Changing A Food Desert, One Metro Stop At A Time

One of Farm to Family's Mobile Markets in Saint Louis

Despite its place amid some of the midwest's most fertile soil, Saint Louis is plagued by large food deserts - both a testament to suburban migration begun in the 1960's, but also to racially-motivated zoning and business models that survived in the city well past the Jim Crow era. [The BBC has recently discussed this history, in this excellent television report.]

The Sappington Farmers Market, a cooperative between Missouri small family farmers and rural entrepreneurs, has acted to help combat the scourge of urban food deserts by opening a series of Farm To Family mobile markets that will sell fresh produce and local goods at four bus/train stations. The Saint Louis Metro is allowing the markets to use the space free of charge, without asking for a share of the profits. STLToday offers further information, interviews, and photographs. 

What is so encouraging about this effort is its panoramic vision of local food's place in an urban locale; while Farm To Family also offers opportunities for weekly shares in a CSA program, and while they are connected with the successful Sappington Farmers Market, they are also branching out from the comfortable confines of the traditional local foods movement.

The farmers following this philosophy are an inspiration, and an example of thinking about "the whole horse," as Wendell Berry would write, in an essay of the same name:

We can say, without much fear of oversimplifying, that the aim of producers is to sell as much as possible and that the aim of consumers is to buy as much as possible.

But experience seems increasingly to be driving us out of the categories of producer and consumer and into the categories of citizen, family member, and community member, in all of which we have an inescapable interest in making things last.

Folks can follow these individuals' mission here; many thanks to City Farmer for leading us to this story.

Hiss Golden Messenger Takes To The Air

MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger; Abigail Martin

As we catch up on news we were unable to cover over the last few weeks, we wanted to share this: Frank Stasio of NPR's The State of Things, in conversation with MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger.

As we've written previously, HGM's Poor Moon was one of the most extraordinary records of 2011, and it's wonderful to hear Stasio and Taylor talk through so many of the ideas that inform the music: folklore, place, and family. Taylor also performs two tracks live in studio, "Call Him Daylight" and "Bad Debt," and concludes by offering a new song, "Busted Note."

In other exciting HGM news, Poor Moon will be available on CD courtesy of the excellent Tompkins Square label on April 17th -- with a new LP run offered by Paradise of Bachelors.

Hiss Golden Messenger "Poor Moon" - out April 17th by TompkinsSquare

Double Edge Theatre and The Grand Parade

photograph from The Grand Parade rehearsals; Double Edge Theatre

The Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater has just announced that Double Edge Theatre will offer the world premiere of The Grand Parade (of the Twentieth Century) February 6-10 in Washington, DC. Inspired by Marc Chagall's paintings,  this piece offers a narrative of the twentieth century that The Arena Stage has described as "an emotionally stunning journey through the 20th century with the use of aerial flight, puppetry and music."

As we've written previously, Double Edge is a one-of-a-kind theatre company that lives, trains, and farms in Ashfield, Massachusetts. Not only are they one of the most powerful examples of "laboratory theater" in this country, but they also focus on the idea of "living culture," consistently asking how themselves how they can engage with local communities. This documentary excerpt begins to tell the story. 

Here is more information from the Arena Stage's press release:

The Grand Parade is conceived and directed by Double Edge Theatre Founder and Artistic Director Stacy Klein and is created with Carlos Uriona, Matthew Glassman, Hayley Brown, Jeremy Louise Eaton, Adam Bright and Milena Dabova. The show is realized with a collaborative team of artists from the United States, Argentina and Russia and features original compositions by Alexander Bakshi of Russia.

The Grand Parade creates a mythology of the American century and its Russian counterpart, from the story of Evelyn Nesbit in the 1900s to the fall of the Wall to the Supreme Court Gore v. Bush decision in 2000. This imaginative, kaleidoscopic mashup of the century echoes Chagall’s life, which spanned from 1887 to 1985, and summons the artist’s sensibilities and personal memories.

“Work on The Grand Parade has been a wild and revelatory experience, from learning that women are still facing the same century long struggle, and that lessons of war and economy have gone unheeded, to the amazement and sheer fun of peoples’ continued attempts to fly, to invent, and to laugh in spite of it all,” says Klein. “With Chagall as our muse, we have dared our way through the century’s chaos, trying to find our own thousand ways to fly.”

More coverage of The Grand Parade is forthcoming; until then, many gorgeous photographs from the rehearsals in Ashfield can be found on Double Edge's Facebook page, along with recent news of their upcoming training intensive and their critically-acclaimed summer spectacles on the farm.

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The Odyssey of Double Edge Theatre