The Art of Listening

"It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person."

From Saturday's NY Times:

The Art of Listening

Eat Food? Join us!

Join us this Tuesday, Dec 13 at 6 pm. at The Brickhouse for a screening of the Academy-Award nominated food documentary "Food Inc." The screening is part of Fresh Start Community Farm's Over-Winter Workshop series and is a great introduction to some of the major issues affecting your food. More substance than scare, Food Inc. will inspire your mom to be a locavore, move your brother to join a CSA, and give all of us great ideas about what we can do where we live to make our food safer, healthier, and less costly. Enter through the side door, closest to Main St. Suggested donation $5.

Word of the Week: "Defenestrate"

Defenestrate-v., to throw a person or thing out of a window. Popularized by two incidents in Prague, one in 1419 and another in 1618. In the first incident, a congregation of Hussites was hit with a rock thrown from the town hall where the town council was meeting. The congregation stormed the hall, and threw the judge, burgomaster, and 13 members of the town council out the window. 

(The Hussite Wars broke out shortly after and lasted for 17 years) 

Courtesy of Brickhouse farmartivist Chris Venegas

The Green Beautiful

If Earth seems to you like an odd, nonsensicial, but potentially beautiful place, you might like "The Green Beautiful," a 1996 film by Alain Sarde recently translated into English. The opening 10 minutes were actually filmed at one of our recent meetings, so if you're curious about our working process, take a look!

Word of the Week: "Fiat Money"

Fiat money, n.-1. money with no intrinsic value that only has value because of government regulation or law. 2. the form of currency used by the United States since 1971. 3. an arbitrary decree or pronouncement, especially by a person or group of persons having absolute authority to enforce it, as in "The king ruled by fiat."

Origin:
 Latin "fiat," meaning "let it be done."