Book #2 - Earthship

It’s kind of like when you put down your bike as a kid. None of us really remember the transition, but there was a time when it was our primary means of transportation, and then it just wasn’t. Then, as an adult, for one reason or another, you buy one. You buy one not because you think that riding a bike sounds awesome, but because you’re getting fat, and gas and car insurance are expensive, and you expect it to be a miserable, labor intensive reacquainting.

Then you go for your first ride and think, “THIS…IS…AMAZING”

The same thing happened to me last week, but it happened with the library. I have always known that there is a room full of books attached to the place where I buy my coffee. I have even gone in a few times during my adult life, but it was only for the sake of using a computer.

 And a university library, to my experience, is a special flavor of library. For some reason, it attracts droves of freshman that like to gather and talk publicly about their unsavory weekend enterprises. As it is, I know that I have a reputation here as the fat old guy in skinny jeans that gets bent out of shape whenever I am disturbed.

I’m the troll under the bridge.

But on Monday, the library and I made up. I received my first interlibrary loan, and I read it cover to cover. The book is called Earthship, and, while reading it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, it is based on concepts that I think everyone should explore at some point.

As an artist, I love the idea of breaking rules. Not for the sake of being difficult, but for the sake of discovery, or sometimes for the sake of evolution. The question “Why?” is something I constantly think about, yet so many of us actually ignore the importance of this question.

Michael Reynolds asks “Why?” He looks at all of the things that we depend on to live, and wonders why they are the way they are, namely the architecture of our homes. In this book, he explains how the way that we are building homes is not only terribly inefficient, but also quite destructive to the atmosphere around it. To counter this, he starts building houses out of garbage.

And they aren’t gimmicky. They aren’t weird hippy structures. They are completely self-sufficient, making their own energy, heating/cooling, water treatment, and even food. So, if you don’t want to readt it, I don’t blame you. An instructional book on how to build a house is not what most consider to be recreational reading, But do yourself a favor and watch the documentary. I have included a link to the full documentary below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnkv_qj1xUc