Wow, with the brilliant and delightfully subversive WALL-E, Steve Jobs almost redeems himself for Cars, his studio’s 2006 salute to stock-car racing and the planet-frying glory of internal combustion.
I took Duncan, my four-year-old to see this flick this afternoon (his review: "GREAT!"). I was impressed with the film’s subtle subversiveness; Buy N Large, the big-box megacorporation that ushers in the future abandonment of our completely trashed planet, is an obvious play on Wal-Mart. The humans have devolved into slurpee-sucking blobs who ride around in hoverchairs, obeying endless Buy N Large come-ons that feel a little creepily close to home: "We have everything that will make you happy!"
The turning point of WALL-E echoes an idea I’ve been playing with for months: We will only each begin to reclaim our future if we can find a way to take ourselves off "autopilot." Indeed, this is exactly what the obese Captain B. McCrea does in the nail-biting climax of the movie.
WALL-E ‘s green message is wrapped in a kind of goofy satire–palatable enough for the kids in Omaha, but cutting pretty damn close to the bone, given that many Disney Cruise Lines customers are, in fact, recliner-cradled hunks of lard who slurp sugar drinks through a straw and bark orders for shade umbrellas all day long.
Ironic downer footnote: After buying our tickets, the box-office clerk gave us a crappy vinyl WALL-E LCD wristwatch and a collection of plastic cards pimping another upcoming Disney flick (see above). The watch is a useless piece of crap. Disney’s marketing czars–one can only hope they didn’t see the film– doubtless ordered up zillions of the things, and just about every one of ‘em will be in the landfills within six months.
Either that, or some version of WALL-E will one day be sweeping them up and crushing them into tidy stackable cubes as we head for the waiting rocketships…
It’s the gag kicker of the YouTube trailer, but it’s also true: You really can rent The Eco-Shed, the Bowen Island, B.C. building at the center of my forthcoming book ALMOST GREEN. We’re making the space available to overnight guests, and have already taken a few reservations.
Below, a peek at what awaits. Trip on over to The Eco-Shed‘s dedicated site to get the full scoop.
Happy Canada Day. I’m celebrating more than just my nation’s birthday today: The Eco-Shed is finished. There are towels on the shelves. There’s a pound of fresh-ground island-roasted coffee in a jar on the counter. It’s been almost two years, but my studio and guest house is pretty much ready for guests (and by the way, if you’d like to come spend a green weekend on spectacular Bowen Island, the relevant details are at Eco-Shed.ca).
Here in Canada, the book is printed and working its way to warehouses and the like in advance of its official August 22 launch. I have a copy in my hands, and the matte Naomi MacDougall cover is fantastic; it has a great tone, feels fun and intriguing. I’ll be reading in front of my first live audience at the opening night of the Write on Bowen festival here on the island, July 11.
Patience, my American friends; the U.S. edition is following close behind.
I have coverage of the book and the project cued up with Oprah at Home magazine—which shot the place last month—plus Outside, This Old House, and a slew of others. To keep the momentum rolling, later this week, my buddy Cam and I will begin shooting a series of YouTube trailers. We’re going to have some jolly good fun.
Finally, today’s the day British Columbians start paying a new Carbon Tax. Personal income taxes will be reduced across the board while gasoline, diesel, propane, and all other fossil fuels will cost a few cents more. It’s a bold step in the right direction.
I’m reminded how much of a green bubble I live in here in the Vancouver area every time I spend a few days in a major city in America’s middle section, like Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I spent five days there last week, including a maddening afternoon trying to run a few quick errands in a city clearly engineered for fast-moving automobiles powered by cheap and limitless petroleum. We’re talking six-lane arterials fronting acre-sized parking-lots with limited on-off access. Think miles of concrete sound walls isolating cheek-and-jowl tract housing from the engine noise.
It’s no wonder Albuquerque’s retail is largely Big Box; the storefront has to be two hundred feet high if you have any hope of noticing the logo as you blaze on by. It’s pushing 100 degrees down there, and everyone on the roads is emptying the tank rushing around, committing to hours or driving just to pick up a few things. Welcome to James Kunstler’s happy motoring utopia, circa 2008.
I spotted perhaps two or three Priuses over the course of five days, and barely a smattering of Fits, Yarises, and other next-gen subcompacts. The arterials were swarming with pickups, SUVs, muscle cars, and big sedans: They were either sailing along at 65 MPH, or stuck idling in long lines at long red lights
The place feels profoundly stuck. Nobody connects the dots. Nobody even sees the dots.
Well, almost nobody. I did get an insider tour of the Nob Hill neighborhood, which is being dragged, kicking and screaming into the walkable mixed-use era, in part thanks to the efforts of city councilor Martin Heinrich. Martin proudly showed the multi-story residential buildings under construction along Central Avenue, which exist because of zoning amendments that he fought for. Martin is now running for Congress in the state’s first congressional district. It will be a tough fight; he has his work cut out for him.
As as our plane climbed steeply out of the Duke City airport, my four-year-old son peeked out the window with me. "Dad, I’m trying to spot the people," he said, scanning the shrinking sidewalks and shoulders of the asphalt jungle below.
I didn’t know what to tell him; I couldn’t see them either.
So, here’s one of the two lighting fixtures I installed today; it’s a Artemide Talo, a fluorescent wall light over the desk. Looks nice, but it was a pain in the ass to install. There was supposed to be an adaptor plate in the box to make this eurolamp fit onto a standard US-Canadian receptacle box, but it wasn’t there. The company was not helpful, insisting that the plate is always in the box. (Wait, didn’t I just blow more than — *cough* — $400 on your product?) So I whipped up a little sketch of what I needed and took it to Peter Ryan of Ryan Metalworks here on the island. He fabbed it in 45 minutes, for $15. Local wins my heart again!
Oh, here’s the other, this is a “monopoint” from MP Lighting, based in Vancouver.
This beauty runs an MR16 halogen bulb. I looked into MP’s new uber-efficient LED lighting. It costs a fortune. This should work nicely; it highlights the woodstove, a piece of art in of itself. All I now need is the shower door — coming next week — and the electrician to connect the last circuits. Then I’m ready for an occupancy permit. Anyone out there want to stay here? I’m renting it over the summer to eco-tourists who want to get away from the city without getting too far away. Web site coming soon!
It’s been a while since I fired up a MAPP Gas torch. But there I was the other day, kneeling on the floor of the Eco-Shed and blasting a 3/4-inch copper elbow with what wikipedia tells me is a 2927 °C flame (that’s 5301 °F) for you down yonder. I was sweating together a few bits of pipe to connect my Bosch PowerStar on-demand hot water heater to the supply stubouts under the sink in my kitchenette.
I’ve worked copper in the past, when I was adding a half-bath to my place back in Santa Fe, so I know what I’m doing. Well, mostly. Normally I let the plumbers do this sort of thing. But my pipe dude wouldn’t touch my Aquastar. “I’m not even going to take it out of the box,” he told me flatly.
Why? One word: liability. My plumber won’t shake a spanner at any appliance that doesn’t have a Canadian Standards Association (CSA) certification. The PowerStar has an Underwriters’ Laboratories of Canada (ULC) rating, but that’s not good enough for my man’s insurance. If the thing blows up, which it won’t, his insurance company won’t cover him in the event that I try to take him to court. So he left a couple of capped pipes under the sink and said nothing more.
“I can’t sue myself,” I told him, after making another snide comment about how lawyers are just making life harder for everyone these days. Anyway, here’s a little snap of the cut pipe, fittings, and a couple of the tools I used for the job.
In other news, I trimmed out the windows. I used MDF made of 100 percent pre-consumer wood waste, ie mill sawdust. It’s not FSC certified, and probably has formaldehyde in the glue. (So sue me!) The window ledge is FSC spruce from Tembec, some of the stock left over from framing. Three coats of Broda water-based low-VOC urethane on there, from CBR Products. Looks nice, eh? This bugger is almost ready for it’s close-up, which is good, because the cameras are circling….
Publisher’s Weekly —the book industry’s most influential magazine—gives Almost Green a very positive review (see fourth item down). Key adjectives are "compelling," "as irreverent as is it deeply informative," "endearing," and "caustically comic." The 200-word ditty concludes that the book holds "real universal appeal." I’m psyched on this. The major audience for PW is the bookseller who wants a more critical judgement than is provided by catalogue copy, in time for him to place pre-publication orders. Cool stuff. Will add the link when it comes available.
…I sometimes shop at Big Box stores. I buy organic berries but I slather them in Cool Whip. The truth is, we don’t just commit to improving our lives and then wake up the next morning as post-reinvention transformed beings. There are a trillion half-steps between, endless lingering loose threads of our former selves. As I say in the book:
We live in a tortured age—rife with elaborate guilt trips, look-the-other-way hypocrisy, newfangled codes of ecological conduct, and everyday paradoxes.
That’s me above with my new mattress from IKEA. No, it wasn’t hand-made with recycled cotton at a North Vancouver fabric-arts co-op, it was stitched in Mexico. But at least it’s made of natural latex foam, not nasty polyurethene! So what I want to know is, what are your green true confessions? Do you eat local, but now and then stop at the Drive-Thru window for a biggie-size fries? Go ahead, don’t be shy, we’re all friends here. Hang out your almost-green laundry in the comments field below.
Ok, this is about the wildest thing to ever show up in my inbox. My red-state father-in-law—one of the individuals I’ve alienated with my overly-ambitious harebrained green schemes, the fellow who loves sports cars and who has a framed picture of George Bush Sr. in his office and who thinks global warming is a “swindle?” Well, check out his new wheels!
Sorry about the blurred face; I’ve promised my wife, Elle, that I’ll keep her dad out of the public eye, to preserve what remains of our fragile family relationship. But trust me, that’s him!
This is very exciting news. Who knew the old man had it in him?!
Wow, with the brilliant and delightfully subversive WALL-E , Steve Jobs almost redeems himself for Cars, his studio’s 2006 salute to stock-car racing and the planet-frying glory of internal combustion.
WALL-E ‘s green message is wrapped in a kind of goofy satire–palatable enough for the kids in Omaha, but cutting pretty damn close to the bone, given that many Disney Cruise Lines customers are, in fact, recliner-cradled hunks of lard who slurp sugar drinks through a straw and bark orders for shade umbrellas all day long.
I’m reminded how much of a green bubble I live in here in the Vancouver area every time I spend a few days in a major city in America’s middle section, like Albuquerque, New Mexico.
