Farm City
Today I finished devouring Novella Carpenter’s Farm City. Frankie sent it to me. Frankie is the former publisher of biodieselSMARTER, and in his hand typed letter that accompanied the book he felt that I must have known Novella from my travels in the grassroots biodiesel community.
Nope.
From her cover shot, I couldn’t tell if I had met her or not. She was holding a sheep.
My summer reading pile is already toppling over, but in deference to my deep love of Frankie, I decided to give Farm City a try. Since I am committed to the notion that life is too short for a bad review, I only review books that I love.
And Farm City fits that description. Part memoir, part textbook, part storybook, Farm City is an absolute page turner that I wished would go on forever. It is one “eco-freaks” tale of subsistence farming in Oakland, graduating from vegetables to chickens, ducks and bees to pigs. The works.
It’s a book about farming, and eating, and meaning, that accidentally provides some insight into the human condition. Part Pollan, part Nabhoff, part Salatin, Novella spins a remarkable story of raising, killing, and eating in her urban terrain.
Her writing is strong and remarkable, and yet a great deal of her West Coast vocabulary had already been introduced to our project by Girl Mark. What she calls “seed porn,” we already knew as “tank porn,” and what she calls “farm envy” we already knew as “pump envy.”
The book has a whiff of sustainable fuels in that her boyfriend does straight vegetable oil conversions and that she appears to occasionally work at Biofuels Oasis when she needs some walking around money to feed her rabbits. But the book is not about fuel. It’s about the human spirit.
And it is a fantastic story. In her acknowledgements she references Jennifer Radke, who wrote Not a Gas Station, and who is a character in the book, and Lisa Margonelli who wrote Oil on the Brain.
Those of us in the woods of North Carolina, or perhaps the wilderness that is the Eastern Seaboard, cannot help but eat up Farm City. Despite the fact that we too have chickens and produce and bees and pigs, we long to be as hip as those doing it in Oakland.
Among other things, we can’t ride bikes as much as they do…
August 2nd, 2010 at 5:06 pm
The thing that I can’t understand about people who want to save the world or at least make it a better place is that so many of them are rude or short with people and are, frankly, arrogant a-holes. I’ve encountered you a few times as has my wife and some friends. We sometimes travel in the same circles and I’ll see you at the Chatham Marketplace and private events, so I’ve had at least a dozen occasions to draw my conclusion – you’re just not a nice guy. So, I ask you what is the point of trying to inspire people to do the right thing with their money and their time if you can’t even be decent to them in the first place? Why don’t you blog about THAT.
August 3rd, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Editor’s note: Wow. Sorry to have offended you or your wife. I don’t really do any of this because “I’m a nice guy.” I’ve been publishing Energy Blog for the past eight years to provide people with essays, articles, speeches, book reviews etc. that they might find of interest. The reason for this entry, for instance, is to tell my readers how much I liked Novella’s book.
As for blogging about “being nice,” it’s not a bad idea. As a Canadian you might find me “stand offish” and aloof. I don’t really hug, or gush or respond to others the way many people do in the south. Is there a chance you are mistaking that for “arrogant asshole?”
I’m guessing my readers don’t really come here for my thoughts on how to be “decent” to one another. They are more interested in renewable energy and the work we are doing at Piedmont.
Again, sorry to have pissed you off…
August 4th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
on the other hand, i’ve always heard what a nice guy George w. Bush was…
August 6th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
To Donald: This is not the appropriate forum for you to reproach the author’s personality.
August 6th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
People who are trying to save the world generally have too much on their minds to be people persons. After all, with all the shit that’s wrong in the world, trying to figure out how to fix it is virtually all consuming. Also, don’t be so quick to besmirch G.W. I’m sure the guys over at General Dynamics think he’s a pal.
August 9th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
As a certifiable a’whole myself I take offense to Donald’s reproach.
No question. Lyle fits the bill. It takes one to know one. And I know one when I see them. Yet, despite the idiosyncrasies of the individual, he is kind and thoughtful when others are in need. He has led an organization that has cultivated the best in people first and proffered a mission for energy sustainability beyond par in his field — or any field for that matter. Sure Lyle comes off as smug. I learned early in life that this is just based on an insecurity — his and mine. When i first started to come into contact with Lyle my assessment was the same as Donald’s. Partly, with Lyle’s experience and encouragement, I gained in capacity to develop my own standing in a sister movement that seems pretty important to me.
What Donald describes are limitations we all have, he included. Having said that, it seems to me that sustainability is first a human thing. Every thing we do has an impact. From walking through a forest to mining some resource or another to the way we meet each other. I would say, the way we meet each other defines how profound our understanding of the implications of our former two actions will be. In this sense, this and any forum that pro ports to be about sustainability, must needs allow this conversation. Assuming of course, that Donald’s intention was conversation and not character assassination, as is so prevalent today.
August 19th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Nice guy or not, I have to agree with you about “Farm City”. We checked it out from the library on a whim last year and it was an inspiration! Taste in literature (I have some) usually clashes in my home, but with this one we practically had to write out a “turn to read” schedule. Carpenter does a lot of tours, it would be wonderful if someone (hint, hint PB) invited her to NC. I’m sure a lot of people would turn out to meet her.
August 19th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
I live is Southwestern Pennsylvania, which if you have not heard is now basically the natural gas capital of the world thanks to the marcelus shale and hydrofracturing (yes hydro, as in contaminating thousand upon thousands of gallons of water and possibly groundwater sources, but only time will tell about the groundwater), It is full of people preaching the exact opposite gossip as lyle, most of them from big oil and energy companies. You want to talk about A$$holes, those people are really some stand offish arrogant A$$holes. Lyle has nothing on them, and I known him personally. My guess is when you see him he might just be taking valuable time away from his hectic life and trying to enjoy and spend valuable time with his wife and children watching them grow up because of all the things he has invested himself in, that is what he values the most.