Musical interlude: climate justice inspirations

Last night, I went to a climate justice benefit concert with Melodeego, School for Robots, and the Great Whiskey Rebellion.

The Great Whiskey Rebellion–who played a high-energy, incredibly danceable combination of traditional folk tunes, Klezmer, and rock–was by far the stand-out band. If you’re in the Boston or Worcester areas, I highly recommend checking them out!

One of my favorites moments of the evening was when Melodeego played the “Digging Us a Hole,” the powerful and haunting song that they wrote for an anti-tar-sands action in March:

We all sung along, our arms around each other.

Shea, a local climate activist, also performed this amazing rap that he had written for Bill McKibben’s Do the Math tour:

Before the concert, I did some poking around on the internet to find other climate-action-inspiring music. Here are a few of the best songs I found:

Big Thrifty OOTD #4: Blue velvet

Top: The Big Thrifty, skirt: thrifted, sandals: Naot, necklace and fascinator: So Good

Book review: the Green Boat

I had high hopes for Mary Pipher’s book The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture. I’ve been a fan of Pipher’s writing ever since I read Reviving Ophelia when I was 10, so when I wandered into my local bookstore and found out that she’d written a book on healing  ourselves and the earth in the age of climate change, I was excited. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

But like cheap Chinese food, the book left me hungry an hour later.

It does contain some good ideas; I especially like Pipher’s concept of the “new healthy normal” way of being for which we should strive:

In the context of our global storm, the new healthy normal requires the ability to move from awareness to action on a regular basis, to maintain a sense of balance, and to live intentionally. It also requires a particular kind of optimism, a connection to community, and a world-class set of stress-reduction skills. Implied in the term “new healthy normal” is my assumption that it is not mentally healthy to sit idly by while the human race destroys its mother ship. (Pipher, 117)

I also like her description of the coalition she built with other Nebraskans to fight the Keystone XL pipeline–which, thanks to her and many other people’s activism, is still an ongoing fight rather than a done deal. I like her emphasis on community-building, bringing together people from different walks of life, and combining hard work with good food, art, and music.

But overall, although the book was well-written, it just felt…shallow. It didn’t get into the depths demanded by the scale of the climate crisis. I read a Goodreads review by a woman named Megan that articulated exactly what I found so troublesome:

…I think the book fails at its main goal of breaking through the emotional paralysis to help us adequately address our current ecological, political, and social crisis.

Wednesday Fa(t)shion Inspirations, 7/10/13

Chubby Bunnies

Fashion, Love, & Martinis

This is what a deep economy looks like: Cupcake Camp Boston (plus OOTD)

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I’m a bit obsessed with Bill McKibben’s book Deep Economy. This is because McKibben so clearly articulates a vision for a future that is livable, community-based, and joyous–a future that will destroy neither the planet nor the lives of its inhabitants. His book is both practical and visionary: both a blueprint for creating a healthier society and an exploration of what that means.

And so, when I recently attended Cupcake Camp Boston, I couldn’t help but see it as one delicious example of a deep economy: a tiny, tasty model of a society built around community connection rather than profit.

Cupcake Camp promotes both local businesses and community togetherness, with a good helping of buttercream frosting. The basic idea is that you pay a small fee to sample a certain number of cupcakes from local bakeries. (Ironically enough, I didn’t end up eating a single cupcake! By the time I arrived, tickets were sold out, so I just wandered around. A few of the booths gave me cupcakes despite my lack of a ticket, but I was too full from breakfast to eat them, so I was planning to save them for later…until they started getting all melty, so I gave them away instead.)

In addition to the cupcakes themselves–which are both a great deal for the consumers, and great publicity for the bakers–there were all sorts of fun, free activities, including a cupcake relay race and a cupcake eating contest!

Two more awesome fat events coming up

Getting my bellydance on at a dance festival last year

I’m so happy that fat community seems to be taking off in Boston. In the last few months alone, we’ve had the Big Thrifty, Three Big Fat Voices, and the Fab Fatty Frolic that I organized. We’re not quite at San Francisco-level awesomeness–I’m constantly hearing about fat dance parties and crafternoons and all sorts of other fun stuff happening there–but we’re getting there.

There are two more awesome fat events coming up this summer:

1.) Another fab fatty frolic that I’m planning, this time at the beach! It will be at Revere Beach on Saturday, August 3rd. You can find more information on the Facebook event.

2.) The Big Thrifty is organizing yet another awesome event, Living X-Large and In Charge: Intro Classes for Yoga, Self-Defense, and Bellydance. It will be on Saturday, July 20th, in Malden, and in addition to the movement classes, there will be a mini clothing swap and a cupcake and fruit break! Check out the Facebook event for more info.

Huzzah for flabulous fattery taking over Boston!

OOTD: Monsters University

Last night, I went to go see Monsters University with a few friends. It was a cute movie! And–completely unintentionally, I swear–I ended up dressing to match it.

I had already been wearing my purple gauchos all day, but felt like wearing a dress to go out. When I put my turquoise dress on, I realized it actually went with the gauchos, so I decided to keep them on and put a purple flower in my hair to tie the look together.

Dress: Igigi via the Big Thrifty, gauchos: I don’t even know, necklace: pendant from Michael’s on a chain, earrings: gift from my aunt, bangles: Torrid and Deb, fascinator: Forever 21, ginormous ’90s platform sandals: found at a free “yard sale” in my neighborhood

Big thrifty OOTD #3: Red dress

Eeep, I’m so behind on outfit posts! I have so many pictures I’ve taken and just haven’t edited and uploaded yet.

This is a dress I got at the Big Thrifty, and wore to Three Big Fat Voices. It’s the perfect summer dress–light and comfortable and also glamorous. I want to wear it all the time.

Dress: The Big Thrifty, sandals: Naot, rose bangle: H&M, other bangles: Torrid and Deb, necklace: Claire’s, earrings: Artifaktori, fascinator: Forever 21, sequined jacket: Kohl’s

Quote of the day: YES YES YES YES

Do you ever read something that makes you want to jump up and down with excitement because the writer has nailed something you felt but couldn’t articulate SO WELL?

That’s how I feel about this essay on the Science and Environmental Health Network blog, Moral Injuries and the Environment: Healing the Soul Wounds of the Body Politic.

Here’s a quote from it, but I highly recommend going over there to read the whole thing.

The moral injury stemming from our participation in destruction of the planet has two dimensions: knowledge of our role and an inability to act. We know that we are causing irreparable damage. We are both individually and collectively responsible. But we are individually unable to make systemic changes that actually matter. The moral injury isn’t so much a matter of the individual psyche, but a matter of the body politic. Our culture lacks the mechanisms for taking account of collective moral injuries and then finding the vision and creativity to address them.  The difference between a soldier’s moral injury and our environmental moral injuries is that environmental soul wounds aren’t a shattering of moral expectations but a steady, grinding erosion, a slow-motion relentless sorrow.

Yup. Slow-motion relentless sorrow is just about it.

It’s exactly what I’ve been struggling and struggling and struggling with but failed to put in such perfect words.

I am so glad I’m not alone.

Quote of the day: deciding not to die

The word fighting gets thrown around a lot. We’re fighting against the fossil fuel industry. We’re fighting against the corporate takeover of our government. We’re fighting against a predatory economic system. We’re fighting against climate change.

But there are some people who are literally fighting for their lives. And in this era of economic collapse, biosphere annihilation, and rampant oppression, these people are rising up because they have decided not to die.

— Chloe Gleichman, We Are PowerShift