In our second Green & Groovy craft kit, industrial designer Eric Lewis turns trash into mod treasures. Industrial artist Eric Lewis sees art where others see trash. In Garbage Flowers, he inspires other crafty folks to look deep into their junk drawers, recycling bins, and toy chests for the materials to make truly fabulous bouquets. A forty-eight-page book is packed with hundreds of fantastic ideas for flowers, containers, and other displays, as well as simple instructions for turning trash into mod treasures. The accompanying kit includes everything crafters will need to make at least thirty-six flowers.
The MacArthur grant–winning environmental justice activist’s riveting memoir of a life fighting for a cleaner future for America’s most vulnerable A Smithsonian Magazine Top Ten Best Science Book of 2020 Catherine Coleman Flowers, a 2020 MacArthur “genius,” grew up in Lowndes County, Alabama, a place that’s been called “Bloody Lowndes” because of its violent, racist history. Once the epicenter of the voting rights struggle, today it’s Ground Zero for a new movement that is also Flowers’s life’s work—a fight to ensure human dignity through a right most Americans take for granted: basic sanitation. Too many people, especially the rural poor, lack an affordable means of disposing cleanly of the waste from their toilets and, as a consequence, live amid filth. Flowers calls this America’s dirty secret. In this “powerful and moving book” (Booklist), she tells the story of systemic class, racial, and geographic prejudice that foster Third World conditions not just in Alabama, but across America, in Appalachia, Central California, coastal Florida, Alaska, the urban Midwest, and on Native American reservations in the West. In this inspiring story of the evolution of an activist, from country girl to student civil rights organizer to environmental justice champion at Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative, Flowers shows how sanitation is becoming too big a problem to ignore as climate change brings sewage to more backyards—not only those of poor minorities.
The Flower from the Garbage follows the journey of a newly wedded couple, Joe and Audrey Palmer, when they miscarry their baby and begin to disconnect from each other. While Audrey goes within and isolates, Joe continues to work more hours and make poor decisions, risking his marriage and future. Their marriage is saved when Joe discovers an unlikely friend and mentor in the form of a homeless philosopher who chose a life on the streets of Chicago after losing his own wife to cancer. Although Frank, the homeless philosopher, advises Joe on how to work through this specific tragedy, he goes on to teach him many important lessons about what it means to be a good man, a husband, a father, and more. This story shows the world through Joe's eyes as we not only witness his personal struggles and growth, but also as he builds a beautiful friendship and learns Frank's story of how he came to live on the streets and exist to serve others. The Flower from the Garbage is a philosophical fiction, not only about the struggles of modern America but also about the timeless truths of the human condition and our pursuit of meaning. This uniquely crafted story leaves no stone unturned and confronts many of the most difficult and uncomfortable topics imaginable, invoking a range of emotions but ultimately leaving you with the taste of hope. This story belongs to all of us. It is a story of what it means to be human.
From Lewis Miller, the celebrated floral designer and "Flower Bandit" himself, an intimate and joyous behind-the-scenes look at his signature Flower Flashes as they introduced bright moments of natural beauty into the city when they were needed most. Before dawn one morning in October 2016, renowned New York-based floral designer Lewis Miller stealthily arranged hundreds of brightly colored dahlias, carnations, and mums into a psychedelic halo around the John Lennon memorial in Central Park. The spontaneous floral installation was Miller's gift to the city—an effort to spark joy during a difficult time. Nearly five years and more than ninety Flower Flashes later, these elaborate flower bombs—bursts of jubilant blooms in trash cans, over bus canopies, on construction sites and traffic medians—have brought moments of delight and wonder to countless New Yorkers and flower lovers everywhere, and earned Miller a following of dedicated fans and the nickname the "Flower Bandit." After New York City entered lockdown, Miller doubled down, creating Flower Flashes outside hospitals to express gratitude to frontline health workers and throughout the city to raise spirits. This gorgeous and poignant visual diary traces the phenomenon from the first, spontaneous Flower Flash to the even more profound installations of the pandemic through a kaleidoscopic collage of photos documenting the Flower Flashes, behind-the-scenes snapshots, Miller's inspiration material, fan contributions, and more.
Simple daily practices to help us discover the happiness and freedom of living in the present moment—from the renowned Buddhist monk and best-selling author. Most of Thich Nhat Hanh’s previous books have either provided an overview of the Buddhist path or offered guidance on specific problem areas in our lives, such as love, anger, power, or death. This new book focuses on Buddhist techniques and practices we can use to cut through the busyness and anxieties of daily life and discover the simple happiness of living in the present moment. In our daily lives we are often lost in thought. We lose ourselves in our plans, in our anger, in our worries. The practice of mindfulness frees us from these obsessions, landing us firmly in the present moment–the only moment in which we can be truly alive and truly happy. You Are Here offers a range of mindfulness practices that will help us to root ourselves in the present–“the address of the Buddha,” as he calls it–where we can experience the joys and magic of being alive, under any circumstances. Practices include: mindfulness of breath, mindful walking, deep listening, and mindful speech, as well as practices for healing emotional pain and cultivating love for oneself and others. With his characteristic warmth, gentleness, and simplicity, Thich Nhat Hanh offers teachings and practices that anyone can use to help them to live more fully and freely.
Out of sight, out of mind ... Into our trash cans go dead batteries, dirty diapers, bygone burritos, broken toys, tattered socks, eight-track cassettes, scratched CDs, banana peels.... But where do these things go next? In a country that consumes and then casts off more and more, what actually happens to the things we throw away? In Garbage Land, acclaimed science writer Elizabeth Royte leads us on the wild adventure that begins once our trash hits the bottom of the can. Along the way, we meet an odor chemist who explains why trash smells so bad; garbage fairies and recycling gurus; neighbors of massive waste dumps; CEOs making fortunes by encouraging waste or encouraging recycling-often both at the same time; scientists trying to revive our most polluted places; fertilizer fanatics and adventurers who kayak amid sewage; paper people, steel people, aluminum people, plastic people, and even a guy who swears by recycling human waste. With a wink and a nod and a tightly clasped nose, Royte takes us on a bizarre cultural tour through slime, stench, and heat-in other words, through the back end of our ever-more supersized lifestyles. By showing us what happens to the things we've "disposed of," Royte reminds us that our decisions about consumption and waste have a very real impact-and that unless we undertake radical change, the garbage we create will always be with us: in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we consume. Radiantly written and boldly reported, Garbage Land is a brilliant exploration into the soiled heart of the American trash can.
"This will be an important book, and a powerful exemplar for the growing numbers of anthropologists who seek to place such things as democracy, citizenship, and neoliberalism under an ethnographic lens."—James Ferguson, author of Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambin Copperbelt "In joining activism and fine ethnography, Paley enables us to appreciate the profound complexity of the links between civil society and public institutions. Chakrabarty's assessment of "the undemocratic foundations of 'democracy'" becomes a fine analytic tool as it is refracted in the words of the women of Población La Bandera."—Charles Briggs, author of Learning How to Ask "Paley has produced an insightful and fascinating exploration of the shifting meanings of democracy for the Chilean state and for shantytown activists across the Pinochet dictatorship and through the contradictory democratic politics of the 1990s. The marketing of democracy is a highly relevant issue for societies and states throughout the world."—Kay Warren, author of Indigenous Movements and Their Critics: Pan-Maya Activism in Guatemala "An important challenge to Polyanna conventional wisdoms about democratic transitions and neo-liberal miracles in Chile and its neighbors."—Peter Winn, author of Weavers of Revolution "This is anthropology as the observation of and involvement in, the new, participatory politics of the previously excluded."—Sally Falk Moore, author of Law as Process
ESSA Books Lindsay? A contemporary shamaness, that is what she is. But that scares the stuffing right out of her. After befriending a group of spiritually-wounded women, Lindsay's change of life hits the fan. Eternal love and friction between friends. The integrity of two men devoted to one woman Lindsay's dying husband and his best friend. Oh yes, and the psychic woman who is extracting Lindsay's husband as her reward for helping Lindsay meet her life purpose. Destiny? Or karma? Soul mates or soul grief? Light Supernatural/Metaphysical, Inspirational, Intuitive, Romance Every sentence evokes a haunting image, stirring something inside that makes you hungry for more... ..Anna Nicole & Dorez Douglas; Jahqoi Plus-size Fashions, Los Angeles, Calf. A captivating blend of spirituality, romance, trials and tribulations ......Bev LeBlanc, Nova Scotia, Canada
"Truly captivating." —The New York Times "A deliciously macabre fairy tale, full of snuggles.” —Holly Black, award-winning author of Doll Bones and co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles Welcome to The Teddies Saga, a gripping new middle grade trilogy from New York Times-bestselling author Daniel Kraus and illustrator Rovina Cai. Buddy wakes up in the middle of a garbage dump, filled with a certain awareness: he’s a teddy bear; he spent time at a Store waiting for his future to begin; and he is meant for the loving arms of a child. Now he knows one more thing: Something has gone terribly wrong. Soon he finds other discarded teddies—Horace, Sugar, Sunny, and Reginald. Though they aren’t sure how their luck soured, they all agree that they need to get back to the Store if they’re ever to fulfill their destinies. So, they embark on a perilous trek across the dump and into the outer world. With ravenous rats, screeching gulls, and a menacing world in front of them, the teddies will need to overcome insurmountable challenges to find their way home. Equal parts Toy Story and Lord of the Flies, They Threw Us Away is the unforgettable start of a captivating series.
