urban living

Metropolitan Lovers: The Homosexuality of Cities

admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Julie Abraham’s Metropolitan Lovers: The Homosexuality of Cities is a survey of the presence of homosexuality within urban contexts throughout modern Western history. Following a concise preface synthesizing the extraordinarily broad and encompassing history of the relation shared by homosexual communities and cities, she fittingly opens with a chapter tracing the lesbian body throughout urban and literary history, exploring Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs Du Mal and Balzac’s The Girl with the Golden Eyes. The author acknowledges her challenge to recent assumptions regarding “the union of homosexuals and cities, namely, that the homosexuality of the city is always male,” and emphasizes an often overlooked facet of urban studies. Her treatment of the legibility of the lesbian and her privileging of this body is an important and refreshing contribution to LGBTQ studies.

Abraham is a Professor of literature and of LGBT Studies and Metropolitan Lovers evidences a marked emphasis on the relevance of literary perspectives to sociological interpretations of the city. She notes that it is in fact literature that has taught us how to “read” urban homosexuality and alludes to literary/philosophical figures such as Susan Sontag to enhance her portrayal of the theatricality of urban social life. A generous number of photographs and illustrations offer a satisfying visual element that becomes crucial to understanding the complexities of gaze and spectacle in the formulation of the modern city. Events such as Stonewall are not left unexamined in Abraham’s study as she attempts to portray as comprehensive history of the Western urban landscape through the lens of LGBTQ theory.

The tone of Metropolitan Lovers is a bit less erudite than it would appear to be based on Abraham’s scholarly career and university publisher. Her writing is lucid, accessible, perhaps more to the casual reader interested in a general introduction to an LGBTQ study of Western cities than for an academic researcher. This is not to say, however, that Abraham does not offer an insightful survey highlighting the relevance of homosexuality to the construction of the modern city. The work also provides an implicit introduction to the exercise of “queering” texts previously understood in heterocentric terms and will most certainly contribute to and stimulate future scholarship and interrogations of what it means to be urban and queer.

Written by: Melissa McCarron, June 30th 2009

Thursday Night Supper Club and Urban Sustainable Living (3/26/2009)

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:11:00 +0000

Backstory Cafe

Chicago, Illinois

If you are concerned with economy, food security, and health, a vegetable garden makes perfect sense. The first family's organic plot is underway, and instead of being daunted by some potential setbacks (the condition of urban soil, limited space, a non-existent budget), I have decided to be inspired by their example and undertake an attempt to grow my own produce. Therefore, I was delighted when the Backstory Cafe offered a presentation on urban gardening. This young Hyde Park establishment hosts not only regular jazz nights (Wednesdays), boardgame nights (Fridays), a morning playgroup (Mondays), and occasional movie screenings, but also holds a monthly Thursday night supper club. Topics covered have included social activism in the tradition of Jane Addams, collaboration between American, European and Palestinian woman artists, natural childbirth, and most recently, gardening.

Ben and Courtney of Backyard Bounty (their local and organic sustainable agriculture consulting service) and others served a delightful five course meal of locally produced foodstuffs for a splendidly crisis-conscious fifteen dollars, and offered much useful information between the courses, so much so that the diners petitioned for a global e-mail of relevant sites and information. Apparently a 20' x 20' garden can provide produce for a family of four, and a 10' x 10', ample for an individual. Container gardening on a small porch theoretically can yield all the herbs, teas, and select vegetables that an individual or couple requires. Options such as edible flowers or loofahs provide a change from the standard tomatoes and greens, and the truly dedicated may eventually consider an apiary or chicken coop. Check your local ordinances: in Chicago, you can raise chickens for eggs, not slaughter.

For those without local resources, the Internet provides a wealth of gardening knowledge. “Garden Girl” Patti Moreno demonstrates her extensive horticultural knowledge on an impressive compound of several raised beds built in a garage originally constructed in 1917. While some of her projects may be a bit esoteric and ambitious for the beginner (i.e., an aquaponic garden that pumps aquarium water to fertilize sprouting Swiss chard, or shaving a white German Angora rabbit the size of a Thanksgiving turkey in order to make homespun yarn), she does offer more accessible options and some practical suggestions. Plant seed potatoes in chunks that have two eyes apiece. Use bread bag twist ties to strap stems to lattices. The heirloom “Tiffin Mennonite” tomato weighs in at a pound apiece, and the hostess does have the charm to dedicate a chapter to her “almost record” tomato, conveniently measured at the corner store's deli counter. The massive glossy red fruit was inspiring. I'll break ground as soon as the threat of sleet has passed. Any day now.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, May 4th 2009

Fear of Fighting

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:49:00 +0000

Stacey May Fowles, Marlena Zuber

Invisible Publishing

Fear of Fighting is a short novel about a woman living and working and looking for love. It reminds me, oddly, of Chuck Palahniuk's novels, though it's more comfortable with its queerness. It's got the same distasteful-yet-oddly-satisfying-in-their-rawness details and images (a half-boiled chicken's leg rotting in a refrigerator, filthy bathrooms, and all too much vomit), the same recklessly self-destructive and improbable obsessions and compulsions. It's got the same artful lists full of suspiciously quirky details, and the same intentionally, beautifully repetitive and sad images of emptiness and loneliness and the alienation of consumer-driven, urban American life.

But Stacey May Fowles balances her portrait of the grossness of human misery with beauty. There are adorable characters galore, plenty of non-gross sex, and lots of details that paint a stylish, hip mise-en-scène. The story is enriched by its characters' charmingly developed and sensitive relationships with animals. The art by Marlena Zuber is lovely and effective—and it adds a lot to the book, making it feel very much like an art piece and not just some novel. The prose is easy and elegantly spare, at times poetic. And at times Fowles' self-reflective musings and fancies work to great effect, as when—spoiler alert—the narrator illuminates the story of an abortion with great subtlety. When Marnie says in her diary-like voice, "To cope I used horrifying, shame-filled phrases like 'get it taken care of,'" she's not just explaining what she's doing or how it made her feel, but, more interestingly, is also revealing her feminist interpretation of her life.

This window into the complex inner life of a very real-feeling woman is refreshing. She lives an ordinary life that, when closely examined—like all ordinary lives—is extraordinary in its details. Similarly extraordinary-in-its-ordinariness is Fowles’ sweet little book; its honest and unassuming acknowledgments and author and printer profiles reveal a collaborative labor of love between independent creatives. The result is a a pleasure to see, to hold, and to read.

Written by: Ari Moore, March 17th 2009

The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:57:00 +0000

By Kelly Coyne, Erik Knutzen

Process Media

Subtitled "Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City," this volume in the Process Self-Reliance Series bills itself as "a project and resource book, complete with step-by-step illustrations and instructions to get you started homesteading right now." It really delivers, both to absolute beginners and to folks who have already ventured into the world of urban homesteading.

The authors start with growing food. Chapter One offers guidance on the four general strategies for growing food in an urban setting, followed by directions for making seed balls. This chapter gives basic yet useful information about permaculture, then goes into helpful detail about the seven guiding principles of successful urban farming.

Chapter Two gives step-by-step instructions for five projects the authors deem essential for growing food, including starting a compost pile, composting with worms, mulching, building a raised bed, and building self-watering containers. The second half of the chapter includes guidelines for a variety of undertakings, including staring seeds, transplanting, making fertilizer tea, container gardening, installing drip irrigation, controlling insect and animal pests, and rotating crops. The directions are comprehensive; it is not assumed that the reader already has a lot of gardening knowledge and experience, which is beneficial to both novices and folks needing a refresher course.

Urban foraging is the topic of chapter three, and everything from eating acorns to dumpster diving is covered. Six things to know about eating wild are explained in the feral edibles section, along with a list of "some of the most liked, most widespread edible weeds in the continental U.S." There are also sections on invasive edibles, fruit foraging, and reviving day old bread.

Chapter Four focuses on keeping livestock in the city. It includes ample advice about chickens, including where to get them, what to feed them, and how to house them. Other livestock considered include ducks, rabbits, pigeons, quail, and bees.

"Revolutionary Home Economics" is an extensive chapter dealing with the "indoor arts." The first part of the chapter is about food. There are instructions about preserving food through canning, pickling, and drying, as well as by other means. There are also directions for making yogurt, ricotta cheese, and butter. The second half of the chapter is all about cleaning and includes formulas for making DIY cleaning supplies using baking soda, distilled white vinegar, and liquid castile soap. There’s also a short section on dealing with household pests. The chapter ends with valuable tips on what to look for and what choices to make if choosing a new urban homestead.

Chapter Six is about water and power for the homestead and includes information about conserving and harvesting rainwater. There are several projects pertaining to greywater, including running a greywater source directly outside and making a greywater wetland. Topics in the energy section include using insulation and solar heat to increase energy efficiency, alternatives to gas-heated showers, solar cookers, and wind and solar power.

The last chapter, "Transportation," is rather short. It touches on walking but basically emphasizes cycling. The book ends with a comprehensive resource list, including websites, books, and magazines. Disappointingly, there is no index. The Urban Homestead is a fantastic introduction to living off the land, even when there’s not much land available. It's not meant to be read once, cover to cover. It’s meant to be kept on hand as a resource, a book to refer to again and again in the garden, in the kitchen, in the workroom. There’s a lifetime of information packed in to these 308 pages, and the time to start using that information is now.

Written by: Chantel C. Guidry, March 5th 2009