Upcoming local events

For those listening to us on WOLI radio in Greenville, here is a listing of the events we have been announcing recently.


[] PUBLIC HEARING: Thursday, April 4, 2013 (Speak up for the Broad River!)

The proposed WS LEE Nuclear Power Plant in Gaffney, SC needs an NPDES wastewater discharge permit to dump chemicals and heated water into the Broad River at 99 Island Reservoir. Folks concerned about the health and social impacts of this plant will attend the hearing to make public comments and request denial of this permit to protect downstream communities. JOIN US!

Restoration Church
1905 N. Limestone Street
Gaffney, SC 29340

6pm: A presentation by Dept of Health & Environmental Control (DHEC) with questions & answers
7pm: public speaking begins
View the draft permit (PDF)
General information on Clean Water Act permits from the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.

For ride-sharing and more information, check out Clean Water for North Carolina..


[] Greenville Tech Earth Day Event: Thursday, April 11, 2013 - 10am - 2pm

Greenville Technical College
Student Center Courtyard
506 S Pleasantburg Drive
Greenville, SC 29607

Free event designed for students, faculty, alumni, staff and community... learn to be environmentally responsible!

For more information 864-250-8767


[] SpringSkunk Music Festival: April 12 - 13, 2013 - all day long!

Bands featured: Col. Bruce Hampton, Brushfire Stankgrass, Locust Honey, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Nu-Blu Bluegrass, Sol Driven Train, River Whyless, and many more.

Albino Skunk Music Festival - The Skunk Farm
4063 Jordan Road
Greer, SC 29651

For more information - info@albinoskunk.com.

NOTE: I am hoping to make it there to read the Tarot, so be there or be square... look for our Occupy the Microphone radio booth! (And my previous account of Skunkin is HERE.)


[] Ninth Annual Greer Earth Day Run and Fitness Festival: Saturday, April 20, 2013 - 7:30am

Choose from three different events this year, Half Marathon, 5K and 10K, including a free Earth Kids Run at 9:30am. Advance registration necessary, brought to you by the Greenville Track Club. There will also be a variety of exhibitors at the Fitness Festival.

Greer City Hall/Park
301 E Poinsett Street
Greer, SC 29651

For more information, check out GreerEarthDayRun.com.


[] Furman Earth Day Festival: Saturday, April 20, 2013 - 1pm- 6pm

Furman University (Amphitheater)
3300 Poinsett Highway
Greenville, SC 29613

Earth Day celebration will include music, local food, cool people, sustainability-related student initiatives, community organizations and more.

For more information, contact the Shi Center at 864-294-3655


[] DIY show at the Garaj Mahal: Saturday, April 20, 2013 - 7:30 - until

Bands featured: They Eat Their Own God, Rubrics (includes members of Occupy Greenville!), Dables, M.E.H., Jake Xingu (greatest ever!), Satan in Bondage.

Garaj Mahal
22 Apopka Ave
Greenville, SC 29609

Bring cash for merchandise and to support the artists! Please friend Garaj Mahal on Facebook and check out the DIY Greenville website. (PS: Daisy's other excellent Garaj Mahal photos are HERE!)

Left: The Greenville County Recycling Center at Stone Avenue.


[] City of Greenville Earth Day: Monday, April 22, 2013 - 10am - 2pm

North Greenville Recycling and Education Center
514 Rutherford Road
Greenville, SC 29609

Phone Book Drive, bring those old phone books and other recyclable detritus in to the county's newest recycling center. This event will include refreshments, giveaways and information about other upcoming environmentally-friendly events.

For more information, call 864-467-8300.


[] Authors and Artisans Fair: Sunday, April 28, 2013 - 12:30 - 4pm

Local artists, authors, photographers, musicians and fans will be at this event, making connections. Free demonstrations, workshops, performances. A percentage of all sales (CDs, books, artwork, etc) will go to support the GUUF.

Greenville Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship
1135 State Park Road
Greenville, SC 29609

For more information, 864-271-4883.


[] Volunteer Fair: Sunday, May 5, 2013 - 12:30 - 1:30pm

If you are interested in volunteering in the Greenville community, stop by and meet the volunteer coordinators. Volunteer for the GUUF choir, for marriage equality or to help the homeless. Free lunch and great fellowship!

Greenville Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship
1135 State Park Road
Greenville, SC 29609

For more information, 864-271-4883 or contact volunteers@greenvilleuu.org.


[] Renaissance Faire: May 31 to June 1, 2013 - all day long!

Games, costumes, music, cool people, jousting, sword-fighting and fairies. Yall come!

Greenville Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship
1135 State Park Road
Greenville, SC 29609

For more information, 864-271-4883.


[] Medicines from the Earth: May 31st to June 3, 2013

Blue Ridge Assembly
84 Blue Ridge Assembly Road
Black Mountain, NC 28711

Medicines from the Earth (pdf) is the best herbal conference in the USA. (PS: Daisy's old post about her conference experience is HERE.) Symposiums, nature walks, workshops, demonstrations and panel discussions... accompanied by a tour of the Gaia Herb Farm.

For more information, 541-482-3016.

~*~

Our show yesterday was a lot of fun! Give us a listen, folks.

Medicines from the Earth

Left: Is there anything more calming and centering than the whispery patter of a light rain in the forest? (photo taken on one of the walking trails surrounding the Blue Ridge Assembly)

~*~

Black Mountain, North Carolina, is an amazing little town with a unique history. It is also stunningly beautiful, cozily nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which look like sapphire shadows in the distance. Up close, there are numerous black mountains, one big one in particular (see photo below). The town is named for the Black Mountain range, a subset of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It has a very artsy history, with lots of innovative minds associated with the old Black Mountain College:

Black Mountain College was fundamentally different from other colleges and universities of the time. It was owned and operated by the faculty and was committed to democratic governance and to the idea that the arts are central to the experience of learning. All members of the College community participated in its operation, including farm work, construction projects and kitchen duty. Located in the midst of the beautiful North Carolina mountains near Asheville, the secluded environment fostered a strong sense of individuality and creative intensity within the small College community.

Legendary even in its own time, Black Mountain College attracted and created maverick spirits, some of whom went on to become well-known and extremely influential individuals in the latter half of the 20th century. A partial list includes people such as Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, Jacob Lawrence, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, Ben Shahn, Franz Kline, Arthur Penn, Buckminster Fuller, M.C. Richards, Francine du Plessix Gray, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Dorothea Rockburne and many others, famous and not-so-famous, who have impacted the world in a significant way. Even now, decades after its closing in 1957, the powerful influence of Black Mountain College continues to reverberate.

The Board of Directors even included William Carlos Williams and Albert Einstein.

For these reasons, the town vibe is strongly experimental and open. It's perfect that our symposium should be in this special place.


Do yall know how much I love these mountains? I would kill for them. I am thinking I should have my ashes scattered thereabouts. Pardon lapse into morbidity, but the demise of our dear Aunt Laura, whom one expected to live forever, has shaken me. (I imagined her being interviewed by TV in 30 years: OLDEST LIVING CONFEDERATE GRANDCHILD TELLS ALL, something like that. "Well," she would say, "I think the important thing is to have lots of plants in your house, and to stay busy!"--and with that, she would tell you the names of her sundry robust plants and hoist a half-finished baby-blanket into the camera-frame.)

~*~

I found myself wandering the large buildings in the Blue Ridge Assembly, looking at group-portraits and photographic records of various Methodist and Baptist summer camps, stretching back to 1906. Where are all these people now? And then I thought about all the photos taken of me over the years, probably hanging in rooms just like those.

I ended up spooking myself, expecting to see ME in a photo, rather as Jack Nicholson showed up in that band-photo at the end of THE SHINING.

I was in Black Mountain for the annual Medicines from the Earth herbal symposium. I was driven to said event by the redoubtable Erica, who drives like Dale Earnhardt--who, it should be remembered, was known as The Intimidator. For a reason! Careening over and around mountains in an SUV woulda been jolly fun for me as a kid, but now? Aiyee. Admittedly, I was somewhat green around the gills.

Random sociological inquiry: Why do herbalists all look alike? Does anybody know? It's embarrassing, yet fascinating: a panoply of bamboo and hemp shirts, long hair, old-school dreadlocks, Indian skirts, Tevas and Birkenstocks, numerous tattoos and piercings, not to mention the cars covered with lefty bumper stickers. The shock of recognition was an ongoing joke all weekend, as we repeatedly remarked that newcomers "look like they're here for the conference"--and indeed, they were. We were all cut from the same cloth. How does that happen? Is it good or bad? I found it comforting and disorienting, all at once, as I always do.

"No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype."

~*~

Left: display by symposium sponsors GAIA HERBS.

Highlights included my favorite presenter, Cascade Anderson Geller, talking about how the medicinal herb Horsetail grass grew out of the ash of the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption; an amazing example of how the earth regenerates itself.

The new trend in herbalism/health food (the two tend to morph together these days, now more than ever) is CHIA SEEDS, which everyone wants to know about. They are some pretty righteous seeds, so go out and start eating them immediately. Other interesting subjects include how to go gluten-free and how to go raw. (One of my own goals over the next year is to attempt a 75% raw diet.) It was great to network with other folks about this and other topics of interest to world-class flakes like ourselves.

Below left: the Blue Ridge Assembly. Below right: Black Mountain, NC.



----------------
Listening to: Led Zeppelin - Black Mountain Side
via FoxyTunes

I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician

EDIT = June 4, 2008, in bold.

Left: President George W. Bush with Furman President David Shi, preparing to deliver the commencement address. Obviously, he is earnestly praying that he will not be condemned to everlasting hellfire for crimes against humanity.

The Greenville News has removed all photos of any protests at Furman, with three very polite, somewhat tepid exceptions. The rest of the photo galleries are all positive, and you would not realize there was an extensive, all-day demonstration from looking through the existing posted photo galleries. The original photo I used is no longer available. (I wonder why?)

My original photo description: Greenville News photo of a local unidentified member of Military Families Speak Out, demonstrating against President George W. Bush's commencement speech at Furman University this evening. (Photo by Gwinn Davis)

~*~

Duty calls, and today my attendance was required at the annual Medicines from the Earth symposium in Black Mountain, North Carolina. On the way back, we passed the main Furman University entrance (via Highway 25/Asheville Highway), which appears to be under siege. Crestfallen, I realized the traffic would be too dense and difficult to make the commencement demonstration in time, so I went to Saturday Mass instead. I prayed for the anti-war demonstrators at Furman, that they may successfully change hearts and minds.

The news has just announced that George W. Bush has arrived at Greenville-Spartanburg airport; it won't be long now.

More about the demo and the symposium to come!

~*~

I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician ~ The Byrds

[via FoxyTunes / The Byrds]