taking it all in

I just got back from a little fundraiser for the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center. A guy i know is the present director (he's leaving in a month to travel around the world and is currently looking for a sea route from the east coast to perhaps France, if anyone knows of a possibility). I was really impressed with the turn out, and equally excited because the main feature of the fundraiser was a documentary called "the future of food", which looks primarily at the effects of genetically modified crops and their producers on food systems worldwide. the facts are sobering if not depressing, but there's also a good bit of hope: the film ended with interviews with many farmers and food activists i've worked with in California, showing what we can indeed do as communities interested in preserving our access to locally grown, diverse and delicious foods. eat your view!

i love that this film was shown in durango...i love that i work with a fellow who went to vietnam and can tell me stories about that, and then speak to me in one of the six other languages he knows, and describe the culinary delicacies where that language is spoken. i love that we sell corn tortillas made less than 30 miles away, from corn ground 15 miles away. i love that i can walk across the animas river as steam rises from its moving water, via a suspension bridge. i love that the local paper featured both an article on the mycorestoration of toxic mining sites near town, and an editorial bemoaning the pinko liberal local radio stations that pollute the airways. i love that the two sushi restaurants in town are on opposing corners of the very same intersection, hosting dueling happy hours with very good (and incredibly affordable) fish! i love that, over the course of a day in the kitchen, i can listen to neil young, the rolling stones, the bloodhound gang, putamayo world music collection, edie brickell, primus, and mano chao, AND hear who sings out loud to what. i love that, when i go walking near my house on the mesa, i get barked at/chased by both german shepards and chiuauas.

i love that we all get to be neighbors, piss each other off, and expand each other's understanding of all the ways the world can look, depending on where you stand.