Metacentricities

I went to the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival in Orange, Massachusetts today. It was, in its way, a pretty standard festival - lots of booths, and food, and stages for musicians, etc. It was fun, for sure. The “GQ” index (Ruth and I like to talk about the “GQ” or “Grooviness Quotient”) of the festival was quite high. It was a “trash-free” festival - everything was recycled or composted, which was wonderful. All of the electricity was generated either by biodeisel or solar power. There were lots of local farmers and local artists and artisans selling everything from, er, garlic, to special kinds of jams and mustards, to wood sculptures, to prints and varied kinds of artwork, etc.

As Ruth and I were driving to the festival, while she was twiddling the dials on the radio, she noticed that I rarely listen to music while I drive, but “people talking about depressing topics.” We then went on to talk about what point is it, really, to stay informed? What can we do differently, or better, if we hear how many thousands of dollars a minute is being poured into killing innocent people?

I was thinking about the fall of the Roman Empire, and what average Jane and Joe did while it crumbled. I don’t have an answer, but I did realize that there wasn’t much we could do except vote, make our voices heard when we can, and, I think perhaps most importantly - create the communities, organizations and culture that will, perhaps, grow out of the rotting hulk that is our society.

As Ghandi said, “be the change you want to be.”

Photo by jimmywayne22

I never went to Greenfield much when I lived in Amherst. I did a little work for an organization there a long while back. But it never really drew me much, except I did always like the People’s Pint (which, I notice, has a website running Joomla).

Ruth and I spent the afternoon in Greenfield, which is now our closest metropolis (by only a hair - Amherst is almost as close - but Greenfield has the closest supermarket, and the closest Staples, etc.) We spent time at this very sweet little Thai take-out restaurant (they have one table) that had really good food.

Greenfield has always, in the time that I lived in the valley, had an interesting combination of dying mill town, rural poverty, agricultural influence, and sort of saavy cultural grooviness - although it seemed the grooviness was always lower key. Well, Greenfield appears to be groovying up. I suspect it’s the growing edge of gentrification (there’s some interesting new, and expensive looking stores on the main drag.)

Anyway, it will be fun to explore it more, and watch it change, if it does.

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