Hustler of Culture

Ice Cube Celebrates The Eames

Eames Demetrios shared this short film with me earlier today. I was excited for its launch. I've never seen a rapper/actor talk about mid-century modern design with so much gusto. Of course, the local knows what's up.

Ice Cube walks around Case Study House #8 aka the Eames House dropping knowledge about the dynamic Eames duo. Classic. I love his remark, "Each freeway [in LA] has its own personality... the 405 -- "bougie" traffic. The 110, haha, that's gangster traffic right there!" Ice Cube comparing music sampling to how the Eames built is fantastic: "You know taking something that already exists and making it something special -- you know, kind of like sampling."

Celebrate the era that continues to inspire the world. More at pacificstandardtime.org. More Eames on HOC: http://bit.ly/HOCeames

LA - Urban Roots Benefit (12.03.11)

More info: http://urbanrootsbenefit.eventbrite.com/

NYC - NYC Wildflower Week Interactive Plant Fair (05.14.11)

NYC Wildflower Week Interactive Plant Fair -  SATURDAY May 14 at 10 am

Please join Solar One for our annual Interactive Plant Fair, presented as part of NYC WIldflower Week. We'll be potting native wildflowers (kids can take them home); making seedbombs (create an explosion of wildflowers in your backyard or vacant lot), flower costumes, coloring flowers that grow in the Park and getting our faces painted! Activities for parents and kids ages of all ages!

FREE for all! Just RSVP to dina@solar1.org or daisy@solar1.org.

LA - People For Bikes Event (04.12.11)

Super Natural Every Day!

Congratulations to our dear friend and James Beard Award-nominated cookbook author, Heidi Swanson on publishing another kick ass cookbook, Super Natural Every Day! Making and eating healthy foods doesn't have to be hard or intimidating and more importantly, it can be tasty and fun to cook (if you have Heidi's Super Natural Cooking, then you already know this). 

Heidi's new culinary compendium is filled with nearly 100 of her favorite nutrient-rich every day meals. Inside this carefully curated cookbook, you'll find doable recipes requiring five or less components. As Heidi states, "Simply put -- here are real foods and good ingredients made into dishes that are nourishing and worth eating and sharing." I am excited to incorporate her go-to recipes to our regular rotation of home-cooked family meals including her tasty looking yogurt biscuits, crepes (my French/Italian husband cannot get enough of Heidi's cooking), open-face egg sandwich, popcorn, black sesame otsu, and roasted strawberries (now that they're back in season)!

Enjoy the dreamy photographs (many shot by our other good pal Wayne), catch yourself drooling, and then hike on over to the Farmer's Market and stock up. We are in for a treat. You are in for a treat. And my seven-year-old-cooking-club, City Cooks Club is in for a treat! For delicious and sophisticated-but-simple foods, do yourself a favor and buy Super Natural Every Day, today!

And thanks for the shout out, Heidi! I can't wait to cook with you again.

RELATED: Hustler of Yum and Hustler of Words

Fun And Games

I know this video is old (in internet-time), but it reminded me of how there are some really ingenious ideas floating around out there to motivate people to move a bit more. Having spent nearly two years creating and analyzing health and fitness initiatives for America's youth (for a $4 billion health company), I'm wondering why creative ideas like this, aren't implemented all over the world?

I applaud Volkswagen, an automobile company, for supporting a program "dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better." For big smiles, check out The Fun Theory for more inspirational ways to make positive change, fun! 

NYC - Cars into Bicycles: Workshop with Folke Köbberling (01.08.11)

Cars into Bicycles
Workshop with Folke Köbberling
January 8th, 4-6pm

Supported by the Berlin Senate Cultural Affairs Department

As part of the exhibition, Postautomobilzeitalter, Folke Köbberling will host a workshop today Saturday, January 8th from 4 to 6pm at the Jack Hanley Gallery to discuss a post car production future.

What alternatives do we have, could we imagine a continent without individual motorized transportation?

The artist will speak from her year long experience living with her family in Los Angeles without a car. Participants will be encouraged to join the discussion by drawing their ideas on the gallery walls. The result will be a collaborative work that proposes what a future without individual motorized transportation might look like and how it might affect our urban landscape.

LA - RETHINK GREEN ART EXHIBITION : ORGANIC TASTING : GREEN AWARDS : CHARITY EVENT (11.06.10)

Ticket available at: http://www.rethinkgreenevent.org
50% General Ticket Discount Code - Green_Education
*Use this code at check-out

More Info: info@rethinkgreenevent.org

"10 Years Of Prius" Party Pictures!

We were one of the lucky 300 guests invited to celebrate 10 years of Prius at the picture perfect, Wright Organic Resource Center in Malibu. The celebration included green workshops and presentations by Eric Wright (architect and grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright), Robert Llewellyn, and editors from Wired Magazine, live music by M. Ward, a DJ set by Shepard Fairey, and an unforgettable dinner under the stars by Outstanding in the Field. 

Welcome to the 10 Years of Prius party in Malibu, California!

Private concert by M. Ward.

Grilled peppers for appetizers.

The dining table was breathtaking, elegant, and comfortable -- a perfect way to spend time with friends on an incredibly beautiful day.

Outstanding in the Field founder and chef, Jim Denevan can be seen in the wine glass.

This Prius was designed by C&A Development Department.

Staff prep the dinner table while Lulu and Silvio wander the grounds.

Artist and DJ Shepard Fairey's sunset performance.

10 Year Anniversary Prius guests enjoying themselves at the Wright Organic Resource Center.

Dinner plates for the Farm Dinner.

A delicious dinner appetizer.

Eating under the stars!

"Outstanding in the Field: A Farm to Table Cookbook" signed for Lulu.

If you'd like to see more photos from the magnificent day, the complete album can be viewed in this slideshow:

Thank you, Toyota Prius and Evolutionary Media Group for the party invitation! I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful 10.10.10!

This Is A Prius!

I was fortunate to be invited to the 10 Years of Prius party in Malibu and before I recap the memorable day, I wanted to share a few photos of a Prius prototype with you. This beautiful machine was designed by the C&A Development Department. Um, hello?! I'm blown away. I wonder if you would even hear it roaring up behind you?! What a lean, green, kick ass machine!

LA - Hammer Forum: Addicted to Oil: Can the Earth Recover? (09.08.10)

Hammer Forum: Addicted to Oil: Can the Earth Recover?
September 8, 2010, 07:00pm

Following the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil and author of Why We Hate The Oil Companies: Straight Talk From An Energy Insider, joins us to discuss his ideas for an environmental strategy that will move us towards an oil-free future. An eyewitness to the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, Alaskan journalist Charles Wohlforth, author of The Fate of Nature: Rediscovering Our Ability to Rescue the Earth, will offer an ecological, historical and cultural perspective to how we can meet the urgent challenge of global warming and our dependence on a depleting resource that is increasingly dangerous to extract.

NYC - 350.org Put Solar On It Road Trip (09.08.10)

Event: 350.org Put Solar On It Road Trip Comes to Solar One
 
Location: Solar One, 24-20 FDR Drive Service Road East, New York, NY 10010
Neighborhood: East Village / Stuyvesant Town / Peter Cooper Village
 
Date: Wednesday September 8
Time: 5:30pm-10:00pm

Ages: All Ages
 
Phone: (212) 505-6050
Website: www.solar1.org
 
Directions: Take 6 train to 23rd Street and the M23 east to Avenue C *or* take the L
to 1st Ave and walk about 10 minutes to the site or take the M15 north
to 23rd St. and walk along East 23rd St. The M16 and M21 buses also
stop near E. 23rd St. and Avenue C.
*For more detailed directions, visit http://solar1.org/about/map/ 

Tips on How to Use Less Oil by Greenpeace

I just received Greenpeace's latest mailer in my inbox and the title caught my eye, "10 Simple Ways to Use Less Oil". Simple enough. I read the message and am proud to say, our family already does nine of the eleven suggestions on the list. We will work harder on the other two. Every little lifestyle adjustment helps. Consider making a few small changes in your life to help the planet in a big way. Following are a few helpful tips to consume less oil:

1. Carpool, cycle or use public transport to go to work.

2. Choose when possible products packaged without plastic and recycle or re-use containers.

3. Buy organic fruits and vegetables (fertilizers and pesticides are based on oil more often than not).

4. Buy beauty products (shampoo, soap, make-up) based on natural ingredients, not oil.

5. Choose when possible locally produced products (less transport involved).

6. Buy clothes made out of organic cotton or hemp - not from oil derivatives.

7. Use non-disposable items in picnics and summer festivals.

8. Quit bottled water.

9. Fly less.

10. Demand that your government encourage renewable energy instead of oil.

(11. Register at our new website and add to this list, then forward it to a friend.)

Video: Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull

Nature rules! This video of Eyjafjallajökull is exceptional. [Big ups to Kathryn for the find!]

Brooklyn - Spring Fling (05.09.10)

Spring Fling

Sunday, May 9, 2010, 10:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Join the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, in partnership with the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, for the 5th Annual Spring Fling celebration in Brooklyn Bridge Park -- this year on the newly-opened Pier 1. This Mother's Day event will feature musical guest AudraRox playing a rocking set for kids and adults. Children's book author and illustrator Betsy Lewin, will read from "Click, Clack, Moo," and offer a drawing demo. The Transit Museum will be on hand with arts and crafts and will offer discounted family memberships. The Brooklyn Children's Museum will be hosting a special eco-friendly arts and crafts activity and the opportunity to get up close and personal with our friends from the Museum's collection of living animals, and Karma Kids Yoga will lead parent-child yoga workshops. Children will make special Mother's Day cards courtesy of The Moxie Spot.

Happy 40th Earth Day!

LA - Reclamation Reads (02.28.10)

RECLAMATION READS

A Reclamation Event in conjunction with Aquarium

Date: Sunday, February 28th
Time: 7:00 PM

Location: At Sea and Space Gallery (4755 York Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90042, www.seaandspace.org)

Coupled with the AQUARIUM installation, this reading is an extension of a series of environmentally conscious pseudo religious works called RECLAMATION, whose mission statement asks its participants, “What if people took the environment as seriously as religion?” Reclamation Reads recontextualizes this statement and asks what the world would look like if everyone decided to take the environment as seriously as they take Work - that obligatory, livelihood sustaining, spiritual, dogmatic, rewarding, ritualistic daily grind.

Join us for a FREE light reception and watch as our participants reclaim, rework, reuse, recycle, reform, reduce, and reprocess these ideas.

Copenhagen's Bike-Friendly Culture

Check out this video of Copenhagen's kick ass bike culture/lanes/way-of-living by Street Films! I wish every city in the world would take the initiative to implement the infrastructure needed for such bike-friendly living. Aside from the obvious benefits to society, bicycling more would certainly also help reduce obesity and  air and noise pollution. [Thanks @lostart]

LA - Forbidden Forest: A Community Gardening Experiment (08.22.09 - 09.05.09)

Pittsburgh - "Clean Energy for America" (08.14.09)