4 posts tagged “wisconsin”

So we spent the better part of last Saturday at the Kickapoo Country Fair. It was the fifth annual, but our first time.

We made it out from Madison in time for CROPP's presentation to shareholders and potential shareholders. George Siemon, the CEO, gave a nice overview of the cooperative's growth, a primer on the organic ag economy, and took a few questions. The CFO also gave a report. One thing to note here. Back in June, while on the Drift some of us had a discussion about whether CROPP really was a different corporation, a business model that somehow was not entirely driven by the short-term profit imperative. Indications of it being such are certainly there, but the presentation we were given by one of their marketing people while on our tour of the HQ definitely seemed to fit right into any standard corporate flack act. But on this Saturday George Siemon made some comments about conventional ag that were revealing, in a good way. Towards the end of the presentation he said the key to unlocking agricultural policy in the US is to 'follow the money' and that the money 'always leads to Monsanto.' He continued: 'Monsanto never sleeps. I've never been to any meeting about farm bills or farm policy anywhere, even in the smallest gatherings, without a Monsanto rep showing up. This is what we're up against.' It was very gently delivered, and dressed in the clothing of an investor's meeting, but unmistakably a call to arms.

This was followed by a very generous and delicious complimentary buffet lunch. All organic, of course. We ended up sitting outside with three others, also, as it turns out, from Madison (surprise!) One of them was Mariah, who, again as it turns out, is very involved in the effort to apply the City Repair model to neighborhoods in Madison. So it was an enjoyable, social lunch.

From there it was onto the browsing of vendors and exhibitors. Plenty to see and learn, including building techniques I'd never heard of like Whole Tree Architecture. There were activist tables, the expected jewelry and craft booths (not too exciting), and some old-timey stuff. One of the highlights for me was a wonderful show of old tractors, about twenty in all. In this day and age of massive, hundred-grand tricked out combines, these old tractors are a reminder that in the world of mechanized farming there are huge differences in scale.

On the activist side, for me the new information of the day was delivered through one of the films they screened for their modest film fest. It was documentary about the struggle against the coal ash landfill, which is ongoing and as yet unresolved. Check out the opposition group's website! A bunch of the folks directly involved in the organizing were on hand for the screening. Some of them are CROPP farmer-members.

The most bizarre element of the fair, I must say, was the massive Toyota hybrid vehicles exhibition. First of all, this was the only mainstream corporate presence in the whole fair. Strike one. Second, the aesthetic was all wrong for the audience. The enormous slide-out exhibition trailer had 'hat-act young country' blaring on the outside, as if that was supposed to draw in people. To understand where this fair was at culturally, you only have to see that the musical entertainment were string bands, a local surf rock outfit, a political folk troubadour, and a conscious reggae band as headliner. So, strike two.

And then, for strike three: one of the best things about this entire fair was the absolute invisibility of security. This was a family event, hosted by a friendly business large enough to throw a party for itself, its people, their friends, and anybody willing to make the trip to LaFarge. And pay the very reasonable admission of $5 for the day, parking included. To not have our intelligence insulted by a visible presence of security goons made it all the better, and, given our sociopolitical climate, that much more refreshing.

So where was the single, lone, sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb uniformed rent-a-cop? Stationed at the closed-up Toyota trailer, of course! It was a pathetic sight, indeed.

Even though in calendar terms we are nearing the end of the MRCC / Continental Drift, it feels like the mental processing and theorizing is just beginning. I think we could have easily added two or three days to the Drift in Madison, but the physical exhaustion is catching up to me and probably everybody else. A final stay at Dreamtime Village is the perfect way to wrap up the far-flung rural leg of the journey, and I am impressed that eleven Drifters are here for the upcoming day of reflection, talk, hanging out, cooking, working, and as Claire Pentecost put it, confabulation. Some of us may take a side trip back towards LaFarge to the Brown Family Land, but otherwise most of us are staying put. The eleven here at a remote site near the end of the ten days represents a very strong collective commitment to the MRCC / Drift. The overall number of people who took part in some active fashion, who for a day, an evening, or the whole ten days, as a host, a guide, or a fellow traveler, co-authored this adventure must be in the hundreds. The Radical Culture Corridor, indeed.

Unable to join for the days put together by the Urbana Four, I hitched my wagon to the Continental Drift Through the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor for a couple days in Chicago. The highlights were an AREA magazine release in Paseo Park, facilitating a discussion with the visiting Gerald Raunig at InCUBATE, then the next day a mind-blowing tour of the far, far South Side neighborhood of Riverdale conducted by the always inspiring Martha Boyd, and the weekend wrap-up with a screening of The Spook Who Sat By The Door with a long Q&A with the author and co-producer Sam Greenlee. In between the last two events people enjoyed a tasty potluck (not always the case with potlucks, ya know) at the Experimental Station, to which I contributed the 18-piece wing bucket from (where else) Harold's, where the bird is always fried to order.

I'm skipping out on the Milwaukee day because I have to work, but will rejoin sometime on the way to Elk Mound, Wisconsin. A few others are aiming join as the Drift comes back down around to Madison for next weekend. The ever-shifting nature of the traveling group is emerging as one of the beautiful dynamics. Because the combination of voices keeps changing, the conversations surrounding the various experiences are always a little bit different, and in fact may be the sort of productive discontinuity that keeps the Drift lively in ways that the sit-down seminar cannot.

The rural days will be a further test, because we really don't have a lot scheduled. The new information to be absorbed will be provided by the settings themselves. But then again, by the time we reach Elk Mound, especially for the folks who have been with the troupe all along, time and headspace for reflection might be much needed.

Some of you know that I've been helping to coordinate an itinerary for this foray by a few art-activists into the 'regional,' an effort some of us are calling the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor. There are many dimensions to the MRCC, and it is an idea or set of ideas more than anything else. But here's a few of us who decided to make the idea an experiential thing. For ten days in June, we will be traveling, experiencing, learning, and soaking in this region we probably at one time thought we knew so well.

Food justice, food ecology, sustainability, and settler histories are all on the idea-agenda. Strawberries are on the material agenda. (But we need some rain!)

The provisional itinerary of open events follows below. I'll update it as details continue to get firmed up.

People taking up the planning for this and coming along for some or all of the ten days include our collaborators and colleagues Brett Bloom, Claire Pentecost, Nick Brown, Sarah Kanouse, Brian Holmes, and others. Think about joining up for an afternoon, a day, or a few days.

And what is the Continental Drift, anyways?

Continental Drift is an invitation to look at our collective existence on all the relevant scales: the intimate, the local, the national, the continental and the global.

Continental Drift is a mobile assemblage of people presenting their projects, observations, experiments, discoveries and questions, and producing value through social exchange.

Continental Drift through the Midwest Radical Cultural Corridor is a self-educating tour through our concrete world and its abstract representations, discovering distant lives in familiar situations, and embracing the interdependency that links what is usually treated as separate.

Continental Drift is intended for anyone seeking to locate global economies, pressures and possibilities in daily life and to reorient aesthetic invention in response to an ethics of equality.

Email me for specifics on where and when.

    CHAMPAIGN - URBANA
DAY 1: Wednesday, June 4
* The Audacity of Desperation-- making compromises in an inadequate  political system.
* Kevin Hamiliton: the university, technology and markets (biocomputing lab).
* Claire Pentecost and Brian Holmes: Introduction to Drift.

DAY 2: Thursday, June 5
* 10:30-12:00 PM – Talk with Lisa Bralts-Kelly, 910 S. Lynn St., Urbana. Bralts-Kelly, direc-
tor of Urbana’s farmers market and veteran food activist, will share her knowledge on regional food sustainability and challenges for local populations.
* 12:30 PM – Visit Tomahnous Farms, Mahomet. Carpool from 910 S. Lynn St.,
Urbana at 12:00 PM. The farm grows organic fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs and honey. Haynes, farmer and land use activist, will give a tour and discuss issues with losing farm land in this ‘suburb’ of Champaign.

* 7 PM:  Exhibition and potluck at 706 E. Fairlawn, Urbana. There will be projects about the re-
use of locally produced waste, imagined neighborhoods,
and things to take with you.  (www.letsremake.info/garage-
garden.html)

DAY 3: Friday, June 6
MORNING
* 10 AM–Fighting Toxicity, Douglass Branch Library, 504 E. Grove Street, Champaign. Ryan Griffis with members of CUCPJ: Racialized geography, toxic tour.

AFTERNOON
* Drift to Chicago/next stop with intermission at an Illinois State rest stop.
* 6:00 PM – Movies & discussion: Who controls our food? Our Daily Bread (1934)
& The World According to Monsanto (2008)
@ Mess Hall, 6932 N. Glenwood, Chicago.
Bring home- made bread to share. (www.messhall.org)

CHICAGO
DAY 4: Saturday, June 7
* Release Party for  AREA Chicago #6: City As Lab Saturday.
2pm-4pm
@ Paseo Prairie Garden, adjacent to the south exit of the Logan Square 'el' exit
This issue of AREA Chicago looks at Chicago as a policy laboratory in which experimental public policy in the areas of housing, labor and education are tested on the residents of Chicago.

* Gerald Raunig in dialogue.
7 pm
@ InCUBATE
2129 North Rockwell
Vienna-based philosopher visits Chicago for the first time, breaks down the latest in art/social action theory.

DAY 5: Sunday, June 8
* Tour the C/CURE-Raising Spirits! initiative with Martha Boyd in the Riverdale neighborhood.
1pm - 5pm, byo-picnic
meet @ Resource Center, 222 East 135th Pl.

The Raising Spirits! initiative is a local proposal for rebuilding healthy, self-sustaining human communities in the context of climate change and pervasive ecological and economic dysfunction. The project commits to creative problem-solving out of the challenges and opportunities in a particular community and place: in this case, Chicago's Riverdale community along the Little Calumet River - in our own lower 9th ward. Martha Boyd will describe the project and activities through the Chicago/Calumet Underground Railroad Effort (C/CURE) to link cultural and ecological tourism with community health and wealth. Environment, enterprise, history, policy, education, infrastructure -
and ultimately: survival.

Martha Boyd is Program Director of Angelic Organics Learning Center¹s Urban Initiative in Chicago.

* Screening of The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973). Filmmaker and author Sam Greenlee in attendance!
7 pm
@ Backstory Cafe
6100 South Blackstone
potluck dinner

MILWAUKEE
DAY 6: Monday June 9
* Visit to Growing Power.
* Visit the Black Holocaust Museum.
* Visit the Brady Street Pharmacy.

WESTWARD
DAY 7: Tuesday, June 10
* Travel to Elk Mound the long way, arrive in the late afternoon.
* Noon break at Marl Lake, swimming.
* Evening meal and hang out with the Langbys and some friends/collaborators of theirs from progressive home schooling and local food networks.

DAY 8: Wed, June 11
* Walk a mile to the Langby's neighbors for a tour of their organic dairy farm (they are farmer members of CROPP).
* Help out around the garden. Evening explorations.

DAY 9: Thurs, June 12
* Travel to Viroqua/LaFarge/West Lima.
* See and traipse the Brown Family land.
* Tour the HQ of CROPP
3:30 PM
* Evening picnic and walk-through of Heavy Duty Acres, with Mike Koppa.
* Lodge/camp at Dreamtime Village.

DAY 10: Friday, June 13
* Work on trellis projects at Dreamtime.
* Evening Drift session: Articulating our Visions.

MADISON
DAY 11: Sat, June 14
* Travel to Madison, stop somewhere for U-pick strawberries.
* Strawberry jam making party at the home of Dan and Sarah, plus strawberry shortcake feed.