12.20 | a christmas miracle for my composting program

The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
– Howard Zinn

✉️ letter #48

In one of the few pieces of really good news I've had to share this year, I'm excited to say that the GrowNYC community composting program is going to be continuing into at least the first half of 2024.

As mentioned some letters ago, it was about to be slashed from the city budget, and considering its ability to divert over 8.3 million pounds of waste from landfills every year and its role in educating New Yorkers on sustainable systems, that was a crying shame.

GrowNYC sent out a petition that'd gotten several tens of thousands of signatures, and the organizers held a rally on December 7 to galvanize support in a more visible format.

I'm just a volunteer and a fan, but it was an emotional week anyway. The outlook on the last Sunday I volunteered had seemed dire. The palpable joy I felt when I realized it'd been saved reminded me that I could still feel feelings besides disappointment and resilience.

I had a lot to say about what happened:

On a bit of a tangent, It fills me with great pride that I set a resolution to volunteer more in 2023 and can now look back and see I fulfilled it. It took a couple of tries around various organizations in the city, but I kept going until I found something I could show up to somewhat consistently. Here's hoping for more of that energy in 2024 - once I can figure out what my resolutions this year should be.

🎼 the soundtrack | Bitter with the Sweet - Carole King

Someone has been sending me a random selection of his favorite songs, a lot of which has been from before I was born. And I'm liking the grooviness of it, especially when the cadence is so off from standard pop music, like this Carole King single.

Am down for more recommendations of nice, chill songs where the lyrics run willy nilly all over the music.

🌱 the green light | an eco-focused newsreel

Restaurateur Kiki Aranita tries to live a day with as much seaweed products as possible, to test the potential of this miracle material against its actual market use cases right now. I for one had no idea seaweed was our go to plant to get us out of microplastic territory.

Side note: I went to middle school, and then college with Kiki. Whenever I see someone I know publishing something, I get that warm glow of feeling like I know a celebrity - this hasn't changed despite the fact that I have worked in journalism over half of my life so of course I would know a lot of people publishing something.

• Grist has deep dives into two of the most interesting and novel announcements to come out of COP28 - climate reparations through a new "loss and damage fund" and the roadmap to ensure global food safety.
• Strategies for collecting water from the atmosphere using minimal energy could fill a crucial gap in sustaining communities that have limited access to water. [Nature]
• Countries are beginning to swap debt for action on climate and conservation. But how far can this help without deeper reform of the global financial system? [BBC]
• In the United States, climate has become a top priority for elderly swing state voters. Who knew we'd actually start to get the boomers on our side at this late hour? [Mother Jones]

🪢assorted | food for thought from around the internet

• Rats. They're just like us. No really, not only do they tend to gravitate to the environments we create, but they're also incredibly social creatures capable of great empathy. [Envirotec]
• Something that, after decades of gutted unions, we shouldn't take for granted - In 2023, half a million workers, including machinists, teachers, baristas, nurses, hotel housekeepers, actors, screenwriters, and autoworkers, went on strike and won. [Jacobin]
• I don't know, perhaps since it's the season for it, I ought to do one of those how to lists of sustainable ways to holiday? Oh look, Bloomberg has one. Use that. [Bloomberg Citylab]

✨enjoying: one final piece of pop culture fun

Have I professed my love on here for Only Murders in the Building yet? It's a series that only seems to get better and better each edition, and also weirdly more and more aligned with my life here in the States.

I watched Season One from abroad, and so I was into it mostly just for the foibles of Steve Martin and Martin Short - the main mystery was a bit of a whatever to me, even if I enjoyed the chatter of the characters.

By Season Two, I was in New York and eyeing the coop life. The scenes of how that played out for the communities living in one of those grand old apartments was fascinating (and now I can say for sure, surprisingly realistic).

And Season Three, which has ended gloriously, was dedicated to the wild world of musical theater. I fucking love musical theater. And I especially fucking love getting meta about musical theater. This speech from Mother Producer was such a chefs kiss that I wrote it into my journal:

You need a showstopper. That's how musicals make money. A song so irresistible it's like a syringe that shoots from Broadway straight into the neck of Debbie from Duluth, who becomes an addict from the first second she hears it during girl's night out at the Calorie Pit. And an addict will do anything to get her fix, even take a middle seat on a red eye to New York City where, for the low low price of everything she's got, Debbie can have the privilege of sitting in the finest rear balcony seat in all the land to finally, finally see that show with that song she can't stop belting out all over fucking Duluth.

I've never felt more seen. And by the way, the person singing the potential showstopper was none other than Meryl fucking Streep:

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