Since the last letter, it has been nothing but a bonanza of festivities. My head is still whirling from all the partying that has happened and has yet to come. The objects of our celebration in chronological order: Syd‘s birthday, our first wedding anniversary, the perfect timelessness of Singin' in the Rain, David’s return to New York, a new movie (How to Blow Up a Pipeline, out today), freedom from slavery, escaping from Egypt, Chris’s birthday, Landon‘s opening, Landon’s birthday, Josie’s birthday, Sarah‘s birthday. It’s Aries season on steroids, culminating tonight with Cailin’s birthday! My partner-in-crime, my business partner, the bread to my butter, the Thelma to my Louise, tonight is all yours. Everyone, please pray for our collective livers.
Cailin is the one who turned me to the fish doorbell, which is exactly what it sounds like. This TikTok below explains it all, but in a nutshell, every spring fish and river crayfish swim from the Vecht to the Kromme river to lay their eggs. They encounter human-made dams but while they wait to get through, they often get gobbled up by predators. A webcam was installed recently underwater and now anyone in the world can ring the doorbell when they spot fish waiting. This alerts the lock keeper who then opens the gate for them. More than 10,000 fish swam through the lock last year and mid-April is when migration really ramps up, so get ready.
I am giddy at the thought of getting back on a board since Kira and I have gotten bitten by the surf bug. Rockaway is where we’ll be for a chunk of the summer and I’m excited to be helping out with Laru Beya Collective. For the last five years, they’ve offered free summer surf programming for local kids there and they’ve just launched their Summer Kickoff Fundraiser, with some great raffle prizes if you’re able to contribute. Their goal of $35,000 funds their 12-week program of free lessons, which also covers surfboards, wetsuits and all the other necessities.
I first met
on Kishori’s couch many years ago when we bonded over camper vans. I was a huge fan of her New York Times column, Life Interrupted, about living with cancer, and have since inhaled her memoir Between Two Kingdoms. During the pandemic she started and I just finished Week 1 of the 30-day Art of Journaling project. I’ve been loving the daily prompts, waking up to write while still in bed when the world isn’t quite ready to be tackled yet. It’s been a lovely new ritual and I’m exciting to see what Week 2 brings…Saturday night we went to CULTIVATION! a screening of short films in an old church in Kingston. I was so blown away by the whole evening, hosted by Sky High Farms and Upstate Films, which featured short films on different farming projects in the area. Ever-Growing Family Farm is growing the only rice in the Hudson Valley using West African techniques, Innocence Powell started Abundance Farm to grow and give free food to BIPOC members, Rock Steady is a LGBTQIA+ owned and operated cooperative farm, Linke Fligl was a queer Jewish chicken farm/cultural organizing project and Curtis Zunigha from the Lenape Center is growing endangered varieties of Lenape beans and corn his ancestors planted generations ago. All so different, all equally remarkable.
The filmmaker of each short would introduce their film and at the very end end a panel discussion featured all the farmers of the films in conversation with each other. The format of the whole evening was spot on. The filmmakers got to present their work but the spotlight was really on the farmers at the heart of each video. Sky High is currently distributing $350,000 in grants (total) to individuals working in agriculture, food justice, and/or land sovereignty and their deadline to apply is April 15! They’re also remarkable in their own right - donating 100% of what they grow on their 40 acre farm to food pantries and food banks around New York State.
Both that screenings and the advance screening for How to Blow Up a Pipeline had people handing out flyers to stop Cop City which was heartening. For context, Rachel Garbus’s writing is helpful to understand exactly has been going on in Atlanta, where part of the South River forest is being turned into a 85-acre, $90 million police and fire training center in the name of “public safety”. It’s an atrocity that can/should be stopped… and is also the logical outcome of a nation where currently “1 in 47 adults in the country are under correctional supervision. We have 20% of the world's prisoners with 5% of the population."
Last night at Landon’s opening, I picked up a couple seed packets for the backyard since it was conveniently held at Tula House. The show Dear Plant is running for a month, and there are so! many! gems! I am looking forward to a weekend of digging in the dirt and have been taking my cues from
who is a quilt maker and artist. She wrote in her newsletter last month "For the garden this year I am considering flowers I love (nasturtiums, borage, marigolds, lavender, coneflower, yarrow) and herbs I always wish I had on hand in the kitchen (dill, parsley, cilantro, summer savory, marjoram, sage). I like to grow a small tea garden of various mints, chamomile, and lemon balm to dry for winter with foraged linden flowers and nettles. Maybe some sungolds because summer is greatly improved by that snack.” Yes to all of the above! (who writes the incredible ) led me to the new Fever Ray album Radical Romantics. I love the note they wrote for their album release day: ‘In Sweden there’s a saying “to suck on a candy”, it’s when you know you have something fun you’re about to share, but you let it wait for a little, just to feel it for yourself, for a bit, and that’s what I’ve had the pleasure to do now, for a little while. But now I’m so excited to share it with you.’ It’s all bangers, no skips, per usual.Beyond thrilled to hear that Reda Kateb, one of my all-time favorite actors, is currently directing his first film… and it’s based on the memoir of family friend/surrogate aunt/Passover Queen Caroline Simonds! She moved to France as a young American clown and 32 years later, her non-profit Le Rire Medecin is still bringing clowns into 70 children’s hospitals. She remains one of the brightest stars of our boisterous French/American community growing up so I am absolutely kvelling over here. If you’re reading this now, love you! miss you!
I loved reading this interview with Black feminist giant Barbara Smith, who helped found the Combahee River Collective and is still very active through the Albany Justice Coalition. Her thoughts on the queer rights movement from its inception to its present-day stance are illuminating: “Some people were excited about the outlaw, unconventional reality of being queer, and cultivated that. And some people wanted to fit in and be treated like other people. If fitting in means that you’re not murdered for your identity, then yeah, let’s “fit in.” I’m thinking about trans women of color, who are disproportionately the targets of violence and murder, and how absolutely devastating that reality is. The statistics are not going down, either. So there’s always been that tension: are we trying to fit in and be just like everybody else? Or are we the people who show possibilities of alternatives to a nuclear family script that didn’t necessarily do us any favors?”
This meditative short documentary is about about 5th generation master dyer Sachio Yoshioka in Kyoto, who uses plants and natural materials to recreate historical colors that were lost to time. It comes to you via
and I know it will be particularly enjoyed by my Dad.Till next time,
ASK