#hands holding things

[hisbelovedrose-bloglife-blog]

Hands holding things pt. tres "WHAT THE SHELL!?"

[hisbelovedrose-bloglife-blog]

Hands holding things pt. dos

[kyungpom]

omg please yes i beg you do the appreciation post of ksoo's hands. (i love looking at your gifs of kyungsoo destroying anything with bare hands, please don't stop making them)you're the best ♥

"i love looking at your gifs of kyungsoo destroying anything with bare hands“ my kind of anonbut i think i’m gonna need at least three hand appreciation posts:

hand pictures

hand gifs

hands getting dirty

[umblepie-blog]

detroit

guuuuuuuys it's been so long. my hatemachine...runnin on "2 dprsd 2 hate." tonight's drinking and watching netflix instant is the show louie and drinking a cocktail of vodka, like 2 month old tonic, and pulpy "citrus juice" i made in the food processor from a variety of citruses in the "throw away" bags of berkeley bowl + some split oranges we found in the courtyard from the courtyard giant orange tree that is too big for humans to reach the oranges (HOW DO HUMANS REACH ORANGES THAT ARE THAT HIGH?) and when they all fall, they split and get nasty. anyway, we picked them up even though they were split and molding over a little. but at least we're one step closer to that forager lifestyle we all long for in our paleolithic dna.

so i read this really really interesting article about detroit. and we all know how detroit is really leading the way in terms of urban agriculture and reclaiming all that empty space and how they have sort of the one black urban agriculture person. oh man i'm so wrong about that. the one black urban farmer is in milwaukee and his name is will allen. he was profiled in the times! he fits snugly into my interests in ethnic hands holding things.

anyway the point is that you thought that detroit is prolly going to be rescued from its unfortunate state by urban farming - it's really such an ideal situation. you know, like it's huge (on a lot of square acres), and it's got a lot of empty lots and houses that can be torn down. and then all the food can be local!

but it turns out that this is not the case :(

this is the interesting article i read! it's sort of about detroit ruins, but more like the idea of detroit ruins. it's not really in a food publication, but you know, i like to broaden my horizons sometimes (as i'm sure you do as well). here's a little excerpt:

The third major subgenre of the popular Detroit narrative is a backlash against the pornographic excesses of the Lament and is, at best, an attempt to find a new definition of urban vitality. The Utopians are well-meaning defenders of the city’s possibilities. Locally, they are often politically active, often young, and, it should be noted, often white. This class of Detroit story chronicles Detroit’s possibilities, with a heavy emphasis on art and urban agriculture on abandoned land. It can also take the form of human-interest stories about local entrepreneurs persevering amidst the destruction. Toby Barlow’s series of New York Times articles on bicycling and one-hundred-dollar houses in the city anticipated a gentrification-fuelled Detroit Renaissance that most honest observers must admit will never come. (If Detroit is really so full of possibilities, why do so many of the possibilities so closely resemble a cut-rate version of what western Brooklyn already looks like?) Despite their differences, the common problem with many of the Lamenters and Utopians is that both see Detroit as an exception to the contemporary United States, rather than as one of its exemplary places. Detroit figures as either a nightmare image of the American Dream, where equal opportunity and abundance came to die, or as an updated version of it, where bohemians from expensive coastal cities can have the one-hundred-dollar house and community garden of their dreams.

wow, fuckin harsh right? i mean, that's just bullshit cuz like, what does this guy have against just people trying to have urban farms and minimize their impact on the environment and drive to their urban farm on their bike (in all weather these days - got really nice rain and snow gear) and have really great, fresh, healthy food. and like it's not like detroit is a great place to live, you know? like it's fucking cold. and windsor is like right there beckoning with all that free health care (could really use a cleaning :( ). and you know, trying to make community in detroit isn't THAT easy cuz all their friends are out winning local latte art awards in SF or only now getting into local charcuterie in "bkln" so it's a small community in detroit, but you know they're fucking hardcore. and everyone's super friendly so it's cool. i mean, they do it cuz they love it. that's the fucking point.

the point is who the fuck is that guy anyway. his magazine has a generic comcast icon in the tab like where the g is for google or the litl t for tumblr. dumb.

anyway, i guess the article has a point. i mean it's real. you knwo, "meta." a lot of new things for me to process and try to reconcile. as a white woman you know like the things he had to say about race in the urban ag movement just hit kind of close to home.

i mean, IT'S KIND OF RIDICULOUS that when you look up "black urban farmer" you get the milwaukee guy, and then the rest are white people.

milwaukee guy:

white people:

and then more pictures of the milwaukee guy.

AND to drive it home, the editor's recommended article at the bottom of the detroit ruins article is "Food Among the Ruins"!!!:

Detroit, the country’s most depressed metropolis, has zero produce-carrying grocery chains. It also has open land, fertile soil, ample water, and the ingredients to reinvent itself from Motor City to urban farm. Mark Dowie’s immodest proposal...

ugh. fuuuck. i wonder if my friend in SF has heard of this guy who won the 2008 world latte art competition. daaaaamn that's a fat mount fuji.