Justin North was asked by the New York Times to write an Op-ed piece [subscription required] on the effect the prolonged drought is having on food production and agriculture in Australia from his perspective as one of Australia’s finest chefs. It was published on July 29. He wrote a measured and thoughtful account of his growing awareness of considering sustainable agricultural practices as the bedrock of his decision making when buying produce.

At my restaurant, Bécasse, we’ve had to become more flexible—quickly adjusting dishes depending on what’s available, and creating interesting dishes using unexpected cuts of meat. And while we’ve been adapting dishes, we’ve also been adapting ourselves. I was taught, and have encouraged other chefs, to seek out the best-looking produce from the most dedicated farmers and growers. But unfortunately, until recently, I made my choices with little regard for sustainability. In researching and writing my book I spent two years traveling around Australia talking to producers, and I could see first-hand the devastating effects of the water shortage.

So what can and should chefs not just in Australia but around the world do to help ease the food crisis, and to protect our land and produce? We must consider sustainability.

My restaurant’s menu takes into consideration particular farming practices and how they affect the environment. We understand more about our produce: where it is from, how it is farmed, raised or caught. Rather than buying from aquaculture farms that dredge their scallops from the ocean floor, for instance, I buy from ones where divers collect the scallops by hand.

Thinking this way is vital if chefs want to avoid a future where all of the best and most interesting produce are protected species. This means changing our practices and demanding that our suppliers change as well.

Between the time the article was commissioned and when it was published enough rain had fallen in and around Sydney—where Becasse is located—to alleviate the panic about the city’s water supply running out in a matter of months. But the New York Times wanted to lead with something more immediately dramatic, and so Justin opened with an account of going to the fish market one day and not being able to buy Murray Cod because the water level in the River Murray had fallen too low for the fish farmers to raise them. Almost nobody travels within the country in the way that he has, and the city and rural areas feel as if they’re on different planets. In the city we only think of the country in moments of crisis, or when what’s happening there is sufficiently alarming for us in the city to feel threatened. Like the New York Times we require drama before we take notice.

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—Jillian Burt

When mediawork was first founded it was, in many ways, the only game in town for those who wanted a public space to discuss the changes that digital technologies were having on society. The astonishing growth of academic programs in the region since 1994 has seen a proliferation of conferences, seminars, residencies and symposia on all facets of this transformation. In 2001, mediawork moved on to become a publishing initiative and the planned spontaneity of its meetings has been put to the side, at least for the foreseeable future.

Peter Lunenfeld.

Peter Lunenfeld’s media work: The Southern California New Media Working Group brought a cerebral glamour to the digital community forming in Southern California in the early 1990’s. He was the philosopher and theorist at the centre table in the cafe, speaking in perfectly formed footnotes and making connections and links, both social and intellectual, long before it was really apparent that society itself, the internet reinforcing real world communities, was going to be the outcome of so much experimentation with digital tools. Peter’s gatherings always had the quality of being at a cool Parisian cafe in an avant garde movie. The gatherings were alive: one was an art happening at a Hollywood nightclub, another a dusk party at the Schindler House on Kings Road, most were on Saturday afternoons at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he’s on the core faculty of the graduate Media Design Program. 

He’s in the position of thinking about and critiquing tools and the works of art they produce, and the commercial implications of the tools and the art, while everything is forming, and in flux. The lifelong student of myth, Joseph Campbell, said that taking symbols at face value, giving them a literal meaning rather than grasping for what they suggested metaphorically, was like going into a restaurant and eating the menu instead of the meal. Peter is a theorist in a symbolic environment in a time when the menu, now, may literally be the meal.

I approach criticism as a way to elucidate that which I admire about art rather than simply trying to fit it into a preconceived straightjacket. I’d like to think that I’ve been able to explore that ferocious pluralism ... which so characterizes our era. This is disconcerting to those who pine for the certainties of movements, schools, or avant-gardes that marched in lockstep, one after the other. These days, you’re on your own, it’s up to the individual user to craft his or her own frameworks. Part of the job of the critic is to offer models for this process.

...I’m fascinated by the post-utopian periods of aesthetics and technology. The utopian moment of a medium or field is intoxicating, of course—when the cinema or AI, rock’n’roll or robotics, the portapak or the Web, is going to change the world that very instant. But no one movement or technology can support that level of hype. Often, it’s after the general public’s attention has been raised and then dashed that artists, technologists, and yes, even entrepreneurs, can go back into the wreckage and make interesting, even lasting interventions.

Peter Lunenfeld, interviewed at Frontwheel Drive

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—Jillian Burt

The wailing about the death of the newspaper focuses on the diminishing editorial standards due to the lack of money flowing into the newspapers because of the dwindling sales of newspapers in their paper form and the migration of advertising to other, online forums. But I’ve seen the future and the newspaper looks electronic and more flexible there.

The newspaper is a remarkably enduring form, something of a mythological archetype. The blogosphere can seem like one enormous covalent bond glued together with permalinks to New York Times stories, and the hugely successful blog forum, Wordpress, on its second birthday recently, stopped merely listing the most popular blogs (the darkly humorous photographs of cats, I Can Has Cheezburger routinely tops the list) and rearranged its home page so that now resembles the International Herald Tribune, with selected posts listed as if they’re drawn from newspaper sections. What’s crucially missing is electronic newspaper hardware. Newspapers are currently trying to squeeze and transform themselves to fit devices that are alien to their style of presentation and their essential ephemerality and flimsiness. Plastic Logic, is working with a group of newspapers to develop a flimsy, flexible screen device. But Forbes magazine suggested, in April, that what’s probably needed is an impresario like Steve Jobs to come up with a sexy piece of simple newspaper hardware to bring the electronic newspaper to life.

Newspapers have attracted readers because they have content people value and respect. Less staff means fewer fresh stories and ad-sponsored columns diminishes the credibility that has been the industry’s calling card since the first newspapers hit the streets in the U.S. in 1690… So, if anyone is going to save the newspaper industry, it isn’t any of the moguls who think they can breathe life into a dying technology. It is more likely to be someone like Steve Jobs who can devise a really appealing way to make newspapers available digitally. Sony, Microsoft and others have tried to come up with digital readers but so far most people aren’t that excited. But suppose someone invented a digital newspaper, connected wirelessly to the Internet, that people actually enjoyed reading over coffee in the morning or taking along their morning train ride. …Make no mistake: The only way to stop the slide of the newspaper industry into oblivion is to replace the traditional paper “form factor” with a technology that can compete with pay-per-click, per-per-action and contextual advertising. Anything less will only accelerate the industry’s decline.

David Evans. Forbes. 24.4.07

—Jillian Burt

If you thought politics made strange bedfellows, look what happens when politics and pop culture combine. That’s right, inveterate rapper and former crack dealer 50 Cent, has weighed in on the 2008 Presidential race (why not?). Here’s what the artist told MTV News in a recent interview:

“I’d like to see Hillary Clinton be president. It would be nice to see a woman be the actual president and ... this is a way for us to have Bill Clinton be president again, and he did a great job during his term.”

While I’m sure Hillary is pleased with the psuedo-endorsement, she might take umbrage with the last part of 50’s statement concerning her husband’s role in her future administration. The former first lady has been attempting to deal with the overbearing popularity of her crowd pleasing companion. In any case, the nod is a welcome addition to a campaign competing with the rockstar status of Barack Obama who has been courting support from the black community.

There are other, more politically astute, hip-hop artists which have not yet vocalized their thought on the current crop of presidential contenders. So this begs the question: When will Kanye West will put in his, er, 2 cents?

—Joe Tacopino

Then we heard bangs from away down left down the boulevard, over by the Invalides, and a muffled roar. We looked at the television screen and saw the Eiffel Tower, all lit up. They had set up fireworks so that they began at the base of the tower, exploding in gold and violet around its piers, and then dramatically in gold bursts and haloes, working their way up to the top. As the fireworks reached the top, the entire tower turned on; twenty thousand or so small flashbulbs that had been wired to the tower went off at once, blinking hyperfast. The tiny constant explosions of the little bulbs made the tower look as though it had been carbonated, injected with seltzer bubbles. It was a beautiful sight. I thought of going out to see it firsthand, like a responsible reporter, but it was late—hey, come to think of it, it was after midnight—and anyway, the children were asleep. So we watched the whole thing on TV and were proud anyway, one last virtual CNN experience, but with a living room window open, and the cold air coming in, and one ear at least hearing the muffled bangs of the real thing taking place a few blocks away.
Adam Gopnik. Paris to the Moon.

September 4, yesterday, was the day that George Bush arrived in Sydney. I waited for the time to shift to September 4 in America so that I could listen to a preview of Bruce Springsteen’s new single, Radio Nowhere, available only on Amazon.com for twenty four hours. It was also the day that William Gibson’s new novel, Spook Country, was released in Australia. So I bought it and put aside Paris to the Moon for the moment. Spook Country is set in February, 2006, and one of the strands of the story is surveillance and tracking systems being used for “locative” art pieces.

“How did you get into this?”
“I was working on commercial GPS technology. I’d gotten into that because I’d thought I wanted to be an astronomer, and I’d gotten fascinated with satellites. The most interesting ways of looking at the GPS grid, what it is, what we do with it, what we might be able to do with it, all seemed to be being put forward by artists. Artists or the military. That’s something that tends to happen with new technologies generally: the most interesting applications turn up on the battlefield, or in a gallery.”
William Gibson. Spook Country.

I’m not reporting on the Asia Pacific Economic conference meeting of 21 world leaders that George Bush is attending; I’m living in Sydney and reading about APEC in the Sydney Morning Herald while the events happen in my proximity.

“I believe we are writing one of the great chapters in the history of liberty and peace.” So said George Bush during a brief writing break to have lunch with a collection of Australian military personnel at Sydney’s Garden Island naval base. The President and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped themselves to snags and barbecued corn in the company of hosts John Howard, wife Janette and a very pleased looking Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, who was very attentive to Dr Rice at the salad bar.

I have no context of my own for APEC. I’ve read too much science fiction perhaps, watched too many Star Wars movies and episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation so what I’ve read about the arrival of the world leaders leans towards the fantastic. The American delegation, at 650 people almost twice as large as the home delegation in Australia, seemed like Darth Vader swooping in on the Death Star with his own vehicles and own weapons, and declaring “sovereign immunity” to avoid having local quarantine officials board his plane. Leaders of some tiny nations, New Zealand, for instance were more like Luke Skywalker and his couple of robots hot-rodded from spare parts, flying in on commercial flights and accepting protection from Australian security.

The newspapers and television need chaos and drama but I’ve only seen quiet things, the efficient business of security being handled as if it were event management, the fences and concrete barriers and elaborate system of passes and restricted access reminds me of the fortification of Albert Park Lake, in Melbourne, for the running of the Grand Prix.

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—Jillian Burt

My reports are written from Sydney, Australia, and this week there are banners up around the city (with a Microsoft logo at the bottom!) that say “21 World Leaders, 1 Great City.” World leaders are gathering for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation conference. China’s leader Hu Jintao is already here, George Bush flies in tonight, and in the Sydney Morning Herald today Paul Keating, who was Australian Prime Minister during the 1990’s, explains why Russian leader Vladimir Putin is included. The quirks and strange specificity of trade and diplomatic agreements make sense when they’re written but the promises or threats that inspire their creation mutate over time and no longer adequately cover the original intent, and so India isn’t a part of the APEC group. Due to a peculiar rule of new countries being added every ten years India may be at the next APEC gathering, but its omission, now, seems a great absence. Thinking of India reminded me of the importance of that part of the world, and Pankaj Mishra’s illuminating and tenderly respectful books and magazine articles about his travels through Nepal, Kashmir, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, often during turbulent times. His new book, to be released later this year, I think, is based on his recent travels and lifelong interest in China.

“I have been interested in China for a long time, and I feel I ought to know more about it,” he said in an interview last year. “People talk of India and China in tandem now. Much is made of their rise as superpowers. And, yes, both countries have ambitious middle classes longing for international recognition. But I am not sure if the two countries have sorted out the great social, political and environmental problems that they face. Or have reckoned fully with their ancient traditions in their search for a suitable modernity. I think many of this century’s big questions are going to be addressed in these two countries, and I feel I have neglected learning about China for far too long.”

Pankaj Mishra’s An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World is a mix of travelogue, memoir, journalism, and a reconstruction of the life of the person who may have been the Buddha, from what can be reconstructed, and from the perspective of Western writers being inspired and influenced by Buddhism. Published in 2004 it remains a strong, clear, fresh and wise view of a troubled and misunderstood region of the world. The Indian author Pankaj Mishra lived in the small towns that the Buddha travelled through and lived in, and also Dharamsala, the home in exile of the Dalai Lama. But while he was there he read Western authors and was particularly inspired by the American critic Edmund Wilson. “An End to Suffering” is a small miracle, a book to constantly re-read. In an interview for the Loggernaut Series, he was asked to what extent his insights are personal, and to what extent they have a wider cultural reach.

Mishra: It has been easier for me to have a more complex idea of life in the West. But I think one of the problems we continue to suffer from is that despite the Internet and cable TV, growing numbers of writers, and improved communication systems, people in the West still don’t know enough about how people live in the rest of the world—they still depend on simple concepts of Islam, Muslims, Hinduism etc. So concepts replace the reality of lived lives, real people, and these concepts promote great misunderstanding. That’s where the role of writers is even more important than it used to be.

The Believer Magazine asked Pankaj Mishra what he thinks the different responsibilities of the reporter, novelist, and essayist are.

PM: Well, I feel the responsibility of the novelist is to create a very complex world populated by very complex individuals and to deepen that as much as possible. I don’t think the responsibility of the reporter or journalist is fundamentally different, but I think the reporter or journalist is well served by having a responsibility to the powerless, to use a much-abused cliché. The voice of the powerless is in some danger of not being heard in the elite discourses we now have in the mainstream media. This is something that I’ve learned late. Obviously, I write for a very elite audience, but is there something else that I’m also responsible to? People who write about issues like poverty or terrorism are a part of the elite, and the distance between the elite and nonelite is growing very fast. You can move around the world but meet only people who speak your language, who share the same ideas, the same beliefs, and in doing so you can lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of the world does not think or believe in or speak the everyday discourse of the elite. Yet their lives are being shaped by these elites, by people like us. I don’t mean this in a pompous way, but we have a responsibility to articulate their sense of suffering.

—Jillian Burt