Environment
Beautiful Fungus!
During one of my recent walks in the woods at Mohonk, my friends and I came upon this beautiful fungus!
It appears to be a shelf fungus known as Laetiporus sulphureus – also known as “Chicken of the Woods” – though this young specimen is not as yellow as that species is known to be. It is likely at least a close relative, though, or just a purely whiter young bloom that has yet to yellow with maturity. Recent DNA studies have split up what used to be universally recognized as L. sulphureus into six different species in North America alone, but L. sulphureus is the one that tends to take up residence in the Northeast.
Chicken of the Woods – like the title suggests – is edible. No hallucinations or anything, but you know, if you’re ever in a bind for food…
I feel bad for the tree, though. This fungus is not just saprobic (feeds on dead trees) but also parasitic (feeds on live ones). It is a heart rot fungus and is seen high up on the tree, as you can see in the photo. Of course, by the time you can see it in full-Chicken bloom, it’s already too late.
The heart has rotted.
The tree will die.
Such is the seeming relationship between beauty and death.
And so, the forest becomes its own stage for tragedy, unfolding its quiet story before the wanderers attuned to its mysteries.
Where the Grass is GREENer
by Connie Adamo (guest blogger and Ayesha’s Mom)
I have a little place not too far from the Jersey Shore and have gardened for a number of years. I love the extraordinary variety and abundance of life in my yard. Over the years, using sustainable practices, I have been able to create a little haven.
Today I will talk about having a green lawn without poisoning the environment and killing wildlife – a place where children can play without becoming contaminated by truly frightening pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers – a lawn that can be maintained with very little, if any, watering.
First, it is important to know your growing conditions, i.e. your area of the country, local soil conditions (in your yard) and the amount of light the area receives. I find that careful observation is a great help here. You may also contact your county soil conservation office and many universities have a cooperative extension service that can help with soil testing if you need it. Once you have an idea of what your conditions are and make soil amendments if needed, you should seed with grasses that will thrive in those conditions. In my area, which is Zone 7 and the Northeast, the following grasses are usually successful: fine fescues, red chewing fescues and hard fescues with a small dose, maybe 15%, of perennial rye grass. There are many seed mixtures that contain these grasses. I also include white clover and a happy collection of volunteer greens and assorted acceptables, which can be any low growing ground cover that doesn’t look awful and blends.
My yard is large with varied conditions. I use fescues and white clover near the house, and towards the back, which is quite sunny, I use the grasses and clover mixed with buttercup, wild strawberry, violets, and gill-over-the-ground. I even include a few dandelion and plantain. Having this variety of grasses and plants helps to prevent disease and pests that monoculture invites.
Fertilizing my lawn is usually done twice a year, spring and fall, although it can be less, as it is important not to overfeed. Organic fertilizers are available at many garden centers and in catalogs. Some choices may be dehydrated cow manure, compost and corn gluten meal. Corn gluten meal can be used as a pre-emergent herbicide for crabgrass and broadleaf weeds you may not want. If using corn gluten meal, apply four to six weeks after sowing seeds. I usually overseed with grass and clover in spring and/or fall. I just throw it around where the lawn seems to need it.
With regards to mowing, mow between 3 and 4 inches high and leave the clippings on the ground to fertilize the grass. Mowing high will protect the grass and cut down on watering. Watering should not be necessary unless there are extraordinary conditions. The lawn may go dormant but it will be just fine.
There are also many other earth friendly ways to landscape your space and create a backyard that is busy with life and beauty, but that would be another topic.
Entering the Temporary Art Zone with Hakim Bey
by Ayesha Adamo
“The art, such as it is, comes into existence only in the moment of its own disappearance; afterwards it will be invisible—except to the spirits” – Peter Lamborn Wilson
• • •
On May 15th 2010, Peter Lamborn Wilson, known to many as Hakim Bey, completed another happening in a series of events aimed at re-enchanting the landscape of forgotten or not-yet-revealed sacred places in upstate New York. These acts of “Endarkenment,” a term Peter uses to mean “fear & respect as well as love for Nature,” are the culmination of his last ten years of research in Ulster County and the surrounding areas. He’s putting the magick he dug up back into the land.
Peter has called this a “temporary landscape installation piece.” It is art that disappears and defies a fetishized place on the 
gallery wall. While it bears a resemblance to landscape art, it is more than that, for its goal is to enact the magick of enchantment on the land where each work is performed. The documentation of each of these works includes a hand-written essay, and this May 15th working also featured a large storyboard with pictures and photographs significant to the occasion.
After Peter’s short talk about his research leading up to this event, a few helpers went ahead to make preparations, followed by Peter and his large box labeled “Jukes.” Slowly, the rest of us followed in single file along the narrow towpath where mules used to tread, hauling boats, when the Delaware and Hudson Canal was operational.
In my understanding of it, there were three main groups called forth for reawakening in this work:
one group that has already disappeared, one that is disappearing, and one that now returns.
The group that has already disappeared is known as the Jukes, or at least that’s the name that flawed social scientists gave to this now infamous community of families when they were the target of eugenics studies in the 1800’s. The flaws in these studies have since been recognized, but what still remains fascinating about the Jukes is the reason that they were targeted for such studies to begin with: they were what Peter calls, “a drop-out society,” not unlike the modern day Ramapough Mountain Indians from New Jersey, who were the subject of the recent New Yorker article “Strangers on the Mountain.” But the Ramapough Mountain Indians, 
or “Jackson Whites,” as they have been called, have kept their society, even with the skyscrapers of New York threatening on the horizon. They have also kept their mountain – even with the enduring effects of the toxic waste that the old Ford factory dumped on it decades before. The Jukes have not been so lucky – if you can call it luck. While descendants of the Jukes surely still exist, their isolated drop-out community has vanished, and they seem a distant legend in the Ulster County of 2010. All that remains of the Jukes today can be found in a poorhouse graveyard in New Paltz that was re-discovered in 2001, and in the records kept by the poorhouse and those in the archives of the SUNY Albany library. The once vibrant living community of Jukes has now vanished.
The second group, the group that is in the process of vanishing, is the bat community. All along the East Coast and into the Midwest, bats have been found dead in the hundreds of thousands. 
The bats are dying of “white-nose syndrome,” so named for the white fungus, Geomyces destructans, that can be seen on the muzzles of infected bats. It is still uncertain whether the fungus is the disease or whether it is able to take hold of an immune system already weakened by some other disease, though it seems that the fungus itself is the culprit. Bats are a major predator to insects, not just the insects that interfere with us on a hot summer day, but also those that interfere with the growth of crops. The threat of imbalance in the ecosystem, as well as the possibility of extinction for many species of bats, is a serious concern for us all as we watch this community of animals suddenly disappear. 
The last group, the one that returns, is the cement itself, which was to be the bonding agent of all that went into this day’s working of Endarkenment. Standing on the aqueduct bridge abutment designed by Roebling in 1850 and overlooking the Rondout Creek, it seemed only fitting that the cement used for this occasion should be Rosendale Natural Cement, which was the business that founded the nearby town of Rosendale during the construction of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The cement was first discovered in Rosendale during the excavation of the canal bed for the D & H Canal in 1825, and would later be used as one of the materials in the building of the canal itself. Rosendale Natural Cement was also used in the construction of Roebling’s aqueduct bridge, the remaining abutment on which we then stood, and in his later and more famous project, the Brooklyn Bridge. Despite the popularity of Rosendale Cement in the nineteenth century, the introduction of faster-setting Portland Cement meant the end of natural cement production in the twentieth century. By 1970, the last of the cement mines in Rosendale were closed. Natural cement was no longer available.
But in 2004, natural cement made a surprising return when Edison Coatings, Inc decided to resurrect production of Rosendale Natural Cement. The main reason behind this comeback was the need to restore buildings and monuments that were originally constructed using natural cement, 
though it turns out that Rosendale Natural Cement is actually “greener” than modern Portland Cement. Due to its much lower firing temperatures and the ease of grinding, natural cement requires less energy to produce.
As we gathered around Peter to watch this artwork in its vanishing, an artwork that is being done for those who vanish, the scent of copal mixed with other incenses – those he had burning on the rock before us, and those of the forest itself.
The artwork happened simply. There was little ceremony, perhaps to the confusion of some in attendance who had hoped for a chant or a reading. Peter presented items, one by one, and placed them into a hole in the ground that would be filled with cement. Among these were crystals, a fancy bat skeleton from Carolina Biological, the remains of the incense itself…it made me wonder: must things be buried that they may return? Do we re-enchant our environment when we return to the point zero?
For Peter’s magickal purposes in this act of art, I believe it was significant that the natural cement local to this area, the one element in the work that had gone from a state of disappearance into new life, should be the bonding agent for all the others. As the creation of this temporary installation piece was executed, we watched closely as items disappeared into the hole, as their physical passage from the box labeled “Jukes” into the hole before us disappeared into memory. All of this was then sealed by cement and rocks found around the site the day before. While the process of art may have vanished, the evidence of the act endures. Like the Brooklyn Bridge, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and Grand Central Terminal, this momentary work was made using Rosendale Natural Cement. Its purpose is beyond that of a monument, but the place of Endarkenment was built to last just the same, even if it was now only visible to the spirits, as Peter says.
After we traveled back along the narrow towpath and out of the woods, a little boy who was playing pointed up to the sky, and we all saw it: a small rainbow showing itself faintly through the trees, though it hadn’t rained at all. The enchantment was complete, and the signs of this were not only visible to the spirits, but also to us.
*** Peter’s statements that have been quoted here are from the press release of a previous related event. You can read his writing on that event here:
http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org/article/first_vanishing_art/
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May Day in Berlin: All That and a Bag of Tea
by Ayesha Adamo
By fate or by accident, I found myself in Berlin on May Day this year. May Day is not widely recognized as a holiday/day of demonstration in the United States, even though the date was officially chosen for international recognition because of the Chicago workers’ strike-turned-riot in 1886.
But most Americans are unaware of both the Chicago riots and the fact that the rest of the world has a socio-politically vibrant workers’ holiday associated with them.
Instead, America has so-called “Labor Day” at the end of the summer, with its barbeques and one-day sales. May Day in the US has gone the way of house music, which was also born in Chicago, but instead of celebrating Frankie Knuckles, we celebrate Lady Gaga, who kind of reminds me of a barbeque and one-day sale (think consumerism and slathering ribs in a high-gloss varnish of high fructose corn syrup).
But I digress. Back in Berlin, I had the chance to listen to German folks complain about the people in their country for a change. Many longed for the good old days, when supermarkets were burned to the ground in riots that “really meant something.” Many spoke of how May Day has now become a theatre of rage, how the young want to throw their stones and the police play their role dutifully, but the script has lost its meaning compared to what it was like in the 1980’s. They likened today’s May Day to a ritualized rebellion, a stage on which to act out one’s discontent with society on a single scheduled day of the year so that the other days might remain peaceful. It’s a bit like carnival: a day when the rules don’t count.
But this year, one meaningful demonstration rose above the usual melee. At this May Day action, 10,000 peaceful demonstrators gathered in Prenzlauer Berg and blocked all possible paths of a Neo-Nazi march across Berlin. According to those I met who were there, the cops were obligated to help the Nazi group push through the crowd or find a different route, in protection of their free speech and all that. Reportedly, the cops lived up to this expectation, albeit somewhat feebly, but when all paths were filled with masses of opposing protesters, they had no choice but to send the Nazis home.
“Who are these Nazis, anyway?” I asked. It was then explained to me that they weren’t officially a “Nazi” party – that would be illegal – but rather a group of ultra conservatives, “You know, like in America you have the Tea Party. It’s people like that.” I soon found out that this was hardly an isolated analogy. “You know, Nazi’s. You guys call them the Tea Party.” In fact, this is what I heard at every dinner party when the subject came up, which it inevitably did, and without the slightest note of force or hatred in the statement, but as though it were just another simple fact – as though this one to one relationship between “Nazi” and “Tea Party” were as natural as breathing Berlin’s spring air…which is much fresher than New York’s spring air, by the way.
Now, I had never thought of it quite in those terms, but I knew what they meant. Sure, the flagrant stars-n-stripes nationalism is a bit of a social gaffe in the international arena, and there’s a hyper-awareness about overt nationalism in a country like Germany, not just because of social sophistication, but because it’s ingredient #1 in a fascist regime…and Germans know how to spot a fascist regime a mile away by now. Practice makes perfect, but it would be better if America didn’t have to repeat the same exercises to learn the lesson.
Then there’s the fact that nobody who’s ever lived in a country with socialized healthcare (myself included) has the faintest idea why anyone would be against it – unless of course, you’re one of those greedy assholes who runs a health insurance company. Do the ‘Baggers just think people should die if they can’t afford to be healthy? Can’t they imagine that they might one day be in the dollars-or-die quandary? Do they just not care about anyone else? In Berlin, someone reasoned, “They’ve read Foucault and they’re against biopower!” Naturally, everybody laughed, for obvious reasons. After all, a poll by CBS News reported that for all that Tea Baggers are “better educated than most Americans,” many having graduated from college and such, only eight percent of those polled knew that the meaning of the word “socialism” had something to do with a redistribution of wealth. But then 77 percent of Tea Party activists get their news from Fox News, proving that the ancient art of hypnotism is alive and well. CBSNews
And how about Fox News. You know, when you think about it, maybe it took a group of righties to revive the dead artforms known as protest and demonstration in America. No one in the Murdoch-manipulated press wants to give airtime to lefty protests, even if it’s a movement too large to be ignored. You don’t even see mention of the less conservative Coffee Party that’s conquered Facebook. If the Tea Party’s legacy ends up being that they made public demonstration a viable activity in America again, it’s not a bad legacy, but if the lefties want any press in the old media, they’re going to need to jump on the Tea Party’s frock and coattails for it, maybe do what they did in Berlin.
What’s most amazing about Tea Party PR is the way that they, and even their more extreme sub-groups like the American Third Position, have adopted retro lefty lingo from the golden age of protests by calling themselves “anti-establishment” without even a breath of irony. True Tea Party supporters don’t seem to realize that they’ve latched on to a movement that’s sponsored by corporate giants, the very people that the movement is supposed to be in opposition to. What kind of grassroots movement can afford to pay Sarah Palin $100,000 for just one appearance? Here at Loss of Eden, we could have told ‘em first-hand that this wasn’t a grassroots movement back in early 2009, when David and I handed over a copy of our song “Here’s Your Revolution” to someone at Clear Channel who was gathering music for “…a protest, this little Tea Party thing they were hoping to organize.” Something like that. Who knew that the little-tea-party-that-could would go so far? Rupert Murdoch? The Clear Channel Conspiracy? What else can one think when all the early press shows up in the same predictable places?
On the other hand, it’s hard to completely write off any group that so vocally opposes bailouts of the financial industry. Now, I can’t really read the German newspapers, but from the looks of the headlines, it doesn’t seem like they’re so excited to bail out Greece, but at least Greece has something to offer Germany: beaches, sunshine, naked statues…When was the last time the Wall Streeters brought anything half that good to the table for Americans?
And yet, that’s when you have to ask yourself: why would the rich guys at Fox and Clear Channel want to pretend to be against the rich guys on Wall Street? So that they can actually push the real agenda of less regulations for the big, powerful companies? It’s like a sneaky kind of bailout that keeps on giving, and keeps on taking from the people who need it most, like the fishermen on the Gulf Coast who are going to suffer for the lack of enforced regulations on the big guys for a long, long time. Kind of reminds me of the way that J.P. Morgan gained support for central banking by spreading rumors that lead to the Panic of 1907, and Warburg kept the volley going by selectively quoting Abe Lincoln to make the central banking idea sound more legit. Our current financial crisis doesn’t have a spiffy name yet, not like “The Panic of 1907,” and the Tea Party prefers The Constitution to Honest Abe, but the point is to gain popular support for deregulation of any sort – cap and trade, for example – which helps the big corporations, just like the central banking system helps the big financiers. Resisting cap and trade doesn’t make more jobs for the people who need them. You would think that with the Grand Ole Opry under water, or the destruction of revenue for fishermen, tourism and ultimately much more on the Gulf, the true Tea Baggers would understand that this kind of action, an action against the environment that we all have to live in, only helps the Halliburtons of the world.
You would think…but you would be wrong, somehow.
But on May Day in Berlin, we’re pouring wine and clinking glasses, distancing ourselves from the insurrection that we might already be in the middle of, and waiting for the big meltdown. The expat next to me mentioned how surprised and embarrassed he was on his first European theatre tour when he heard that the money allotted to the Arts in the city of Frankfurt was equal to the entire budget for the National Endowment for the Arts in America. But America does have its theatre, no doubt. When I heard about the man who suicide bombed the IRS in Texas a few months back, it was hard not to be moved by the performance. It hardly mattered that the far right had adopted this fallen pilot as a hero; it was the gesture itself and the reasoning behind it that meant something. In Berlin, you can tell from the ease in a person’s step, the ease in their lifestyle, the funding of their Art and their healthcare, the way that all their trains run smoothly and on-time: however imperfect it may be, these Germans have a government that cares enough to support people. Americans do not. As I always say, “when you have nothing to lose, you become capable of anything.” So many in America are reaching that point, the point of having nothing to lose. It is no longer theatre, or perhaps it’s theatre of the best sort: the theatre of rage that is real.
On my very first day of acting class, I learned that Sandy Meisner defined acting as “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Is it any wonder that crashing a plane into an IRS building seemed to one man the most truthful way to live, and die, under the imaginary system of market economy, now that we’ve taken capitalism all the way? The man with a plane is the proof that when America finally decides to do theatre, America does it all the way, too. Maybe it’s those living truthfully in the imaginary circumstances of our economy that are the only ones living truthfully at all.
Across the table, Thomas, who had long ago abandoned the rebel life of a pre-teen Maoist who lived to beat up cops to embrace academic life as an anthropologist, pointed out the sound of the May Day helicopters circling above us – the sound of keeping order, but it’s really more for show. He said, “When I hear that, I start treading in my stall.”
Me too.
Wagons!
by Ayesha Adamo
Even before I got to Berlin, I couldn’t wait to go and explore the wagon community called Lohmühle that I read about on my Internet explorations.
For a gal who has never been to Berlin before, and was functioning entirely on tea-stained tourist maps, this place was not so easy to find. The Kotbusser Tor U-Bahn stop in Kreuzberg is probably the closest, though there’s still a bit of a walk ahead from there. It’s kind of in the middle of a park, so the roads I was expecting to take to get there were all wrong. I ended up just aiming for the general direction and suddenly the wagons appeared like a mirage on the opposite side of a canal.
Wagons!
When I finally figured out how to cross the canal and get to the wagons, I could already hear the sound of easy retro records sliding between the two turntables that were perched centerstage. There were posters up for upcoming events and shows, one for a performance of Macbeth that had unfortunately passed already. I threw several euros into the bake sale donation cup for a slice of vegan marble cake; the chocolaty part was better than the vegan part, to my semi-carnivorous palate, but the vibe was compensation enough for no eggs.
The people who live here have decided to name this community the “Gesamtkunstwerk” meaning a total artwork that involves many different artistic disciplines. The term was popularized by Wagner in his essay, “Art and Revolution,” and there’s clearly plenty of both here. Walking through Lohmühle, every home is a vibrant expression of Art, and of the part of daily living that is Art – both contributing to what has become a social public space. The Lohmühle folks are technically squatting on public land but have created a place where anyone is welcome to wander through and visit, enjoy the open-air café, music, and the regular outdoor movies in the summer, among other events. Proceeds from the events go to funding of the Lohmühle community and to charitable groups beyond the community. Also, when building the 
café, gallery, and stage areas of the grounds, the residents invited the rest of their neighborhood to join in, again making it a project that extends beyond the community wagon-dwellers themselves. Here, the total work of art has become a total work of connection between these brave artisans and their neighbors. The result of this ultimately functions as an alternative culture center that people from anywhere in Berlin – and even people from as far away as America – can enjoy.
I circled the grounds several times, mostly wishing I could speak more German so that I would feel less shy about jumping into one of the clusters of tea and conversation that seemed to blossom in rings of chairs outside the wagons. Some were talking government in earnest, but I felt like an interruption from a foreign-speaking stranger might disperse the bubble of their intensity, not that I wasn’t interested in what the people with pink and aqua anarchy symbols spray-painted on the side of their wagons would have to say.
I did get to speak to one of the residents who was tending bar at the café. He’s lived in the Wagendorf for 6 years, but is soon to move out to travel the world. Outside of the Gesamtkunstwerk, he works in physical therapy, I think, and from the sound of it, world travel is the only reason for him to want to give up his life with the wagons.
With the huge emphasis and basic need for community here (the winters are clearly not to be braved alone), those in residence seem to place a high value on creating a lifestyle outside of the anonymity of living box-to-box in urban apartments. Face-time appears to be the preferred mode of operations.
Environmental awareness also presents itself – not just in the way that the Wagendorf folks have blended their community into the environment, but in the group’s ideals concerning conservation of resources – ideals that are visibly practiced and not just spoken about. All of the wagons make heavy use of solar panels, and their residents are clearly conservative of water since there is no running water here.
I told the boy at the café that we don’t have anything like this in New York, though the Sanctuary in Brooklyn, which has come to be a sanctuary to me at times, shares some of the same ideals. For certain, there are others in the New York area who are working in this direction, though in New York it’s hard to 
even imagine doing what they’ve done at Lohmühle. The idea of creating a squatting community that is essentially illegal but has been accepted for long enough that it may become legal seems an impossibility in the Five Boroughs, or any other American city I can think of. And that’s what has been going on successfully at Lohmühle for nearly twenty years now.
Here is a link to the Lohmühle website, though you may want to use Google translate to get a better idea of it in English:
http://www.lohmuehle-berlin.de/LM_home.htm
Another site that has a couple of great pictures of what the Wagendorf looked like when it was the dividing line between East and West Berlin is this one (in English):
http://www.a-r-d.org/HamburgerB/Lohmuhle.htm
