of our work. Lesbians who are meant to find us simply will. The Goddess is powerful enough to get that job done without our help.”

The LDA feels no compunctions about the pain this announcement might cause the Reverend’s family, as the Falwells have benefited from and participated in their patriarch’s long campaign of hate without so much as a public hint of guilt for all the pain and death they have contributed to.

The LDA is still contemplating their next target for early karmic justice. The list of potentials is long. They wish to thank the Goddess for her swift response today.