Category: essays
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Urban farms in some neighborhoods face the prospect of development and an uncertain future
Pittsburgh’s summer growing season is weeks away, but Food for the Soul Community Farm in Manchester might not make it to harvest. Founded by Ebony Lunsford-Evans in 2020, Food for the Soul sits on six plots of land, two owned by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, and four city-owned lots, which the farm accesses via the…
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A Present for Eyes: Notes on Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini’s “Gender Without Identity”
“If prophetic vision is perfect it is a kind of prison—dictating, rather than simply foretelling, the future.”M. Leona Godin, There Plant Eyes Now, press your phone against your ear, press until it hurts, and listen, again and again, to the voicemail from a stranger, to the voicemail …. and …. call me …. house … storm……
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The Farmers Are Watching: Michigan’s Farm Porn Fascination
We’re a species of voyeurs. Whatever’s done in private — medical treatments, sacred rites, marital spats — is also done in public, for thousands or even millions of viewers on screens big and small. This is particularly true of sex. Dante catches Elliot watching him. Mark watches both Elliot and Dante, then — not so…
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Urban Farms Can Feed a Hunger, If They’re Allowed to Grow
“I never dreamed I would be doing this,” Liz Boxley tells me. Boxley, a retired bus driver, is swiping through photos of the 3,000-pound harvest grown at Food for the Soul Community Garden in 2023. The garden, where Boxley has volunteered since 2021, is on Fulton St. just a few blocks from Ohio River Blvd.…
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Paris, of, Appalachia (or How to Bet on Two Words and Lose)
The Paris of Appalachia is the barest Appalachia, the fairest Appalachia, which is to say the whitest, the lightest, like when someone asks you a question and you can’t bear to speak the answer to the question so you stop breathing and you go all light and dizzy all over, all your vision goes bright…
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Law(n) Breakers
In D.S. Vale’s Troy Hill garden, each plant — ideally — does something for pollinating bees or migrating birds; old soil or new fungi; passing commuters or stuck-in neighbors. Part of an expanding number of gardeners who are interested in sustainability, ecology, and native plants, Vale talks about gardening in terms of living alongside, rather…
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A Paris, of an Appalachia (or How to Go to Hell)
On a hypnotherapist’s couch in Pittsburgh: Close your eyes. Maybe a jade owl asked already, but intone it again: “Where are you from?” Never mind the grammarian’s lure, and move the question into the next register: “D’où viens-tu ?” The owl dings in assent. You’ve done it! You’ve asked Paris from Pittsburgh. It’s a promenade…
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The Green Punctum
A distorted square luminesces, glides toward me three feet in the air. It contains the vague and rebellious image of a being. “I found a Dani,” Jason says, showing me a blurry iPhone photo of a plant. Beneath the photo is a caption, provided by a plant recognition app: “Guayacan (Guaiacum coulteri)” I am an…
