Low econ-impact; agility round the dustbins

Loved this article from last weekend’s Observer, most esp. the bin diving neighbour who arrives at lunch with the piece of mouldy cheese.

Alex Renton rides shotgun with a band of eco-minded ‘freegans’ who plunder the bins behind the local M&S for gourmet foods. But how ethical is it? And can you get enough for a dinner party?

Asked Puffin to convert to freeganism, we’ve agreed to wait ’til the current garbage strike is over due to stench. Judging by the measly two malteser-sized tomatoes our huge tomato plant produced, sustainable living remains at a bit of a distance.

In sharp contrast

To contrast with our anxious “over the flutter of their cash” Silicon Valley millionaires, here’s someone they could learn much from Zell Kravinsky, who reminds me of Dorothy Day, and far from being barking mad, as is regularly inferred about him, makes pitch perfect sense and has taken the measure of the world very accurately.  And since he’s a Renaissance scholar one hopes he can see the value in buying books and supporting artists.

I’ve often wondered if the acquisition of wealth is just humans collecting comfort, continuous comfort, an insulating quilt of comfort to the point that it merely highlights how uncomfortable they in fact are. That inside a monstrous house, and a massive car and a private jet and an endless swimming pool rings little but the eventual echo of loneliness. People even refer to themselves sometimes as “comfortable”. It’s an odd, blank description.

 I think it was Tennessee Williams who said something like we’re all hurrying towards something, what’s going to happen when we actually get there. Well, it would seem that Mr. Kravinsky found out and he could not look at the blatent injustice that stared back at him.

He’s interviewed on The World Service program The Interview here

Brillopads

Could this be why it’s so damn hard for writers to make a living:

Living Modestly Despite a Nice Nest Egg

He seems to derive a kind of Zen pleasure through living modestly. He takes books out of his local public library rather than buying them at a store. He rents a one-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto, Calif., although he can afford a larger place.

 The, he, in question is: “By Silicon Valley standards, Brian Wilson is not rich. But despite a nest egg of roughly $1.5 million…”

Article on rich folk in Silicon Valley in today’s NY Times who have financial anxiety.

 With respect to the folks of Silicon Valley, who are sitting on a million and a half, but proudly wandering with brillopads on their feet instead of shoes because of “wealth anxiety” I say that by the time you come to retire and take your wads out of the bank and lie on your arses on distant beaches on misshapen spines, you’ll have nowt to read because the poor writers your miserly ways are depriving of a living will be forced to procure a life of software piracy instead to feed their chickens.

For God’s sake would they ever buy a sodding book, painting, if they want to really live dangerously they could shell out for a poetry collection, or the much maligned no one wants to publish them anymore short story collection … share the damn wealth and stop being such stingy gits.  

To all those who do buy books un grand merci beaucoup. The simple fact is if people don’t buy books writers cannot make even the paltry living most of them actually make.