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Mars mosaic from a compilation of images captured by Viking Orbiter 1. At center is the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 3,000 km long and up to 8 km deep. To the left are a volcanoes of the Tharsis bulge — Ascraeus Mons to the north, Pavonis Mons in the middle, & Arsia Mons in the shadow. Photo credit: NASA/USGS (via JPL Photojournal)

Worldbuilding, Wikipedia helpfully tells us, is

the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a fictional universe.

The Wikipedia article focuses on the creation of worlds & the cultures that live in them by writers of science fiction & fantasy — for instance, Tolkien’s Middle-Earth in The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings trilogy, or the planet Cyteen in C.J. Cherryh’s novels Cyteen and Regenesis, to name but a couple of my favorite imaginary worlds.

But to my mind, worldbuilding isn’t restricted only to completely imagined worlds & people — really, any writer of fiction engages in worldbuilding, even when writing the most mainstream fiction that takes place in a world looking “just like” the world you & I live in, because any fiction involves presenting the particular world(s) & worldview(s) of the characters that inhabit it.

As if you & I actually lived in the same world.  Because isn’t your worldview, no matter who you are,  so much different than mine?  Yet there are some things we can agree on, at least most of us can — if only that rocks are hard to the touch, & water is wet.  Consensual reality, it’s called.  And that’s the point, at least in these coupla paragraphs of this blog post: there are some things a writer can generally assume her audience is familiar with, so that she doesn’t have to explain them; but other things that exist outside your normal frame of reference — that she has invented — yeah, of course she’ll need to explain.  (Or show. As that familiar writer’s proverb goes, show don’t tell — though, as with all rules, there are exceptions.)  Mainstream fiction, so-called, differs from science fiction & fantasy mainly in how closely it adheres to consensual reality, how much worldbuilding it has to do.

I could go on a lot longer about my thoughts about the different types of worldbuilding in different types of fiction (or, arguably, nonfiction), but then I’d never get to the point of this post — which is my worldbuilding, & how the recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC — along with everything else in U.S. & international law & custom that grants undue influence in how our governments & economies & lives are run to the fake persons known as corporations —  is really really really good for my worldbuilding.

But really really really sucko for the world I actually live in.

Good for my worldbuilding

Artist's conception of Mars in process of terraformation from Wikimedia Commons. Used in accordance with GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

In early 2007 I decided that to jumpstart my writing after “life,” as usual, had decided to interfere with it, I was going to do National Novel Writing Month that November.  The good people of NaNoWriMo itself suggest that it’s best not to do NaNoWriMo with a project one already has underway — which in my case would have been Mistress of Woodland — so I pulled an idea off the backburner of my mind & decided to work on a new project,  Cold, which would be about two young women on a planet in the late stages of terraformation.

I told my friend Chris about it, & he told me I should read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy — Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars.  My brother Dave had previously recommended those books to me too.  So, over the late winter & spring of 2007, I read them.

Good call, guys.

If I were to summarize the story of Robinson’s trilogy in one sentence, I’d say, It’s a science fiction story about terraforming Mars.  Hence Red Mars — what the colonizers of the planet find when they get there; Green Mars — how it becomes green with growing plants; Blue Mars — how it becomes a second blue marble in the sky, like our own Earth, rich with liquid water on its surface & in its atmosphere.

But really, that’s only one theme of the trilogy.  There’s also an ecological theme: is it right & ethical for us, humans from planet Earth, to remake another planet — even a presumably “dead” planet like Mars — into a second Earth?  And meanwhile, what’s happening environmentally on the real Earth? — climate change, global warming, melting of Antarctica, rising seas, continuing overpopulation & pollution… in short, planetwrecking, at least in terms of keeping it habitable for human beings & numerous of our fellow species.

There’s also a third dominant theme: the long & arduous struggle of Robinson’s Martian colonists for freedom from the political & economic domination of Earth. Freedom not only from Earth’s numerous governments — but especially from Earth’s corporations, which have become so powerful that they are in many ways more powerful than governments themselves, both on Earth & on Mars.

Sound familiar?

Robinson isn’t, of course, the first SF writer to extrapolate from the scary situation we’re already in today vis-à-vis corporate power into some even scarier futures, with megacorporations having for all intents & purposes replaced any semblance of government of, by, & for the people.  (Unless, of course, you persist in perversely insisting that corporations are people, like the U.S. Supreme Court does.)  The science fiction subgenre called cyberpunk comes particularly to mind.

My imagined science fiction future is already extrapolated from the present, & the power corporations have is part of that.  During NaNoWriMo 2007, for Cold, I started inventing a government called, simply, Consensus, which really is a government of, by, & for the people, but it was during NaNoWriMo 2009, for Long Dark, that I discovered how Consensus came into existence.  I was writing stuff in the same story universe as Cold, but about three centuries earlier in the timeline; there, it became more apparent that the Consensus government came out of particular (invented) historical circumstances: namely, a rebellion by people living & working in the Asteroid Belt & outer solar system against the tyranny & exploitation of corporations, which, as usual, cared more about the corporate bottom line than about the welfare of their workers & their workers’ families.

So you see, that’s what’s so great about the Citizens United decision, & other corporate-power related phenomena. Here’s another word for you: verisimilitude:  the appearance of being true or real. The more our public officials hand over the reins of government to corporations, the more plausible the story world I’ve built becomes.  Wow, thank you Supreme Court!

Except, uh… like I said.  This shit is —

Bad for my world

No, corporations aren’t the only things — er, I mean “people” — whose greed, thoughtlessness, short-sightedness, stupidity, self-aggrandizement, etc. etc., are bad for the world.  They’re just on the current cutting edge of it.  And the more we, or public officials supposedly acting in our name, hand political power to them, the more deeply cutting their edge is.  The Citizens United ruling is just another step in that direction.

And nice as verisimilitude in fiction is, what would be even nicer would be to live in a world in which, for instance, we could trust that our elected officials were really responsible to us, instead of to corporations whose paid propaganda (so called “free speech”) put them in office.

In May 2007, when I was an active Wikipedia editor, I spent lots of time researching the career of Tom Anderson — in fact, I wrote most of  the article about him in Wikipedia. Alaskans will recognize Tom Anderson as the first of our former legislators to be tried and convicted in the federal probe into political corruption in Alaska.  I wrote the article in my typically geeky, super-detail-oriented style, with lots & lots of cites… & it took a lot of energy & effort.  It’s certainly a lot more detailed article than you’re typically going to find in Wikipedia on a two-term state legislator, corrupt or not.

But for me it was well worth it, because compiling that biography, based solely on the written record (mostly articles from the Anchorage Daily News and the Juneau Empire) really brought home the lesson: whenever you bring corporate money into contact with public elections & officials, there are inherent conflicts of interest for those public officials which will erode their ability to serve the people who elect them. Sometimes, a public official will be so bollixed up by the conflict that they won’t even recognize it.  Tom Anderson’s case is particularly illustrative.

For example, consider this instance from Anderson’s career, involving his relationship to Northeast Community Council, the council for the same part of Anchorage that Anderson himself was elected to represent in the Alaska House of Representatives.  (Note that I’ve removed the citations contained in the article for ease of reading; see the article for citations.) —

Anderson played a significant role over two years from 2002 to 2004 in changing the composition of Anchorage’s Northeast Community Council to reflect more conservative political and economic views. Anderson encouraged friends and allies, including pastors and members of the locally influential Anchorage Baptist Temple, to pack the town meeting-style community council elections. By May 2004, six of the nine community council board members, including its president, were friends and political allies of Anderson. While Anchorage’s community councils have no real authority, they are influential with the Anchorage Assembly because, according to Dick Traini, then chair of the Anchorage Assembly, “they are the active people in the community that choose to be involved.” Community council involvement has been a first step in the political careers of several Alaska politicians.

In July 2004, Anderson was criticized in an Anchorage Daily News editorial for signing a $10,000 contract in 2003 with the Alaska oilfield services company VECO Corporation to consult “on local government and community council affairs.” Anderson had earlier told the Anchorage Daily News that he’d been approached by VECO after the end of the 2003 legislative session because it was aware he’d done similar consulting work before he became a legislator. He told the newspaper that most of his work for VECO was in seeking out civic and charitable events for the company to get involved in, and that he also monitored Anchorage’s community councils to see if there were zoning cases or other issues under discussion that might affect VECO. The newspaper noted that Anderson had received about $4,000 in campaign contributions from VECO employees or their spouses in the 2002 election that won him his first term in the Alaska House. By July 2004 he had received at least $3,500 in VECO-related contributions for his 2004 reelection bid.

Members of the community council later recalled Anderson attending all their meetings during 2003, and assumed he was attending as their representative in the state legislature. They did not learn he was there as a consultant for VECO until 2004, when his state financial disclosure form was filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, as required by law.

By the April 2006 election for Northeast Community Council, the effects of the 2004 takeover had been partially reversed, leaving the council nearly half and half liberal and conservative.

Indeed, who was Anderson representing when he attended community council meetings — his constituents in the Muldoon area of Anchorage (including my brother’s family)? or VECO, which was not only lining his pockets as a supposed “political consultant,” but also helped fund his election in the first place?  (Some folks might also have interest in the connection between Anderson & Jerry Prevo’s megachurch the Anchorage Baptist Temple.)

Here’s another instance, from a couple years later —

In July [2006] Anderson was hired by the Anchorage Home Builders Association for $2,500 per month. The following month he testified before the Anchorage Assembly in favor of two stores that Wal-Mart wanted to build in his legislative district. The Northeast Community Council opposed the stores. At the Assembly meeting, Assembly chair Dan Sullivan introduced Anderson as “Representative Anderson,” but Anderson corrected him, stating that he was at the meeting in representation of the home builders association, which favored the Wal-Mart stores.

Again, who was Anderson representing?  His legislative constituency?  Or the home builders association & Wal-Mart?  Obviously, he believed all that was necessary to keep himself in the clear, ethically, was to take off his “Representative” hat & put on his “paid consultant” hat, & magically the two roles would be kept completely separate.  Right.  Based upon the law as written, Anderson was not acting illegally.  But the presence of conflict of interest is obvious — however oblivious he himself was to it.

Anderson was ultimately convicted of seven counts involving extortion, bribery, conspiracy, and money laundering after taking $26,000 worth of bribes funneled by Anchorage lobbyist Bill Bobrick through a sham corporation that Anderson was supposedly “consulting” for.  The scheme was supposed to be for the benefit of a private prison company, Cornell, which was reportedly unaware of any of this; one of its employees, Frank Prewitt, was funneling the money as a confidential informant for the FBI.

I ran out of steam to write more detailed coverage on Anderson’s trial & its aftermath, but I remember quite well that his obliviousness to his ethical lapses extended into his public statements about his conviction.  He still (or so he claimed) believed he’d done nothing wrong.  Other former lawmakers convicted out of the same federal corruption investigation seemed similarly oblivious.  Vic Kohring, Ted Stevens (who in my opinion is guilty even if his conviction was set aside because of prosecutorial misconduct) — all of them claim I did nothing wrong — even Pete Kott still claims this in spite of being caught on camera taking a bribe.  I did nothing wrong.  They take it as a given that it’s okay to take money, gifts, not to mention campaign donations, which will now be supplemented by unlimited campaign advertising from corporations so long as the corporations like them.

A lot of members of the public take all this as a given too.  A lot of the public is going right along with the Citizens United decision, stating it as a great victory for “free speech.”  Uh, s’cuse me — don’t you mean paid-for-with-megabucks speech?

Why do they take it as a given?  Name your own theory, but here’s mine:

Most of us have become desensitized.  We’ve grown so accustomed to the power of corporate money in every aspect of our lives that we take it for granted.  It’s the famous “boiling frog” thing all over again.  Over the span of many years — more than a century, now — as our lawmakers & law interpreters (the courts) progressively hand more & more power over to corporations —

• corporate “personhood”
• privatization of government functions — e.g., prison privatization, use of  corporate private armies (mercenaries) like Xe (formerly Blackwater), etc.
• deregulation
• granting corporations “ownership” over segments of nature, like water, genes, microorganisms, etc.
• unlimited corporate “free speech”
• etc.

— we’re gradually, just like that frog, having the heat on us slowly turned up higher & higher & higher.

Okay, so the Citizens United case was a bit more widely noticed.  See how many people are looking around and asking, Whoa… how’d we get here? This is fucked up.

Most of us do know that something is wrong, but we can’t seem to agree what the problems are, & therefore their solutions.  And thanks to the power our government has handed over to corporations, they are free to use their “free speech” (that is, their money) to influence & distort our perceptions about what the problem is.  So we continue to point our fingers at the wrong causes,  propose the wrong solutions, fight about it all — & the heat keeps turning up, & corporations continue to enrich themselves at our expense, & accountable honest government slips ever further out of our hands.

Big Government (the kind the Tea Party folks don’t like) & Big Corporations are just two different faces of the same phenomenon: the fading away of democracy.  The replacement of government of, by, and for the people with government of, by, and for the powerful few in order to control & exploit all the rest of us.

You know what I’m saying — that psychopathy thing I talked about a couple of weeks ago with reference to corporations.   But y’know, psychopathic Big Government like, say Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin, or a theocracy like those which Christianists are aiming for — in which anyone who doesn’t agree to toe the line of whatever arbitrary set of rules established by whatever arbitrary set of preachers or priests who claim to hold the blueprints of the heavens of some arbitrary bully-god — none of that crap is exactly desirable either.

What is desirable?  Real democracy, of course.  Real government of, by, and for the people. Government in which every stakeholder has a say and every stakeholder’s rights are protected and honored. Every stakeholder means every single person (real persons, that is, not fake “corporate persons”) who has any stake at all in how we operate our society. Which is to say: every. single. one. of. us.

That’s not how the U.S. government was set to operate, unfortunately. Our Founding Fathers did their best according to their own lights, I suppose, but they left a lot of stakeholders out of the loop. Women. Slaves. Children. Etc. Some of these oversights have been partially corrected through constitutional amendments, but the fact remains that real franchise — real ability to have a say in how society operates, & to have one’s own rights to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness — is still heavily restricted according to various kinds of status. Most of us still live under other people’s thumbs in one way or another. Some people win. Some people lose: their jobs, their homes, their families, their lives.

It’s just the way of the world, you say.  But why?  Is there another choice?

So here we are, back to worldbuilding

How can a society that is based on “some people win, and so does everybody else” be built?

That’s in essence what I’m trying to do in inventing the government of which my characters are part in Long Dark & Cold, which I named, simply, Consensus.

Notice that I said the government of which my characters are part.  Not, by which my characters are governed.  Because in this government, being a part of the government & being governed by it are one & the same thing.  Nobody is not a member of the government.  It truly is of, by, for the people.

Whoa, now, but wait a minute.  Isn’t that pretty damn unrealistic?  What about, y’know, that big word I used earlier?  Verisimilitude.

Well, that’s the thing.  I think it is realistic.  Not only that, but just as the corporate exploitation against which my characters’ ancestors rebel can be easily extrapolated from the stuff we’re already living with in the world we live in here & now, so can I extrapolate my society’s Consensus government from forms of governance that already exist & are used successfully in the world we live in here & now.  There are places, there are people, who are doing it now.

So nowadays I’m reading a lot about consensus, sociocracy, collective intelligence, & related ideas, on top of all the thinking & writing about this stuff I did on the fly during NaNoWriMo 2007 & 2009.  I’ll be writing more about this in other blog posts.

Meanwhile, may these ideas be the foundation of more worldbuilding in the here & now of 2010 planet Earth. I see little hope for the old tried & untrue methods of adversarial & often antagonistic systems of governance that we’re more accustomed to.  Health care reform debate, anyone?

How very pretty & hopeful our world looks out of the hostility & namecalling between political rivals these days.  Not.

Related:

1. Terraforming notes
2. Toward a 28th Amendment: Corporations are not human persons
3. Eating (& breathing & crapping) in outer space

• Moving AK capitol from Juneau is a really bad idea. Andrew Halcro explains why: http://bit.ly/bcoByV #
• MSNBC on Palin emails: why did unelected, unappointed Todd Palin exercise any political power at all? http://bit.ly/bqWGdy AK govt #fail #fb #
• How most Alaskans feel about Palin: sick & tired of her. Can’t wait for the rest of the country to catch on. http://bit.ly/aEtELk #fb #
• @SergeGraystone It’s a good thing for Zoe that the Graystones don’t know about Twitter. in reply to SergeGraystone #
• RT: @JanFlora49: is wondering why @SenJohnnyEllis only has 115 followers. // Thx for saying — he’s my state senator! Following him now. #
• @cadaverousapple: Or WRITING them. My problem too. #
• Working on a big damn post on good govt v. bad govt re: corps in both my invented SF world & the world we really live in. Later tonight. #fb #
• RT: @cadaverousapple: @yksin Hey, have you heard of this? Or, better yet, are you submitting? http://bit.ly/9ANkST // Yep, gonna submit. #
• About to watch Ep 3 of #Caprica accompanied by og turkeyburgers & my 1st helping of my homemade og sauerkraut. Oh yeah, & cabernet. #fb #
• RT @redrummy: Sauerkraut… & Cabernet? *headtilt* *blink* *blink* // _homemade_ sauerkraut, niot that nasty storebought stuff. Good w wine #
• Caprica is blowing me away w: every ep as much as BG did. Good on ya Moore & Eick & Espenson & everybody. #fb #

Related:

1. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-29: Dollhouse ends, Caprica begins
2. The Daily Tweets, 2010-02-01: Buzzcuttedness
3. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-04: Back to work

We got some more this morning.  I don’t mind….

Snowfall

One night in front of the high school, under a streetlamp,
white flakes fall noiselessly.

If language must have tongue and voice
then you, tongueless, voiceless,
say nothing. There is nothing to say.
You do not fall to fulfill a promise: you have spoken no promise.
You do not fall to answer a command: none has commanded.

But you fall: fall from the sky,
cover the land, and whiten it.
Life leaves its tracks in you.

[March 31, 1996]

About the photo

Taken at first snow in October 2006 approaching the Consortium Library on the UAA campus.  But for all that this morning’s snow added to the accumulation of what’s already been a long winter (& will continue to be — this is Alaska!), walking to work from the bus stop this morning looked pretty much like this.

Related:

1. Spiritus Mundi
2. Yukon River Haiku
3. Ode to Alcohol (poem)

Downtown Anchorage with Mt. Foraker (left), Denali (middle), & fata morgana (right) in the background. Fata morgana are a type of mirage particularly common in polar or other cold regions, especially on cold days like today was in Anchorage; there really aren't really any mountains north of Denali visible from Anchorage, except with fata morgana. BTW, click through on the photo to my Flickr page, then select "All sizes" to get a larger view of the mountains & fata morgana.

• @nethenekhthon I have character names other characters mispronounce. Lemminkäinen > Lemon-kind. Helvetti > Helvetica or Velveeta. in reply to nethenekhthon #
• RT: @livetechdocs: @yksin Oh, come on! Give it a chance // I did! All day yesterday! Technical writing is EEEEEEVIL! #
• RT: @Inked_Tigress: I’m at Sizzlin Cafe (523 West 3rd Ave, Anchorage). http://4sq.com/al9HBq / That sounds nice. I’m at work. (glum face) #
• Saw fata morgana today — mirage extension of Alaska range north of Denali as seen from the 15th floor of one of the Denali towers. #fb #
• New pipes in my living room ceiling. Now just holes in ceiling patched. May my two winters of leaks into my apartment be ended. #fb #

Here’s another illusion I call “New pipe mirage.”

Well, no, the pipe is really there, but it’s an illusion that I’m pointing at it. I was actually pointing downward, but perspective made it look differently, just like how they made the full-size human beings in the Lord of the Rings look like hobbits when standing “next” to Gandalf or Aragorn or Legolas, just by playing games with perspective. Whoa, I’m a regular FX wizard.

Actually, it’s an illusion that that was new pipe, too. In fact, both these two holes in the ceiling have been there for a few weeks, & so has the new pipe.

But this pipe, & the hole to go with it, are new today.

I was up until 2:00 this morning moving stuff all over the place in my apartment (again) in order that it not be entirely impossible to move around the place after moving my computer desk, which usually occupies the floor space below this hole. Had to move it, you see, in order to accommodate the maintenance guy who created this eensy weensy hole in order to replace the last bit of pipe running across my living room ceiling.

Now, the other guy just needs to come in — this weekend, one hopes — to put sheetrock back over the holes & restore my ceiling. And then I can put stuff away where it belongs. And then, I devoutly pray, may my two winters of dealing with leaks from old pipes into my apartment be finally, definitively over.

Amen.

Related:

1. A real post, for once, because I need to rant
2. The Daily Tweets, 2009-12-16: Dealing with leaks
3. The Daily Tweets, 2009-12-15: Steger Mukluks Appreciation Day

No related posts.

• Most beautiful photo of the Mat-Su Valley of AK I’ve ever seen, by my friend @jansonjones. http://bit.ly/c44h7a #
• RT: @LambiFund: A good quick history of #Haiti Starting w/ Columbus http://bit.ly/bLpivW #
• RT: @CapricaSeven: Interesting recap of Caprica’s first post-pilot ep here: http://www.afterelton.com/TV/recaps/caprica/102 #
• RT: @JanFlora49: RT @jfkfan: I must be the only one who thought Ronald Reagan sucked as President. Shame on me.! // he sucked he sucked !!! #
• @gretchl2000 Good to see you on twitter again Gretch! in reply to gretchl2000 #
• @jansonjones Short hair. Buzzed to near-baldness. Easy to clean. Hard to comb. Nothing to comb. Combless. Easy. Clean. Less head itch. in reply to jansonjones #
• @gretchl2000 You been missed hereabouts. Good to hear Parker in grad school. My ex & bestie Ptery (formerly Rozz) coming for visit soon. in reply to gretchl2000 #
• @jansonjones I became a fan of buzzcuttedness b/c of prob w/ folliculitis ~6 yrs ago. Easier to take care of w/ v. short hair. in reply to jansonjones #
• @gretchl2000 Oh cool will look forward to seeing it! in reply to gretchl2000 #
• RT: @celticdiva: One Reason Palin’s Book Did So Well: She Bought Thousands Of Copies Herself http://bit.ly/bs6T7M #p2 (via @AlanColmes) #
• @jansonjones It helps considerably that I’m on the “butchy” end of the dyke spectrum. I keep expecting to get genderchecked at the loo. in reply to jansonjones #

Related:

1. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-11: Crazy like a Faux News correspondent
2. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-13: Haiti earthquake
3. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-29: Dollhouse ends, Caprica begins

Cover art: Broomstick Aviation by Nicc Balce

My story “Cold” is appearing again, this time in the Crossed Genres Year One anthology, just released today.

Crossed Genres is a magazine of “science fiction & fantasy with a twist” — each issue publishes stories which combine SF/F with another genre or theme.  Thus, my story was in the issue devoted entirely to science fiction/fantasy stories with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and/or queer characters.  And you should check that issue out (it’ll be online through the end of October) because there’s not only my story “Cold” but a whole bunch of other really good LGBTQ stories & articles too.  Even an interview with Kate Bornstein!

CGY1 collects 12 stories selected from each of the first 12 issues of Crossed Genres:

1. “The Time of Tales” by C.L. Rossman (science fiction & fantasy)
2. “Back To the Beginning” by Marilou Goodwin (dystopian)
3. “A Crazy Kind of Love” by Jeremy Zimmerman (romance)
4. “The Near-Sighted Sentinel” by Adam King (crime)
5. “Condiment Wars” by Jill Afzelius (humor)
6. “Red Dust” by Amanda Lord (Western)
7. “Deacon Carter’s Last Dime” by Nathan Crowder (urban)
8. “The Strangler Fig” by Jennifer D. Munro (anthropomorphism)
9. “The Bat And the Blitz” by Erika Tracy (alternate history)
10. “The Good Old-Fashioned Kind of Water” by Camille Alexa (child fiction)
11. “The Drain” by M. Palmer (horror)
12. “Cold” by Melissa S. Green (LGBTQ)

As an author, I was lucky — I’ve already got my copies.  But get your own too! Crossed Genres Year One is available in print from Amazon or Createspace for $9.99. Or, you can buy it as a PDF download directly from Crossed Genres.

Meanwhile, my story “Cold” is the first chapter of a novel-in-progress of the same title.  It’ll be online at Crossed Genres through end of October; & if you like it, you can read another story that takes place shortly after “Cold” right here at Henkimaa.  It’s called “Shark.”

Related:

1. Crossed Genres announces its first short story anthology — and “Cold” will be in it!
2. Crossed Genres LGBTQ issue: The ad goes live
3. Cold, Crossed Genres, & Flash homophobia

Related:

1. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-15: Haiti relief efforts
2. The Daily Tweets, 2010-02-01: Buzzcuttedness
3. The Daily Tweets, 2010-02-05: Caprica w/ sauerkraut

In the wake of my mother’s death in late 2005 from complications of diabetes, I completely overhauled my diet in early 2006. My growing consciousness food extended not only to what kind of food I was eating, but also how food is produced and marketed — & interestingly enough, turns out that there’s a lot of overlap between crap food that leads to chronic lifestyle diseases like Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc. & crap ways of producing foods — for example, the megaindustrialization of food production that has led to the Standard American Diet (SAD indeed) & the preponderance of vending machines, fast foods, & the carbs in a box that fill out our grocery store shelves.

To my mind, the industrialization of the food system is not only just as antidemocratic as the rest of the corporate way of doing things, but is unhealthy to boot. So thank goodness for the farms of the Mat-Su Valley, whose in recent years have been bringing fresh, Alaska-grown produce into Anchorage grocery stores and farmer’s markets. What’s more, now there’s a Mat-Su based community supported agriculture program that weekly (except the first week of each month) delivers boxes of fresh Mat-Su produce to Anchorage subscribers (as well as subscribers in Eagle River, the Mat-Su, Girdwood, & Homer).

I learned about Glacier Valley Farm CSA a couple of weeks ago, & immediately made my first order. Yesterday I went to pick it up.

What’s community supported agriculture?  Glacier Valley Farm CSA’s website explains it very well:

A Community Supported Agriculture program is a community of people who pledge support to a farm operation so that the community feels a sense of ownership of and responsibility for the farm. The growers and consumers support each other and share the risks and benefits of food production. Subscribers to the CSA program pledge some amount in advance to cover some of the anticipated costs of the farm’s operation. In return, they receive shares in the farm’s bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from connecting with the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By selling directly to community members rather than selling their produce wholesale, the growers receive better prices for their crops and gain financial security, because they have a guaranteed market for their vegetables.

Glacier Valley Farm CSA is operated by Arthur Keyes of Glacier Valley Farm in Palmer — who also started the South Anchorage Farmer’s Market in 2006 with his father-in-law Ben VanderWeele — and Alison Arians, a farmer’s market customer who now runs the CSA’s website (as well as the South Anchorage Farmer’s Market website) and writes the CSA’s weekly newsletter.  She’s also has a blog, Alison’s Lunch, about cooking & eating local food, & is the author of the South Anchorage Farmers’ Market Cookbook, which one can buy at the CSA website.  Or, I learned last Saturday, from my favorite writing venue, Side Street Espresso, which gets its bread — good stuff! — from the Rise & Shine Bakery owned by Alison & her husband Dan.  GVFCSA fills its boxes with produce not only from Glacier Valley Farm, but also from other Mat-Su farms including VanderWeele Farms, Three Bears Farm, Stockwell Farms, Bush’s Bunches, Lewis Family Farm, and (next summer) Kenley’s Alaskan Vegetables.  During the winter, when the Mat-Su is under snow, local Alaska produce is mainly of storage vegetables like potatoes, beets, carrots, & cabbage, with greens & other fresh veggies & fruits shipped up from organic producers in the Lower 48.

I was very glad when I checked the CSA’s website to learn that one of its pick-up locations was Lucy Cuddy Hall on the UAA campus — just across campus from where I work.  So a couple of weeks ago I placed my first order, & yesterday walked across campus to pick it up.

As I arrived, three other women were had just finished transferring their produce from boxes to their own bags:

Here’s what my box looked like when I opened it:

The lettuce &  arugula were hiding some of the other goodies in the box, so I lifted them out of the way to get another photo:

I transferred the whole works to my pack, using a plastic bag as an inner liner.

Glacier Valley Farm CSA resuses the boxes, so before I left Cuddy Hall I did as as people before me had done — broke down my box to make it easier for the CSA to pick them up.  There were still a number of boxes that hadn’t yet been picked up.  I counted a total of 13 boxes, both broken down & still full.  It’s possible that some people had taken the full boxes, to be returned later — but basically looks like about 13 people in the UAA community (faculty/staff/students) or who live/work in the university area are getting fine quality produce through community supported agriculture.  Glacier Valley Farm CSA has another 18 or so  pick-up locations for its produce in Anchorage, Eagle River, Girdwood, the Mat-Su, & the Kenai (in Homer).

I take the bus to & from work, so it was important to me that my boxload of produce be something I could carry. No problem! — though I got quite a bit sweatier humping it on my back across campus to my office (since I still had another hour at hour at work).  Not so bad going home — the cold outside more than took care of the heat I generated from carrying it.  Good exercise, I reckon.  Once I got home with it, I put my pack on the scale & found I’d carried 25.2 pounds — of which probably about 22 pounds was the produce.

Here’s what was in my box:

From Glacier Valley Farm and VanderWeele Farm in the Mat-Su:

• 5 onions
• 10 potatoes
• 1 large head of cabbage
• 3 beets

From the Lower 48 (all certified organic):

• 3  Pink Lady apples
• 3 Cara Cara oranges
• 3 kiwi fruit
• 1 large head of  green butter lettuce
• 1 big bunch of  arugula
• 1 bunch of watermelon radishes
• 4 garnet yams
• 1 box of grape tomatoes

Not bad for $35 — & all of it of very high quality.   Here’s some of it after I unpacked it at home onto my kitchen counter.

Here’s a closer look at the radishes.  Big, plump, & gorgeous.  Not only that, but attached to them are those great radish greens.  It’s incredible to me that I used to just throw away radish green.  It wasn’t until three or four years ago that it occurred to me that, hey, might they not be edible too?  Well, of course they are! They can be used just like any other greens in salads, soups, etc.  It’s a good idea, though, to separate them early from the radishes themselves — they’ll keep a bit longer that way, but will get slimy & yucky pretty quickly if you store them with the radishes still attached.  (I also use carrot greens — not in salads, as their kind of ropy for that; but they go well in soups, as the heat makes them more tender.)

A closer look at the onions.  These were grown right here in Alaska.  Onions are a staple in my diet, so I’m very happy to have these.

The little plastic produce box of grape tomatoes from a organic farm in California were a nice surprise — they were an addition to what Glacier Valley told us would be in this order.

Here’s a couple of the Alaska-grown beets.

I’ve never been a big beet fan, but they’re so damn good for you (see what the World’s Healthiest Foods website has to say about them — which is a powerful motivator for me to learn to like them more), & I don’t actually hate them… so darned it I’m going to let them go to waste.  I decided to include some grated beet in a salad.

Here’s the salad I made last night, making use of several items from my order: butter lettuce & arugula, radishes, grated beet, the entirety of a small onion, & a few of the grape tomatoes.  I made enough for dinner last night & lunch today.  For last night’s salad I added in some canned tuna & a small handful of mixed nuts & seeds (sunflower & pumpkin seeds, almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts).  Today’s lunch has the mixed nuts & seeds, but the protein addition today was salmon.

Last night’s dessert: a kiwi fruit.  Mmmmm was it good — I didn’t realize I liked kiwi fruit so much!  Isn’t it nice they’re good for me too? — Issue #56 of the Glacier Grist (Glacier Valley Farm CSA’s weekly newsletter) informs me that kiwis “contain about as much potassium as bananas, and also contain 1.5 times the Daily Reference Intake for Vitamin C. It is also rich in Vitamins A and E. “

And then I couldn’t help myself, & also had one of the Pink Lady apples. Dessert for lunch today is one of the oranges.

What will I do with the rest of my order?  Well, I’ll want to use the lettuce & arugula pretty fast, so they don’t go bad before I eat ‘em — so more salad for the next couple of days.  I took two yams, two potatoes, & one of the beets over to my friend Sylvia last night, since she has a limited income & doesn’t often have opportunity to get good produce. The other two beets will go into salads, soups, whatever… I usually have to mix them with other stuff because I find them too sweet on their own.  (Kiwi fruit are sweet — why do I have no problem with them on their own?  Beats me.) I have to figure out how I’ll use the potatoes and yams — since overhauling my diet in early 2006, which included learning all about the glycemic index, I’ve tended to avoid starchy vegetables. But it shouldn’t be a big deal to just space out my consumption of them.  The head of cabbage — which for some reason I didn’t get a picture of — I think I’ll make into a jar of homemade sauerkraut.

Glacier Valley Farm CSA delivers every week except the first week of the month, which works out fine for me because it’ll probably take a couple of weeks for me to eat all this stuff anyway (along with the produce I still had in my fridge from my last trip to Natural Pantry).  But I only have to order anyway when I want to.  Since I (mostly) live alone, a box every other week will probably suit me pretty well.

I’ll be making another order tonight, which will be delivered February 10. Per GVFCSA, that order should include:

• From Alaska’s Glacier Valley Farm & VanderWeele Farm: Alaskan red or yellow onions – Farmer’s Choice | Alaskan Red or Yukon potatoes-Farmer’s Choice | Alaskan Spaghetti squash or from Outside certified organic butternut | Alaskan carrots |
• From Outside: certified organic Fancy Fuji apples | certified organic large navel oranges | certified organic kumquats | certified organic romaine lettuce | certified organic Rainbow chard | certified organic sunchokes | certified organic broccoli | certified organic Butternut squash or Alaskan Spaghetti squash-Farmer’s Choice

Yum. Mat-Su carrots are the best.  I’m not as thrilled about the squash — I’ve never liked squash — but Sylvia likes it, so it’s all good.

Already, having eaten just two meals from my first produce box, I feel that same sense of fulfillment that I  get from farmer’s market food in the summertime.  It’s partly because Alaska-grown food is so good. As Arthur Keyes writes:

Alaskan agriculture is the pinnacle of quality and cleanliness. Alaskan carrots have three times the sugar content of the carrots that are being shipped up here, and you can taste the difference! Alaska’s water is pure and our soils are clean. We lack the vast majority of pests that our southern neighbors deal with on a regular basis.

But it’s also that it feels good to support local business & local farmers — contributing to their success, just as their food is contributing to mine.  It feels altogether different from buying & eating some kind of boxed food-like product manufactured by some megacorporation, or even getting from buying produce from Carrs or Fred Meyer or even the Natural Pantry, where I don’t have any real sense of connection with the people who grew it.  When you buy & eat local, you really are forming a connection and a sort of gift exchange with other people in your community, which is good for our health politically, economically, & spiritually too.

And I’ve gotta say that after last summer’s import of people from Wasilla to testify against equal rights in Anchorage, it’s awfully nice to enjoy & celebrate the real goodness & bounty that is native to the Mat-Su.

Thank you, farmers of Mat-Su.  You rock!

Related:

1. Chemical food
2. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-27: Community supported agriculture
3. The Daily Tweets, 2010-01-12: Faux Palin, Prop 8, DADT, & fresh produce