Building a Basil Economy
Author's Note: Most, if not all, of these musings will appear in Lexington, KY's North of Center biweekly paper. This is the first installment of a somewhat regular column for it.
A few years back I penned what I thought would be a regular column for Lexington's Nougat Magazine that I was going to title “Suburban Flaneur.” It was to be an evolving primer for re-inhabiting our bleak suburban Lexington worlds.
For reasons too numerous to detail here, that column never appeared, Nougat folded, and I moved downtown—all of which ensured that Suburban Flaneur would never happen. If North of Center ever gets desperate for content—and that prospect always seems only an issue away—we may print an abridged version of the only piece I wrote under the Suburban Flaneur byline as a matter of historical curiosity. In the meantime, though, you are stuck with this.
More recently, in issues two and three of this paper, I authored a two-part article on a related topic titled “Building a Basil Economy.” This more contained piece looked at how the current local food and gardening zeitgeist might lead to workable alternatives to our current money-centered economy (and lives). Growing our own food, I argued, allows us to detach on our own terms from a global economy based increasingly in transnational finance and new “hot markets” of exploitation. At the same time, it might reconnect us to a more intimate economy of local production based in basic human needs—food, yes, but also friendship, clothing, art, shelter, communication.
I'm resurrecting that phrase, building a basil economy, for the title of this column for several reasons. There are the easy ones: it fills column space across the page, a great attribute according to our layout editor; I'm lazy and lack creativity and this title is already there; I like the way it sounds. In addition to these, I can cite at least two more important reasons.
First, I felt like the limited feedback I received from friends about that article missed my point, something no writer likes to experience. While I think people appreciated the writing, and at least two noted with glee the vague marijuana references and skillfully procured use of expletives (both things nearly always a winner in a free bi-weekly paper), I didn't get a sense that anyone actually thought building an economy based on human need of things like food, shelter, and clothing was actually possible or practical at this point in time, which is a sad and pathetic testimony to our current historical moment. As my oldest and perhaps closest friend Tim wrote to me, “You put out an extreme view point in order that your audience may budge just a bit. Great rhetorical tactic.”
Second, I realized when writing the article that there was more to my topic that I wanted to explore and write on, something I assume all writers do enjoy experiencing. In writing my piece, I included John Walker's urban gleaning ideas, Geoff and Sherry Maddocks' ideas on community economics, my own efforts operating a free store stand, and Ryan Koch's efforts working with the nonprofit gardening group Seedleaf. But I excluded as much as I included. I missed talking about food not bombs, the growth in guerrilla gardens, the turn to dinner parties, the creation of this newspaper, the enjoyment of alternate forms of sport, the proliferation of marijuana as a Kentucky cash crop, the possibility of turning elderberries into your own intoxicating forms of wine, the ways to procure free Kentucky rock, and the many forms of bartering that take place on a daily basis, just to mention a few. In my mind, to talk about what I call a basil economy without these and other things seems to miss the point. The very word building, after all, implies a process, not a two-part article.
My hunch is that by calling attention to these acts, groups, people, and economies, and by taking them seriously, I will make my argument better that the joys and labors that I celebrate are not rhetorical acts or the opiate induced ravings of a degenerate that they may seem at first glance, but rather very real possibilities for a different way of living. After all, an economy rooted in local, often personal, production of food and pleasure and clothing and shelter is not only possible, but is in fact already happening, already building. We are just waiting for you to get up off your fat, lazy, uniquely American ass and join in the fun.
At its best, then, this column should call you to be a producer, to make something, to be creative, and to share it with us, we who should be your friends. In other words, it should offer you the psychic tools, base knowledge, and inspiration to help build something.
In the next column, Danny will define what the hell he's talking about.
