Here you are.
- AmniOn
Today was my last day at the Interra Project. I’m grateful for what I got to see take place there—something taking off…
Now, I’m on the lookout for more independent gigs (graphic design, web development, branding, marketing, business/nonprofit development) while I finish school, and as other projects move along. Here’s a resume. Here’s a running online portfolio.
Shenandoah recently forwarded me a link to a band called Amnion. From their myspace, I was expecting something noisy. But it reminds me, strangely, of Billy Joel, Elvis Costello… and Kahimi Karie. Pop.
Allegedly, the whole album will be downloadable here until February.
Here’s “aTONn,” and “hEARtbreAThmMAgikK.”
See also: Tenlons Fort
- The Problem with the “100-mile Diet”…
…is that it has been framed as a dedicated lifestyle.
You either do it or you don’t. It’s puritanical, and is doomed to be an absurd farse of the 00’s unless it can be more widely embraced. “Carbon neutral” may be an even harder for the average person to reach, but it doesn’t sound like something your vegan brother in Seattle tries for a year before anemia consumes him. “Carbon neutral” is framed as a goal, not an ideology.
(photo: cookthinker)
It would be more useful if the “100-mile” label was seen as a way to be conscious of how far your food has traveled, or even better, how close the producers of your food are to you, and what little excuse you have for not knowing any of them personally. And maybe rather than calling it a diet (remember what happened to Atkins on his own diet?) we should use it to label our our products. 100-mile coffee is improbable where I live. Yet it should be hard to not buy a 100-mile apple. If we know what can be grown locally, we can seek it out.
Same goes for the 100-mile wardrobe. I may never wear 100-mile cotton in Seattle, but how ’bout 100-mile bamboo? 100-mile hemp can’t be that far off either.
(photo: franciscoantunes)
If we are educated about the things we buy, we will want better things. All of this gets more of us asking important questions. How many 100’s of miles did your clothing travel to be woven? How far then to be dyed? How far then to be sewn? How far then to reach the fantastic machine that makes you jeans look old and worn? How far then to the store where you bought it? How far then to store where you will sell it? How far then to the recycling station, where I will get it for free and turn it into something beautiful? How much money changed hands at each of these steps anyway?
I don’t know anyone who made any of the clothes I wear. I know people that printed some of it (6 or 7 items). I know someone who knows someone who made one piece. Is connecting to the sources of your food, clothing and housing just a kitschy dream?
- Locavores, devour Puget Sound Community Change
I work for a small nonprofit here in Seattle called the Interra Project. Interra is a grassroots economics organization working on radically practical tools and solutions to big problems. We’re launching “community loyalty programs” in several cities around the country to support “locally-focused and sustainable” businesses, nonprofits and schools. We launched our first program last November in Boston. Now we’re in the Puget Sound.
Thanks to Brad, as well as the wonderful, worker-owned Web Collective, Puget Sound Community Change is live. I’m told it was with blessings and song that the site was born into the world late Sunday night.
If you’re in the area, explore the directory, get a community card, “shop locally and share locally.” Brittany and I will be celebrating this Friday at M.I.A. (It’s in honor of all of this, and because it references the Pixies, that I’m including M.I.A.’s “$20″ in this post)
And for what it’s worth, “Locavore” is now in the Oxford American Dictionary.
- “A club with continuing benefits”
Radiohead caused a stir recently by self-releasing their new album “In Rainbows” online, and charging whatever the buyer was willing to pay. Links and clippings on What Radiohead Did:
• Seth Godin on The truth about Radiohead
1.2 million albums sold, $8 each, no middleman, one week: Radiohead Kicks the Middleman to the Curb.
The thing to keep in mind is this: the value of the permission. The fact that the group now has more than a million people they can go make music for is worth many times over what these people already paid. If they’re smart, they’ll continue to change the way they work. Paying for their mp3s should get you into a club, a club with continuing benefits.
• Radiohead’s Warm Glow in the New York Times
I didn’t pay anything to download Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” last Wednesday. When the checkout page on the band’s Web site allowed me to type in whatever price I wanted, I put 0.00, the lowest I could go. My economist friends say this makes me a rational being… One could argue that rationality isn’t everything.
• NPR’s For What It’s Worth, with Tyler Cowen
It’s about signaling. It’s about proving to yourself that you’re really a fan. It’s as if you would sleep on the pavement to line up for tickets in advance. It’s about conspicuous consumption. So it’s a way of identifying yourself with Radiohead, a cool band, more than ever before.
So if someone this time around is paying 40 dollars for the new Radiohead, if Radiohead were to try the same business model next time, the same person might feel they had already signaled and not pay anything at all or pay a very small amount.
And if consumers felt that every time they wanted music they were asked, how much are you donating?, how much are you donating?, this would get on their nerves. It would be a kind of overload. And what people then tend to do is just shut the whole thing out and they do what they want, and they don’t tend to give very much at all.
To some extent, Cowen is right, consumers will act differently the next time around—they will pay less. But I’d bet they will still pay, even after the novelty wears off.
Radiohead is taking advantage of the Wealth of Networks, which is, to appropriate Godin’s words, already “a club with continuing benefits.” It’s just that members declare themselves unofficially and receive their “warm glow” benefits as they please.
“If they’re smart, [Radiohead] will continue to change the way they work,” says Godin. Giving away your album is the first step. How about giving away some of the profit you made from those who did pay? Would people be more likely to pay for the album (or pay more) if part of the profit went back to a nonprofit or school of their choice? I could pay $0, or I could pay $10 for “In Rainbows”. If I was willing to pay $10 in the first place, I bet I’d be happy to pay $12 if 10% was going to end poverty here in Seattle. Local benefits, distributed philanthropy, and artists get paid for making it happen. A jigsaw falling into place.
[update: stats on What Radiohead Did]
- Local Food Flourishes in Seattle
An article I wrote, reposted from Worldchanging.com:
Sources of locally grown food are multiplying in Seattle.Worldchanging has looked into the value of local food production before, and specifically at neighborhood farms and farmers’ markets in L.A., New York, Porland, Denver, and even my home town,Boulder. (more…)
