4/18/2011

Festivals, Worm Castings, Contemporary Literature, etc

We have some festival dates for summer and fall I wanted to share.

Roskilde Festival - Roskilde, Denmark - June 30-July 3
http://roskilde-festival.dk/uk/
Best Friends Day - Richmond, VA - August 18-21
http://www.bestfriendsdayrva.com/
FEST 10 - Gainesville, FL - Oct 28-30
http://www.thefestfl.com/
More info to come for all of these and more fests to come as well (most likely).

So there are a few things you might not know about me!

Worm Castings
Do you know that in your own home you can make some of the best compost available? I do it! With a box of worms, some newspaper, and your leftover food scraps you can turn your trash into worm castings (aka vermicompost). This is a great option for people who live in apartments were they don't have access to a outdoor area for a compost pile. Even if you don't use the worm castings to fertilize a garden it is still a good idea to compost. Food scraps which normally end up in the garbage often do not properly decompose in garbage dumps because the environment becomes anaerobic (no oxygen). This means the food scraps either don't decompose properly or at all! Composting is the most effective form of recycling but almost no municipalities in the USA collect food scraps for public composting. So ya got to do it yourself (DIY)!

Leftover food scraps chopped up


Worm bin


Worm bin with the scraps


A store selling stuff I make at home for free


The end product! This is what I pulled out of the worm bin and put in my front yard after letting it build up over winter.


I also brew my own beer sometimes and make my own bread. For the bread I keep a sourdough culture alive in my refrigerator. Using living organisms to make food and drinks is cool. Anybody else got weird DIY home projects?

Contemporary Literature
The other day we were interviewed for CMJ TV. They were asking us about our favorite books. I started talking about how with both music and literature I think it is important to explore current artists and output. With literature I feel as though many well read fans of writing do not explore current and up-and-coming authors. With literature there are hundreds of years of "classics" to catch up on. You could easily spend a lifetime just reading classics. But I think that exploring new literature is really fun, important, and worthwhile. It is a lot like going to punk shows in that even if every band you see at a particular show (or everything you read it a particular lit mag) sucks, at least you expanded your understanding of the state of current output. Here are some fairly new books I've been reading.

I highly recommend Deb Olin Unferth. Her novel Vacation and her new memoir Revolution are both amazing. The other two books are Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt and The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen. Any contemporary writers that you absolutely love?

-Jarrett D

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

you guys are my heros. speaking of living food and drinks... i so totally have a kombucha culture for you if you'd like!! and i totally live in new jersey sooo we could totally set that up. if you're so inclined. have fun on your tour! and don't forget to let us know when you're going local again.

Unknown said...

Any plans for other shows here in Denmark around your festival visit?

matt said...

I always suggest Cruddy to people, which is a few years old but a book I really love. It's by Lynda Barry who is more famous as an illustrator. And I'm working on a lit project at threesixfivecharacters.blogspot.com

Screaming Females said...

Daryagorlova: I love kombucha! I had my own culture for quite a while but you have to really keep up with that thing. I went away for a few weeks on tour and when I got home it was horribly overgrown. I'll stick to buying it for now.

Renzo: I'm pretty sure the Roskilde festival is going to be a one show affair. We will be back in Europe in the fall!

Matt: I think I've flipped through Cruddy. I know I've definitely looked through One Hundred Demons. While I definitely respect graphic novel authors and artists, those books occupy a different place for me. For some reason I just don't get the same feeling from reading them. Not proud of that but it is the truth!

-Jarrett D

Anonymous said...

Jonathan Safran Foer! Princeton!!!!!

Anonymous said...

A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

Mike East said...

I'm way into the composting idea. Thanks for promoting it. I started a pile in the backyard last year and now I'm planting an herb garden with the it. I didn't even add any worms. Composting inside is a great idea, too. Folks with yards don't have an excuse, though. Seeya' soon.

mike z said...

My room mate wanted to get a wormbox for the longest time, i was totally against it because it sounded horrid. Then later, I was in brooklyn and i found someone who had one, it wasn't really horrid at all. It even smelled pretty good!! We still haven't gotten a wormbox though.

We do have 2 Kombucha mushrooms in the fridge which we previously made Kombucha with, I don't know if they are still good or not.

Pancake Recipes said...

Great readinng your blog