Swap-O-Rama-Rama: I am so excited to participate in this gigantic DIY fashion event!  The mama of all clothing swaps, this one features workshops and sewing machines and a fashion show in addition to pounds and pounds of treasure, yours for the taking for $10 and a bag of clean clothes.  I've been following this event for a couple of years now and I am really looking forward to checking it out!  Here's a link to Life Less Plastic's description of her experience in Chicago.  Sunday, April 27 - 2pm to 7pm, at the NYU Kimmel Building, Washington Square South.

Missed the last NYC Dept. of Sanitation e-waste event?  Head down to Tekserve, where you can drop off your unwanted electronics Saturday (10-4), Sunday (10-4), and Monday (4-7).   They'll enter you to win nifty Apple products and you can get $25 off a new computer purchased in the next 30 days.  Love that Tekserve!  Even if you don't have e-waste at the moment, support the independent Apple specialists who do a lot for the NYC community in the arts, the environment, and education.  119 W. 23rd.

Two or three posts ago, I wrote how silly it is to go out and get a fancy new container for water to replace plastic bottles.  Serves me right for sounding so smug: not a week later I found myself buying a brand-new water container!  

My boss had a birthday; I had no gift ideas.  Inter-office gifts are so tricky but still I wanted to do a little something...I was despairing...and then it hit me!  Several months back Boss came back from a lunch appointment with a Ball jar.  The barbeque they ordered came with lemonade in jars - a fun little gimmick and then he had a reusable quart container for tea and water in the office.  It served him great for months, until he dropped it on the kitchen floor.  I think he mourned the thing for a whole week. 

I was so proud of myself for remembering the jar!  He loved it, it wasn't expensive but still thoughtful, useful around the office, etc. etc.  That it is more earth-friendly is just an extra-special bonus for me (I'm pretty sure he prefers glass because it tastes and smells better).  I went online - I was now looking to get this thing ASAP, and finding things like Ball jars on short notice in NYC is really, really difficult (believe it or not).  I soon discovered that I couldn't buy one or even two new jars online.  I had to buy twelve!  Used jars?  No problem - eBay people sell tons of them one at a time.  But I felt like I couldn't get the big boss a used jar for his birthday.  Someday perhaps it will be acceptable but not this week. 

Forgo the perfect birthday present because the manufacture and shipping of twelve brand-new jars seems so wasteful?   I figured his one jar would keep lots of plastic cups and bottles out of the trash, and the example for the company would be extremely valuable, whatever his motivations for using the jar are.  The container is distinctive and memorable, and he was taking it to both internal meetings and meetings with visitors - maybe many more cups and bottles would stay out of the landfill because of his "message."  

He was delighted by the gift.  Maybe I'll learn how to do some canning. 

Hey all,

Please take a second to write your congressperson about Bush's proposed 40% CUT in funding for Amtrak in 2009.  Huh?  Did he miss the news?  The whole global warming, environmental thing?  The rising costs of oil?  The ugliness and pollution that cars bring?  Oh yeah, he lives on some other planet or something.  This is a copy of the letter I wrote, courtesy of Susan Och and the National Association of Railroad Passengers.  Took about 10 minutes to find my congressman, customize, proofread, and send.  I can't tell when they'll vote on it this year, but it looks like they've gotten to it in May or June in past years.  Thanks!

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Dear Congressman Rangel:  

President Bush has only requested $800 million for Amtrak in his Fiscal 2009 budget. Please work to reject this 40% cut and fully fund Amtrak. America needs passenger rail now more than ever as gas prices rise, airlines shut down, and climate change gets closer to the crisis point.

Rail is an efficient, low carbon way to travel. In Europe and Asia, they are investing in high tech trains that can travel over 250 MPH. The US should at least maintain a 20th century level train system, and consider catching up with the rest of the world.

I also urge your support for the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, S. 294. The bill provides real, meaningful reform for Amtrak and a federal-state partnership for capital investments, which is enjoyed by the other modes of transportation. Please urge House leadership to pass companion legislation.

As you know, these issues are particularly critical to the citizens of New York State, a large portion of whom do not maintain personal vehicles.  In addition to the day-to-day uses of the rail lines, train rides can provide a once-in-a-lifetime experience for cross country-travel: my parents just enjoyed our beautiful country by rail from San Diego to Seattle to Montana.  They are looking forward to exploring the state of New York in the same way.  Please continue to make this possible for future travelers.
Thank you very much for your leadership.

Sincerely,
Megan Metcalf

NYC folks, you have one more week to check out two great shows that address issues of sustainability with humor, verve, criticism, and great beauty.

Eyebeam's Feedback assembles an impressive array of projects engaged with sustainability and the environment in a big, dim, laboratory-like setting.  Tech- and concept-heavy, the exhibits require some time to interact with explanatory texts and complicated diagrams.  Artists, scientists, and designers explore themes like political engagement (an elegant call bank that connects directly with local and state politicians) and waste management (a piece called DrinkPeeDrinkDrinkPee - a little self-explanatory).  I liked how the show itself expresses awareness about its conditions, lowering the lights to conserve energy and providing workshops, events, and additional resources to enable continued participation by visitors.  Eyebeam, at 540 W. 21st, is open to the public Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00-6:00pm. Admission is free with a suggested donation.  They are having a closing party next Saturday 19 April at 3pm.  

On the next block, Adrian Piper's stunning Everything provides an abstract companion that kicks you squarely in the gut.  The phrase "Everything will be taken away" appears in nearly every piece: over a mirror, the Bill of Rights, a gravestone-shaped hole in the gallery wall, the newspaper story of a gruesome kidnapping and rape, the photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr., JFK, Malcolm X, and others, and a garbage can full of trash.  Her promise is both sinister and liberating, challenging us to consider the costs of freedom and asking if the erosion of freedom is something we have the power to halt. 

What does this have to do with the environment?  Moving clockwise from the door, the last piece -- the garbage can -- asks if human detritus can be taken away, who takes it away, how it gets taken away.  It is a pointed critique about race and class, as most of Piper's work is, and echoes Van Jones' sentiments about how our disposable society considers humans disposable, too.  Finally, the image points out that garbage of all kinds can be eliminated by choice or by force.  These meanings radiated back through all of the work as I scanned the show again, and linked for me even more profoundly the relationship between politics, culture, and the environment.  The gallery, Elizabeth Dee at 545 West 20th, is also open 10-6, Tuesday through Friday.

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I know that some people who read my blog don't live in New York, so I'll provide these eco-art links as some payoff for reading the above rhapsodies:

This girl has been drawing everything she buys for the last couple of years.  I wonder if she buys fewer things knowing that she'll be drawing it?

Chris Jordan's giant photos in Running the Numbers contain lots of little things and big political messages.

Much has been said about the most visible of "green" lifestyle changes, the water bottle, and I thought I'd add my two cents.  I bought about five bottles of water in 2007; if I had to guess, I'd say I bought ten the year before.  Specifically, I thought people at my art opening last July might want to drink water (they preferred the whiskey), and I was pretty much forced into buying a bottle at a crowded take-away place when I asked for a cup of tap water.  Three of these purchased bottles are still in my fridge, unopened.  I started Fix with approximately twenty taking up space on the top shelf: the plastic devils have a way of showing up and hanging around.  It seems like I'm always being handed one on the street, drinking only half at a meeting -- not to mention the several provided every airplane flight.  I take 'em home, drink the contents, fill 'em up with tap water, and repeat.  Over and over, with some washes in there.  When they get funky, I put them in the recycle.  So I think it's really funny when long eco-blog conversations get started about the benefits of one trendy refillable over another.  I read a good one on Brave New Leaf a few weeks ago.  Sure, my bottles will eventually run out - I do refuse them quite often - and then I'll have to choose between the Sigg (pictured), the Klean Kanteen, or the tried-and-true but now vilified Nalgene.  Before I buy one of those, though, I'll give No Impact Man's solution a try: a glass jar with a lid.  Got plenty of those hanging around.

Got plenty of bags for shopping hanging around, too. Paper bags, bodega bags, plastic bags -- they have babies when I'm not looking, I swear.  The cloth ones are a little less promiscuous, but I still have a ton of them: free totes from benefits, worn messenger bags and backpacks from college, a gigantic beach bag I got as a gift.  I can't imagine actually buying a special bag for shopping, when I have so many taking up precious inches in my apartment.  The plastic bags are the best: they take up virtually no space in the bag I'm already carrying for the day and I can reuse them over and over again.  When they get worn out, I demote them to bags for garbage or compost, but this takes a long time.  I guess my point is, though I'm grateful for how reusable bottles and bags have become visible symbols of personal environmental "action," they are still consumables.  It will take us so long to make our way through the manufactured things already in circulation, I don't see a whole lot of logic in pouring precious resources (oil) into things we already have.