Is farming a political act?

Where does your food come from?

The supermarket? A farmer’s market? A field 20 feet outside your house?

How often do you think about where your food comes from? Is your food local? Is it sustainably produced? Did the famers use fertilizer? Did they responsibly water their plants? 

The rise of the American supermarket coincided with the rise of suburbia in the 1950’s. Before that, farming was confined to a local scale. At the same time, there was a mass advance in farming technology known, ironically, as the ‘green revolution’ . These technologies were mostly world war two technologies, co-opted into farming machines. For example, companies in political warfare went into chemical fertilizers. All this new technology (in addition to massively causing global climate change) made it easier for farms to get bigger and specialize in single crops. Add to this stew of nitrogen and fossil fuels, the subsidies that corn and soybean farmers received under FDR and what do you have total? Huge farms that grow only one crop (usually corn or soybeans) rapidly deplete resources, add a huge quantity of artificial fertilizers to the soil, massively misuse water, and exploit already under privileged workers. The idea of in-season food is virtually non-existent in this system. Do you know when kiwis grow in upstate New York? I’ll give you (the non-existent reader) a hint: never. You can’t grow kiwis at all, period, ever in upstate New York. But they’re sold in New York supermarkets, shipped all the way from Cuba or Spain.

So in this way, local farms that use organic, sustainable practices and treats their workers well are political in nature. Systems of oppression in capitalism are all intertwined and by fighting global climate change and providing sustainable food to the community, the small farmer is by nature fighting systems of oppression. 

But organic food is often overpriced in a way that can contribute to classism and gentrification. I’ve been to some organic small farms that don’t treat their workers very well at all. Some famers complain that even the label of ‘organic’ is expensive to achieve and holds the small farmer at a disadvantage and makes it harder for start up farmers, people who are necessary to combat climate change. So in that sense, is working on a small farm still a political act? I don’t know. 

When I think of political action I think in terms of Martin Luther King and Audrey Lord and the Standing rock protest. The first thing I think of when I think ‘activist’ is a protesters walking down the street stopping traffic and holding large, multi-colored signs. And I know activism is more than that. There’s that quote circulating by Shane Claiborne: “everyone wants a revolution but no one wants to do the dishes” and I think that’s true. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scene with political change and maybe farming is part of that. But I think that (at least for me) it’s not enough. If I work on a farm without learning about local aquifers, without trying to instate an effective composting system, without trying to minimize the farm input and output, then that’s not enough for me. Here are three of my goals for the next two months of residency in Arizona on a farm: 1) Initiate and engage with a composting system that does more than throwing our food scraps to the pigs 2) Be more conscious about buying food off the farm (making sure it’s local, organic, and in season) 3) Learn where our water comes from and how to use it most efficiently.

So I hope next time you go to the store, you pause for an instant before you buy bananas and think about some of these questions. On an unrelated note: did you know government subsidized lesbian farmers are Rush Limbaugh’s worst nightmare?

It's getting pretentious in here!

(so take off all your clothes)

Driving in the car

Rain on the windshield

Think snapshot

Think couplet

This is a rhyme

This is a correct

Grammatical sentence

But so is that bit about green dreaming furiously

Think metaphor

But more literal

A laugh feels like a hot indoor shower after a day in the cold rain.

Dancing feels like a laugh.

When I'm done dancing, my legs still feel like they're moving in circles and learned patterns.

That is to say they feel like a laugh.

That is to say they feel like a hot shower.

Rain on the windshield casts transparent shadows

You can see through the shadows onto skin, for example.

Skin being touched by another skin, for example

Human contact seems concrete under flickering water shadows and streetlight.

I pick raspberries in the late october rain.

My fingers trembled but the berries are sweet.

To give good food is my love language.

“take this squash” (I love you)

“try the carrots” (I love you)

“have some radishes” (I love you)

But the problem is that when I spent three semesters in Chinese you spent a year abroad in a German immersion course.

The problem is you want someone to settle down with and I’m only in town for a week because my gap year is about traveling.

The problem is I wanted to date a woman and you wanted someone who would love you as a man.

The problem is you wanted to look good in front of your friends and I don’t shave my armpits

The problem is every poem I write is about me

But not this one.

This one is a metaphor

Didn’t listen?

“The writer uses multiple ‘you’s in the poem; some to indicate her ex-lovers and some address the reader. The technique is a rather sloppy way to try to immerse the reader in the poem.”

Is what my poetry teacher would say.

It’s a poem and

A dance and

A laugh and

Sweet raspberries off the bush in cold and rainy October.

I picked them just for you.

Here's more election reaction

Hello to my possibly existent readers. Last time we talked (read: I posted on my lonely blog) was pre-election. I feel like since then a lot of things have changed. As a result, allow me to re-introduce myself. I am . . . Matt . . . Smith and I am a . . .heterosexual white. . . Christian . . . neurotypical . . . male in the upper 1% of the wealth bracket. Sure. And to post otherwise, in a country that elected Donald Trump is at best inviting scornful internet trolls and at at worst downright dangerous. The youtube blogger Vi Hart has an excellent video on internet trolls that isn't a response to the election but still powerful to watch. Nonetheless, I'm sure you've seen and heard all the discourse you need to hear on the election. Most of what you believe (which, if you read this blog for fun is probably pretty liberal) has been said by your and all of your facebook and tumblr and non-electronic friends.

I got a form of birth control called the implant yesterday. It lasts 4 years and goes into your arm and slowly secretes hormones for that time. When I went to planned parenthood yesterday(ish) to get it in, the office is packed. I've been planning on getting this birth control for about six months(more on that later, maybe) but I do wonder if the huge crowd in the office had something to do with Trump’s election. As a person with a uterus and ovaries, the fact that I might not have control over them for the next four years is fucking terrifying. But I’ll spare you the sob story. At the end of this I’ll have citizenship within this country and a home (or at least my parents’ home) over my head. Look, there are resources for ways to take social action after the election. I need catharsis and the way I find it is talking at the internet. Take care of yourself, love yourself in any way you can, and ask for help when you need it.

An election reaction

*Edgar Allen Poe wrote "The Raven" and all I got was this crappy election day catharsis. Please don't sue me if you own the rights to "The Raven"*

Election day dawned bright and cheery, not a single mind was leary

Unaware of tragedy looming ‘round the evening news.

Evening came, I read election maps with nothing near suspicion

That our next great leader might be a cheat; I waited without a clue.

Election reporters sat ‘round table on the news.

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was on the eight November

And each separate TV pixel cast his face from off the screen

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a clapping

Clapping from bat-shit supporters as if another stress-wrought dream

I wanted to mourn and scream.

The speech silken, sad and broken, issued from Hilary’s spokesperson

Made me know reality was terrible and bleak

Eighty-five to fifteen and falling, with her supporters endless calling

But alas for them that day the white men reached their peak

No millennial would save her, they preferred Stien’s hopeless speech.

The map was colored red that night; An ominous color shining bright

The whiskey bottle passed around, we waited then against all odds

I fell into a sort of mania when I saw he’d taken Pennsylvania

I found myself weakly grasping at straws

Looking for any possible signs of fraud.

The next day white tears filled the internet, no one was thrilled

He was too radical even for the GOP, Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan

Couldn’t endorse his radical ass, the sexual harassment on tape was certainly crass

But the republicans weren’t crying

The won the house, senate: all my hopes were dying.

I know it’s not my space to be martyred, I only want to be an ally in this place.

So yes, as a Jew-ish white passing woman I haven’t bore

The brunt of the hate, I have a lucky fate

But that doesn’t change the fact that I abhor

This spray tanned misogynist, a literal bore.

So rally to this cry: “Nevermore”

A poem to That Girl

*like all my pieces, in order to acknowledge that the people were real, I'd have to first acknowledge reality--any resemblance to real people paces, and things is just as surprising to me as it is to you in this vast universe*

This is a poem to that girl
You know, the girl in the back of the cafeteria with heavy black eyeliner
The girl your parents would never let you bring to your house
You know, that girl.

But maybe one day that girl is waiting for the late bus and the two of you are the only ones waiting.
And maybe you find out that you have the same taste in music
And she smiles the sweetest smile at you like high fructose corn syrup.
You know it's bad for you because she's that girl but every time you taste it you want more.

And maybe that girl has some really funny jokes
That bubble like champagne in your chest.
Maybe you and that girl sit next to each other and english class and she shows you her notebook and it is full of intricate drawings of fish.
You wonder if the fish are swimming through corn syrup.

And to you, that girl slowly becomes Chelsea, or Angelica, or Kris
But to your friends, to your mom, to your older sister, she's still that girl.
So that girl becomes the subject of poems you write. Poems you know you'll never read out loud.
And you learn that girl wants to be a professional sports reporter
And in her spare time she wants to collect exotic fish.
And the days drip by like corn syrup.

You and that girl are sitting together at lunch every day, after a few months.
Your former friends warn you, together you are in danger of becoming those girls
But that girl teaches you how to put on eyeliner and her hands on your face make you forget.
You are the one who melts into syrup under her hands.

You're with that girl the first time you get drunk
The first time you get high.
The first time you kiss a boy is at a party with that girl
Although by the time you get around to the boy kissing you realize you'd rather be kissing that girl anyway.
The boy tastes of beer and bitterness.
You bet kissing that girl would be as sweet as the corn syrup smile she wears.

Your family notes you've been spending a lot of time at that girl's house.
You get angry and tell them it's a whore house and den of general debauchery.
But in reality that girl has nice parents and a big suburban house.
You sleep over and paint each others nails.
You and that girl and go out to Ihop in the middle of the night.
You watch as she pours syrup on her pancakes.


And then you and that girl are at the end of senior year.
And you are going off to Smith to double major in political science and gender theory and that girl landed an art scholarship at Cornell for her fish drawings. To everyone's surprise.
You still haven't told her how you feel because,
Sometime in the hours you spent eating lunch together,
And painting each other's fingernails,
And waking up next to her
She stopped being that girl you want to avoid and started being that girl you couldn't stand to lose
And you think maybe if you told her you loved her then you'd lose her
And all you would have left would be the sticky sweet of corn syrup in your memory.

Update on gender and contra

Skip this paragraph if you don’t want my ramblings but are instead only interested in gender and contra. So, after contra dancing in New York City all weekend I learned a few new things. One is: even though I did learn a ton of fancy new flourishes that I can do, I don’t have to do them, particularly if there isn’t time. Two is that although I’m pretty good at contra and moderately good at waltz, I’m still not as good as I think I am. Two is: I learned the beginning of blues dancing. Three is: I’m downright bad at blues dancing. And finally, four is that I learned more about gendered language and contra. Most of this information is from a young queer, politically active caller and a young gender queer dancer who’s been dancing for a quantifiably long time. Any information that seems wrong is probably my fault, and not theirs. 

In the previous post I remarked that I didn’t understand why ladies and gents was preferable to lead and follow. The reasoning behind this is because there isn’t really a lead and follow in contra. All the moves in contra are called (the caller tells all the dancers when to do what) and any flourishes that aren’t called are at the discretion of either party dancing, not simply the lead or follow. The caller I was talking to uses ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ because she doesn’t want to give the people dancing the ladies’ role the idea that they can’t initiate a move. Once ladies and gents have been established, however she uses terms that are as gender neutral as she can make them. ‘Swing your partner’ ‘Swing your neighbor’ ‘pass the next person by the left’. The caller also talked about the importance of using the they/them pronouns. For example, using ‘ladies chain and gents courtesy turn them’ instead of ‘courtesy turn her’. Both the caller and the dancer stated a fondness of the terms ‘larks’ (the person on the left, I think) and ‘ravens’ (who I’m pretty sure is the person on the right). In an ideal world, all dances would be taught with ‘larks’ and ‘ravens’ but since most new dancers are easily confused and already used to the the ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ terminology, so ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ are more beginner friendly. 

A story for lost souls

*once again, I would like to remind the reader that all my stories are true and some of them even happened and any resemblance between this and real life is just an accidental agreement of reality*

You and I went dancing. No, that’s not entirely true. You and I were at the same dance. I didn’t know you were going to be there; I didn’t know you before we danced together. You were a good dancer. So am I. We had great chemistry but honestly, if it had ended at the dance I would have gone home and never given you a backwards glance. Instead, after the dance we both happened to agree with out mutual dancing friends to go to a karaoke bar. 

I walked out of the dance into the chilly night air and there you were: standing in a nice coat on the sidewalk, waiting for your friends. I was waiting for my friends, some of them the same friends. We started flirting. The flirting is the best part. I told you about cow tipping and squash and somehow contrived to make it sound charming and worldly. I chose to present my truth as a migrant farmer and independent out of college. I didn’t tell you I was nineteen and didn’t have my bachelor’s yet. But when we got to the bar and I asked you to go in first so I could see if you got carded and I assume you figured some of it out then. 

We danced in the bar. It was a karaoke bar and to be fair, I danced with everyone. But I taught you how to dip and I knew in my low cut tank top make it rather a spectacle. You played darts with a drunk and I caught up with my dancing friends. Finally, I came up to where you were standing. I hopped up on the pool table. You looked at me and I knew you wanted to kiss me. 

So I kissed you first. My hand in your hair and yours on my shoulder. We left the bar together. It happened that we were both riding the subway up town together. We slow danced as we waited for the subway. I couldn’t take my hands off you and your hands were all over me. Your fingers traced circles on my hips, on my shoulders, on my palm. When the subway pulled in I snuggled up next to you. I leaned on you and my tired head on your shoulder. I put my arm around your neck and your hand snaked around my waist and rested on the outside of my thigh. 

I kissed you and you kissed me and when I pulled back I laughed and your lips twitched your eyes sparkled and then you kissed me again. The subway ride stretched into the darkness of the witching hours of the night. I wished the subway would never get to my stop. As we neared, I pulled back from the latest kiss and looked up at you.

“Look, I won’t have sex with you but I’m really enjoying being with you and being touched so would you like to get off at my stop and go for a coffee. How do you feel about that?”

“Yes. I think I’d like that.” Your voice was level and low and swirled the proverbial butterflies in my stomach like spiraling galaxies.

We got off at 96th. The subway station was entirely empty aside from the two of us. I held your hand and leaned my entire side against you. We went to dunkin’ doughnuts and I got hot chocolate and you got tea. We danced to the crappy pop music and the other woman in the store smiled at us and wished us a nice night. My eyes and hands kept going back to you. The magnetic attraction of new love drew me to you. By the way you kept turning towards me, I figured it was pretty safe to assume you felt the same way.

We walked down to Riverside park, hand in hand, the other hands occupied by our hot drinks. The park was empty. I’d never seen Riverside park without anyone else in my whole life. Globes of street light hung on both sides of the empty path and the air was hung with misplaced electricity and dim city starlight. We kissed for what felt like hours and your lips made imprints on my lips, on my cheek, on my neck. Your hands lit up my body with feeling and I felt your breath catch when I kissed your neck. 

Finally, looking out over the Hudson, I noticed gray in the bottom of the sky. Perhaps it was just light pollution but suddenly I felt every one of the nineteen hours I had been awake. I studied your face to memorize it. With dawn coming on, it suddenly felt imperative that I learn every muscle in your body, every line in your palm, every angle on your jaw and cheekbone and eyebrow. And every time I met your eyes you were studying me just as steadily. 

Regretfully, you kissed me goodbye one last time at the bottom of my apartment. You smiled and I smiled back. I kissed you again and the pulled back and turned to open the door. You and turned and walked away and I watched you all the way down the block from the open doorway but you didn’t once look back.