Home Grown

In this piece, Home Grown (Living On Earth - 8:13), environmentalist Bill McKibben describes a bet he made that he could live through a whole winter eating food grown only in his native Vermont. Also see McKibben's article on this same material: "A Grand Experiment," from Gourmet Magazine (July 2005).

Musings

• Use the MicKibben "bet" as an introduction to a broader discussion of the value of locally grown and locally produced goods in your own area. Such a discussion could describe foods that rely largely, if not entirely, on locally acquired ingredients.
  
  
• Not everyone will immediately think of music as a local product, but some of it surely is. Here's a piece by Cajun singer Michael Doucet on a favorite song.
  
  
• A related issue has to do with local and usually one-of-a-kind businesses, although admittedly they may be getting harder to find in some communities. At one time, every community had some local restaurants and specialty stores. McKibben is enamored of his native area (Vermont's Champlain Valley)--listen to this NPR interview (4/11/05 - 7:46) about his book Wandering Home. Describe a special, one-of-a-kind business or other location in your world?
  

Clutter! What clutter?

In Favor of Mess (Talk of the Nation: 12/28/06 - 30:19). "Dave Freedman, co-author of A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, and Kathy Waddill, an author and professional organizer, discuss whether the moderately messy are more efficient, more resilient and more creative."

Cleaning House, and Cherishing Memories (All Things Considered: 6/14/06 - 3:31). "Housecleaning is a necessary evil. But at what point do mementoes become clutter -- and when should the memories of a home be taken out to the curb? Commentator Marion Winik pondered those questions recently when she helped her mother clean out her house. It made her realize that some people are "things" people -- they define home as the place where their things are. But others are "places" people -- home is a specific familiar location. Marion Winik is the author of Above Us Only Sky. "

Resolving to Clean House (News & Notes: 1/11/06 - 3:55). "Commentator Joseph C. Phillips is cleaning up the clutter in his house as his new years resolution. He has good reason to consider his excess more of a blessing than a curse."

Musings

• Clutter is a universal phenomenon. Use one of these 3 pieces to introduce an account of your own experience with too much stuff; or, vice versa, introduce a comparison of the opinions presented in these pieces, with a brief account of mess in your life.
  
  
• One of the most beloved comedy skits is George Carlin's A Place for My Stuff. Compare Carlin's take on our stuff with the somewhat more serious take by 19th-century essayist, Henry David Thoreau (in an excerpt from Walden):
  
  Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furniture packed in a cart and going up country exposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly account of empty boxes? . . . I could never tell from inspecting such a load whether it belonged to a so-called rich man or a poor one; the owner always seemed poverty-stricken. Indeed, the more you have of such things the poorer you are. Each load looks as if it contained the contents of a dozen shanties; and if one shanty is poor, this is a dozen times as poor. Pray, for what do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviae; at last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be burned? It is the same as if all these traps were buckled to a man's belt, and he could not move over the rough country where our lines are cast without dragging them, -- dragging his trap. . . . I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded and ready, speak of his "furniture," as whether it is insured or not. "But what shall I do with my furniture?" -- My gay butterfly is entangled in a spider's web then. Even those who seem for a long while not to have any, if you inquire more narrowly you will find have some stored in somebody's barn.
  
  
• NPR commentator Daniel Schorr offers this short commentary (2:05) on Princess Diana and Mother Teresa ("Saint of the Gutter, Saint of the Media"). What do you see as the connection between this commentary and the points made by Carlin and Thoreau?
  

But Wait! There's More!

"Who can forget the Pocket Fisherman, the Veg-O-Matic or the Smokeless Ashtray? The Popeil family brought America those amazing products and more, all for ridiculously low prices -- 'if you act now!'"

In this report from Morning Edition (6/19/02 - 6:38), we learn more about Ron Popeil, called the Einstein of the Infomercial, from Timothy Samuelson, author of But Wait! There's More.

Musings

• What's the appeal of the products that Popeil sells, of Popeil himself? (For a list of products, and more on Popeil himself, see Wikipedia.) Why do we seem attracted to such blatant showmanship, even when we know better? Or put another way, imagine a world without Ron Popeil and the Veg-O-Matic--what would we gain, and lose?
  
  
• Describe your own experience with gadget or anything else you may have purchased on impulse.
  

Mechanical watches

Watch Repair Up Close. (Morning Edition - 5/20/02 - 6:27) -- "In the small town of Lititz, in southeastern Pennsylvania, architect Michael Graves designed a $9 million educational facility with the facade of an Amish barn. Inside the building, students pair a simple tradition with some measure of extravagance, as they practice watch repair, a craft that arrived in this Pennsylvania town with the Swiss and German immigrants of the 19th century."

Detailed analysis of a Seiko automatic. More on automatic watches @ Wikipedia. Here is a link to a page at the Breguet web site, briefly describing how they give a perpetual calendar function to a mechanical wristwatch--tiny springs and wheels that keeps track of whole years, even leap years. And here is a link to a web site of used ("vintage") Breguet watches for sale. Here is an article explaining how a perpetual calendar mechanism works in an IWC watch, a Breguet rival.

Musings

• Here's a conundrum: As a rule, mechanical watches (wind-up or automatic) cost most than those with a quartz (battery-driven) movement, sometimes considerably more. Why then would anyone buy a mechanical watch?
  
  
• When else do some people prefer older, often less efficient technologies, even if they cost more? Here's one suggestion--consider the extent that mechanical watches today are a little like horses: a fabulous, but out-dated technology on which people spend vast sums of money for little practical reasons.
  

Great Gadgets

Great Gadgets (12/4-8/06). In this week-long series from All Things Considered, we hear experts and others talk about their favorite gadgets.

Little Things that Make a Bike Ride Better
(12/4/06 -3:37) · "Bicycle designer Georgena Terry describes her favorite gadgets. They don't attach to her bicycle; they are little computer programs that tell her what the weather is before she gets on her bike. Georgena Terry is the president of Terry Precision Cycling."

Lead-Filled Anchor Is a Low-Tech Gadget (12/5/06 - 3:51) · "In part two of our series on favorite gadgets, we hear from Alex Lee, president of Oxo International. You might have one or two of their black-handled ergonomic kitchen tools in your house. Lee describes his favorite gadget: an anchor for his fishing boat that's made of two bags full of lead shot."

Gadget Design Gurus Pick for Grating and Wine
(12/6/06 - 3:00) · "Two men who design what they call "gadgets for gadgets" talk about their favorite small tools. Aaron Lown and John Roscoe Swartz are the creative directors of Built NY, where they make neoprene totes for computers, cell phones, cameras, baby bottles and the like. Their favorite gadgets are a sharkskin ginger grater and a volumetric flask designed to be used in a laboratory -- but instead used as a wine decanter."

Cleaning Up with Roomba
(12/7/06 - 3:49) · "Jason Toon and Luke Duff work for the Web site woot.com. Their favorite gadget is something they bought from themselves: a Roomba. It's a small robot that sweeps up dust."

The Listeners Weigh In
(12/8/06 - 3:55) · "This week we've been hearing about favorite gadgets - from people who design and sell them. Many listeners wrote in to tell us about favorite gadgets, too. Three listeners join us: John Sturdevant, Eve Leedy and Vince Lupo."

Musings

• Compare a gadget of yours with one of those mentioned in any one of these NPR pieces.
  
  
• Comment on what the American writer Henry David Thoreau had to say about gadgets (what he calls "our inventions"), in his 1854 classic, Walden: "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at."
  
  
• What's the difference between a gadget and a tool? When does a tool become a gadget? Or, using a somewhat different approach, how are gadgets related to toys? Try to use one specific gadget to make your case.
  

Timeless Toys & Games

Timeless Toys. Weekend Edition Sunday: 12/25/05 - 5:01). "Toy inventor Tim Walsh's book Timeless Toys is full of stories about a century of all things playful. He fills Liane Hansen with facts about the Slinky, Play-Doh, Lincoln Logs and other fundamentals of fun."

Old-Fashioned Toys with a New-Fangled Twist (11/27/06) - "Tweens may have been sucked into a world of cell phones and MP3 players, but younger children still can find joy without a joystick -- which is good, because how else would parents get to indulge their inner child? Here's a selection aimed at pushing the old-fashioned buttons of creativity, free play and learning -- with a few modern twists."

Parker Brothers (2/11/04) - "Phil Orbanes discusses the rich history of Parker Brothers board games. Learn about George and his brother Charles Parker, who were responsible for many favorites, including Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Clue, Boggle and Risk." It seems that Hasbro now owns Clue and Monopoly, and here are two pieces (Clue - 8/11/08) and (Monopoly - 9/16/2006) on their planned makeover.

Musings

• The piece on the Parker Brothers mentions the continuing interest in old-fashioned board games. Discuss your own experience with one or more board games or jigsaw puzzles; include a detailed account of the context in which you played the game, and what, if anything, you learned from it. 


• There are 40+ toys enshrined at the National Toy Hall of Fame (more @ Wikipedia). Focus or one or two classic toys from this list that you can remember playing a role in your life, or mention one or two others that you think should be included in the list, focusing on toys without batteries.


• What is your own definition of a classic (or timeless) toy or board game? What makes such a toy or game endure? The best responses here will make effective use of examples, including lots of concrete details so we can see (or feel, taste, touch, even smell) the toys for ourselves.

Vermeer

Vermeer exhibit. "Morning Edition, November 24, 1999 · NPR's Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg reports that a painting by Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer goes on exhibit today. "The Art of Painting," perhaps one of Vermeer's favorite works from Vienna's Kunsthistoriches Museum, is the focus of a small exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC."

Auction Displays Revived Interest in Vermeer. "Weekend Edition Saturday, July 10, 2004 · Until this week, the world had not seen a Johannes Vermeer painting publicly auctioned in 80 years. The small painting "A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals" -- a harpsichord -- sold for $30 million at Sotheby's in London. This is only the 36th known painting by Vermeer. Author Tracy Chevalier was seated squarely in the second row. Her novel Girl with a Pearl Earring and the film based on it brought major attention to the 17th century Dutch master. Chevalier describes the auction to NPR's Susan Stamberg."

Listen to author Tracy Chevalier discuss the movie based on her book, Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Musings

• How do you explain the popularity of Vermeer's Girl with a Gold Earring (called the "Mona Lisa of the North")? You can read about the painting at Wikipedia.
  
  
• View and read about other Vermeer paintings at Wikipedia, and speculate on the role you feel that simplicity or calmness plays in his paintings. What do you think it means that at the center of this simplicity or calmness is so often a woman?
  
  
• Wikipedia has a fairly long article on still of painting known as still life, a genre at which the Dutch like Vermeer excelled. What do you feel is the appeal of this genre--and what, if anything, does that appeal have to do either with the objects themselves? For example, do you think that these are objects intended (or valued) for consumption--why, why not?
  
  

Mitt Romney, A Mormon Running for President

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who recently declared his intentions to run for president in 2008, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- a matter that may cause some problems for him on the campaign trail. In this piece from Weekend Edition Sunday (1/7/07 - 5:02), John Ydstie speaks to John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Musings

• The discussion begins with parallels with John Kennedy's run for President in 1960, and attitudes towards his being a Catholic. Can we understand today the concern with Catholicism in 1960?
  
  
• For the most part, Mormons are a paradox: quintessential Americans who seem to be strangers to most Americans. What makes that typically Americans? What makes them different?