Green Fest 2009 will use a Solar Stage

Green Fest will use the portable solar sound system created by Crow Weaver and the Native Earthling Band.

The Band's solar sound system collects sunlight via three photovoltaic panels. Each SunWize SW115 panel outputs 115 watts of power, for a total of 345 watts. The panels provide direct current at 16.7 volts. The SunWize panels have a "rated" working life of about 50 years, at which point the cells will still put out 85% of their design power.

The solar panels are wired into a charge controller that regulates the current supplied to the battery. This is the heart of the Solar Stage. The charge controller keeps the battery topped up while protecting it from being damaged by overcharging. The life of the battery is directly impacted by the quality of the charge controller, so this is not a place to skimp. The Solar Boost 2000E from Blue Sky Energy is a pretty good one.

The inverter takes 12 volt direct current from the battery and converts it into standard 120V alternating current to run our gear. The band has considered running directly off 12V DC, but has found it difficult to find gear that can do that without major modifications to the power supplies. Their inexpensive Whistler PP300AC inverter does a pretty good job. It will shut down automatically if the battery voltage drops too low, preventing the batteries from being discharged completely.

The two batteries are sealed lead-acid gel cell batteries (Type 8G8D) with a capacity of 265 Amp-hours at a nominal 12 volts. These batteries are designed for deep discharge cycles, unlike the battery in a car, which are optimized for the big surge of power needed to start it.

Even on an overcast day, diffuse sunlight is enough to charge the system's battery.

New Blog for Progressive Video Workshop

Wilton Vought has created a blog for the Progressive Video workshop he will give at Green Fest. Wilton's workshop, How to Produce Videos for Public Access TV and the Internet, will be held Friday, August 7 at 3:30 pm.

Surviving — and Thriving in — the Green Future

Paul Glover, who was a Green Fest presenter in 2003 and the Green Party candidate for mayor of Ithaca in 2005, has a great new article in the Philadelphia City Paper about surviving — and thriving in — the green future. Glover now teaches metropolitan ecology and green jobs at Temple University. He is founder of the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP), Ithaca HOURS local currency, Citizen Planners of Los Angeles and other groups. He is the author of Green Jobs Philly, Health Democracy and Hometown Money. More information about Glover's projects is available at paulglover.org.

Glover says, "Imagine . . . that, 20 years from now, Philadelphia's green economy enables everyone to work a few hours creatively daily, then relax with family and friends to enjoy top-quality local, healthy food. To enjoy clean low-cost warm housing, clean and safe transport, high-quality handcrafted clothes and household goods. To enjoy creating and playing together, growing up and growing old in supportive neighborhoods where everyone is valuable. And to do this while replenishing rather than depleting the planet. Pretty wild, right?"

From "Yes We Can" to "Now We Do"

FOOD: Grow it here

Challenges: Like an army camped far from its sources of supply, Philadelphia trucks food from hundreds and thousands of miles away, especially in winter. Costs of harvest, processing and distribution rise, raising prices. Fertile soils were scraped bare. Thousands are hungry here. Relax, though, we're not riding a spoon to the mouth of doom. An urban food army is marching.

Next steps: Philadelphia has 40,000 vacant lots. Their best use is now for growing fruits, berries and veggies. Same with many of our 700 abandoned factories: These are prime sites for vertical and roof farms, hydroponics, aquaculture, mushrooms. Plant the parks, too. Greenhouses extend seasons. Land breathes again when abandoned parking lots are depaved. Edible landscaping blooms meals. Edible community centers process neighborhood yields. Fallen leaves stay in neighborhoods to become new soil. Feeding kitchen scraps to worms (vermiculture) builds the food of food.

Local heroes: Mill Creek Urban Farm, Greensgrow, Weaver's Way Co-Op Farm, City Harvest, Youth 4 Good, Philadelphia Orchard Project, Neighborhood Gardens Association, Philadelphia Urban Farm Network, Farm to City, edible landscapers, Philadelphia School and Community IPM Partnership, Henry George School, Philadelphia's greenhouses, Community Supported Agriculture.

World champions: Beijing grows all its vegetables within 60 miles. TerraCycle manufactures organic soil. Guerrilla Gardeners throw seed bombs. Sites: cityfarmer.org, urbanagriculture-news.com, spinfarming.com. Books: Food Not Lawns, The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book, The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping. Keywords: depaving, urban land reform, solar envelope zoning.

Big picture: Philadelphia can become a giant orchard and year-round garden, housing and reliably feeding more people than live here today.

FUEL: Who lights your fire?

Challenges: Within 20 years Philadelphia businesses, homes and agencies that waste energy will close. Philadelphia Gas Works CEO Thomas Knudson recently declared that natural gas is a "transitional fuel" beyond which this city must evolve. The price of coal tripled last year. PECO rates will leap within two years. Electric shut-offs rise. So we'll rebuild Philadelphia rather than fade.

Next steps: Establish independent neighborhood utilities with wind, passive solar and micro-geothermal. Employ thousands to build and install these. Employ multitudes more to manufacture and install insulation made with newsprint and fly ash (a residue of coal combustion). We'll get free winter warmth from 500,000 solar windowbox heaters. District heating and cogeneration reduce fuel need. Municipal utilities reduce grid costs. Tree shade reduces cooling costs: Plant a million.

Local heroes: Energy Coordinating Agency, Bio-Neighbors Sustainable Homes, Roofscapes, Philadelphia Green, Philly Tree People, Urban Tree Connection, green contractors. Harold Finegan's gym needs no fossil fuel for heating and cooling.

World champions: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Rocky Mountain Institute, Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Book: Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do-It Ourselves Guide.

Big picture: Philadelphia can function even better with one-tenth the fossil fuel. Our lives will be more secure.

HOUSING: Stand your ground

Challenges: Absentee ownership and unemployment discourage repair and foster blight. Gentrification, foreclosure and taxes pressure humble homes. More middle class become homeless daily. Whether rowhouse or condo, homes won't be affordable unless massively insulated. And hey, river wards, both ocean and sewage, are rising. '

Next steps: Renters become homeowners through right-of-first-refusal (landlords offer sale first to renters) and sweat equity credits (renters swap community work for houses). Enforce law requiring absentee owners to have local agents. Shift to Land Value Taxation, which places tax burden on land rather than homes. Equitable development is a legal movement that' prevents gentrification through restraints and incentives. Enforce the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires lending in low-income neighborhoods (not sub-prime) and prohibits racial lending. Cease evictions based on dishonest loans. Evict shady lenders. As heating bills rise we'll move underground, because deep dirt is the best insulation. Not just elites to bunkers (Bill Gates lives inside a hillside), but all of us into pleasant, sunlit ecolonies. Big solar windows catch winter heat. Amend building codes for green innovation.

Local heroes: Hundreds of local organizations fight for and finance affordable neighborhoods. Women's Opportunity Resource Center, Women's Community Revitalization Project, Philadelphia Housing Task Force, Community Land Trust Corp., Project H.O.M.E., People's Emergency Center, African-American Business & Residents Association, Henry George School, Habitat for Humanity, Green Roof Philadelphia, Ray of Hope Project, churches. Major underground buildings in Philadelphia include Franklin Court Museum, Wilma Theater, Penn Center shops.

World champions: Germany requires R70 insulation — three times tighter than the typical U.S. home — in new buildings. National Community Reinvestment Coalition, United for a Fair Economy, Earthships, Boston City Life/Vida Urbana, Equitable Development Toolkit, Shelterforce. Book: The Earth-Sheltered House: An Architect's Sketchbook.

Big picture: Everyone living in Philadelphia in 50 years will be living in earth shelters. Green means we'll all be comfortable. No behind left chill.

HEALTH CARE: Healthy rebellion

Challenges: Corporate insurers raise costs, limit choices, resist paying. They block reform legislation. Premiums rise beyond the reach of millions. ' Taxes rise to cover city employee benefits and indigent care. Thousands of Philadelphians are stuck in jobs they dislike, to keep insurance. ' Philadelphia's 140,000 uninsured avoid care and die earlier, or go bankrupt paying more. Medicaid's waiting list grows. Hospitals close; free clinics lose staff. Toxic air and chemicals, junk food and lack of exercise cause much disease. Grassroots action will heal city and citizens.

Next steps: While pushing for universal health care (less bureaucracy, lower cost, free choice), gaps can be filled by genuinely nonprofit regional self-financing systems. Fraternal benefit societies and member-owned co-op health plans create independent safety nets and preventive care clinics. Medical centers can barter, accept Philadelphia MediCash.

Local heroes: Thousands of holistic and allopathic healers, Health Care for All Philadelphia, Catholic Worker Free Clinic, Esperanza Health Center, Congreso de Latinos Unidos, Planned Parenthood, Philadelphia Urban Solutions, Philadelphia Community Acupuncture, Philadelphia FIGHT, Philadelphia Health Care Center, PhilaHealthia, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Shriners Hospital for Children. Dozens more at philllyhealthinfo.org.

World champions: Mutual Health Organizations, Ugandan Health Cooperative, Ithaca Health Alliance, Dr. Patch Adams, Healthcare-NOW!, Book: Health Democracy.

Big picture: When sickness is big business, free healing requires insurrection.
MONEY: Give yourselves credit

► Challenges: Extreme capitalism and extreme socialism trample humanity. Lack of cash and credit kills businesses, jobs and homes. Some folks still have lots of money, but most of us have less. Dollar power dwindles because dollars are backed by less than nothing: rusting industry and $10 trillion debt. So we'll print real money — neighborhood currencies — backed by real people.

Next steps: Mutual enterprise systems (neither Wall Street nor Red Square) celebrate the spirit of regional enterprise when it serves community and nature. They applaud innovations — public and private and personal — that meet real needs. Local trading credits based on local land, skills, time and tools refresh the economy. Poverty is lack of networks more than lack of dollars, and Philadelphia has thousands of networks — business, professional, technical, fraternal, neighborhood, church, union, electoral, senior, youth, racial, sexual, athletic, hobby, family, friends. Woven together they're a powerful base of regional trust, trade and wealth. Take your pick of neighborhood and sector currencies. Cities may not issue them but may accept them for taxes.

Local heroes: Philadelphia's 83 credit unions, Valley Green Bank, e3bank, Equal Dollars, barter exchanges and gift economy, Philadelphia Regional and Independent Stock Exchange, Philadelphia Fund for Ecological Living (PhilaFEL).

World champions: Ithaca HOURS, Berkshares, LETS, Time Banking, National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, Permaculture Credit Union, Grameen Bank microlending, Kiva, Robin Hood Ventures.

Big picture: Dollars control people; local currency connects people.

WATER: Go with the low flow

Challenges: Millions are spent to sanitize polluted river water and pump it to homes. Then we poop into it. Storm drains carry sewage and garbage back to rivers. Sewage treatment does not remove all pharmaceuticals. Old chemical tanks poison groundwater. Sinkholes undermine houses. Bottled-water scam drains local economy. Climate change brings frequent flood and/or drought. ' But new technologies will protect our liquid assets.

Next steps: Amend code to permit filtered graywater yard use, and waterless compost toilets. Install watersaving devices. Collect rainwater in rooftop tanks, barrels and swales. Plant xeriscapes. Depave driveways and abandoned parking lots. Start Progressive Street Reclamation, converting least-used streets and alleys to playgrounds and gardens.

Local heroes: Philadelphia Water Department taxes pavement, rewards depaving, distributes rain barrels. Friends of the Wissahickon installs compost toilets in the park. These convert turds into clean, sweet-smelling garden soil.

World champions: Swedes collect urine from apartment houses, store it six months, then use as fertilizer (EcoSanRes). Mexicans collect urine from city hall and schools to fertilize fields (TepozEco). Zimbabweans plant fruit trees atop privy muck (ArborLoo). Book: The Humanure Handbook.

Big picture: Clean water is becoming more valuable than gold. Nobody shits on gold.

TRANSPORT: Be here now

Challenges: Philadelphia's rail system was ripped out for cars, which clog streets and slow emergency response. Cars smash, kill, maim. They inhale paychecks and taxes, exhale rotten air. They compel war for oil. We'll become stronger and sexier as pedaling bipeds.

Next steps: To risk your life for your country, ride a bike. Hop on the bus. Revive street rail with ultralight passenger cars. Restore regional freight routes. Raise transit funds with local gasoline tax. Make pathways for bicycles, rollerblades, skateboards, Segways, scooters and wheelchairs. Restore canals. Zone for mixed use, to reduce travel needs. Live near your work. Employ multitudes making mosaic sidewalks. Convert paving to playgrounds.

Local heroes: PhillyCarShare, Bike Share Philadelphia, Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Neighborhood Bike Works and Bike Church, Critical Mass bike rides, bike shops, Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, Pennsylvania Transit Coalition, PenTrans. Even SEPTA: Trains are clunky and late, but they're there.

World champions: Carfree Cities conferences, carfree.com, World Naked Bike Ride, Urban Ecology.

Big picture: The first cities rebuilt for proximity rather than speed will win this race.

JOBS: The full employment economy

Challenges: Philadelphia has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs in 50 years. Now we import stuff once made here. Today, millions of American jobs depend on servicing bad things rather than good things. Car crashes are 8 percent of the GDP. How many jobs would end if criminals went on strike? What jobs would be lost if people ate healthy fresh food and exercised? What if we were content with what we owned?' We'll advance from jobs managing damage to jobs creating a beautiful city worthy of beautiful children.

Next steps: All skills can rotate greenward. Philadelphia needs at least 100,000 green-collar jobs to rebuild, retrofit, plant, harvest, manufacture and repair the homes and tools of the future. Arts and healing arts are green jobs, too.

Local heroes: Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia, American Cities Foundation, Penn Future, Ray of Hope Project. Green Jobs Philly, Neighborhood Environmental Action Team, Green Labor Administration, several City Council members.

World champions: Blue Green Alliance (enviros and unions united), Green for All, Apollo Alliance, D.C. Greenworks, Sustainable South Bronx.

Big picture: We'll develop new definitions of career, success; build green safety nets.

BUSINESS & INDUSTRY: Luxuriate in the Necessities

Challenges: America has been outstanding at pouring concrete, going fast and throwing things away. But high costs of raw materials, manufacture and trucking are causing consumers to quit consuming for the sake of consumption. Our Next Great Economy will sell more of durable value. We'll all have enough.

Next steps: Regional manufacture will resume as transport costs grow. Top niches will be basics: housing, energy, clothing, housewares. Orchards and gardens and food processing. Holistic healing will grow. Likewise, handcrafts. Everything energy-efficient.

Local heroes: Sustainable Business Network, Buy Local Philly, White Dog Café, Provenance Architecturals, Re-Store, flea markets, farmers markets, materials exchanges, repair shops, recycling.

World champions: Socially Responsible Investing. 'Magazines: Green Business Journal, Adbusters.

Site: storyofstuff.org.

Big picture: Smart money invests to raise all boats.

GOVERNMENT: The land is the law of the land

Challenges: Many bureaucrats trained in obsolete systems resist change, defend their turf. City's health insurers and pensions drag city down.

Next steps: Government welcomes grassroots innovators by passing laws facilitating greening of economy and neighborhoods: urban land reform, urban agriculture, sanitation and water codes, building codes. When urgent change is resisted, citizens underthrow the government.

Local heroes: Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, PWD, streets guys who dig on rainy nights.

World champions: City of Curitiba, Brazil, encourages experimentation and welcomes mistakes. Magazines: Governing, Planners Network.

Big picture: Good government takes risks, makes change easy. "Make no little plans" —Daniel Burnham.

PUBLIC SAFETY: Just be sure to let that happen again

Challenges: Whenever people are hungry, cold or fearful due to unemployment, crime rises. Isolated resentment becomes street protest or riot. Racism flares. Taxpayers cannot hire enough police to escape chaos. Public safety is secured by creating safety nets for food, fuel, housing and health care.

Next steps: Jobs fight crime. Decriminalize marijuana locally. Hire ex-offenders. Neighborhood watch instead of neighborhood watch TV.

Local heroes: Block captains, Men United for a Better Philadelphia, Ray of Hope Project, City Harvest, People Against Recidivism.

World champions: Time Dollar Youth Court, Rainbow Police. Book: Defensible Space.

Big picture: People who are respected, loved and secure do not kill. '

EDUCATION: Keep it real

Challenges: Curriculums are less relevant to getting jobs or fixing society. Forty-five percent of Philadelphia high-schoolers drop out. Students are graded like eggs.

Next steps: Respectfully teaching skills of neighborhood management will make learning fun. Teach creativity rather than consumerism.

Local heroes: Thousands of dedicated teachers, Neighborhood Enterprise Schoolteachers, magnet schools, Waldorf School. Newspaper: The Notebook.

World champions: Paolo Freire; free university education in Europe.

Big picture: Loving learning is the first lesson.

CULTURE: Life gets highest ratings

Challenges: Media that's cynical about grassroots power features crime and celebrities.

Next steps: Empower average people to make music, art, dance, theater. Revive street-corner singing. Bring back vaudeville. Parachute clowns into parks.

Local heroes: Mural Arts Program, Raices Culturales Latinoamericanas, Spiral Q Puppet Theater, 373 groups listed at philaculture.org. Locally made homecrafts. Philadelphia's 2,800 murals feature children, heroes, nature.

Whether you're a student, job seeker, employee or retiree, there are thousands of ways to connect to Philadelphia's green movement. You're the one we've been waiting for. Check the ever-growing list of local green-jobs Web sites (start with greenjobsphilly.org/future.html). Visit local green businesses and groups. Time to bring those murals to life.

Green Fest 2009

Plans are shaping up for Green Fest 2009. This will be our third Green Fest. For 2009, we are moving to the campus of Alfred University in the picturesque, small village of Alfred. Alfred is in rural Allegany County, 80 miles south of Rochester. The Short Line Bus runs several buses daily between Alfred, Westchester, New York City and Long Island.

For more information about Green Fest 2009, visit our website http://nygreenfest.org/.

Leonard Lehrman and Helene Williams in Upstate New York, Aug. 3-8

Leonard Lehrman and Helene Williams, who gave us a wonderful performance of songs from Leonard's musical The Booby Trap at Green Fest 2007, are performing again in upstate New York this August. Sunday, Aug. 3, 2008, Leonard and Helene will perform together with national treasure Helen Boatwright at 3pm in a program of music by Charles Ives, Howard Boatwright, and Leonard Lehrman at Helen Boatwright's home in Fayetteville, co-sponsored by the Society for New Music. Admission by invitation only. Please contact Leonard and Helene by email at ljlehrman@gmail.com.

Later that week, Helene and Leonard will be leading "Free Your Voice" workshops Wednesday and Thursday Aug. 6 & 7 at 3, and performing in concert Friday evening Aug. 8 at 7 with Cary Bair in the Opera/Musical Theatre Special Interest Group of The Naturist Society, as part of the Northeast Naturist Festival at Empire Haven in Moravia, NY. For details, call (315) 497-0135 or go to the festival website.














Helene and Leonard rehearsing.

Leonard and Helene have had a busy spring. On Saturday, May 17, 2008, the first performance of The Booby Trap since Susan Blake's death, took place in her memory, at Womanspace at the Great Neck Senior Center, co-sponsored by Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition's "Prevention Is the Cure" Week. Performing were Helene Williams, Kathryn Wieckhorst (taking Susan's part and also playing the cello), and Cary Bair and Leonard Lehrman, who alternated at the grand piano. In attendance were 50 people, mostly women, mostly retired. Professor Scott Carlin of Long Island University gave an illuminating lecture, and led a lively discussion afterwards.













Helene and Leonard with Kathryn Wieckhorst.








Prof. Scott Carlin, Michael and Cindy Rosenbaum, Cary Bair, Ann Mayer-Kristiansen, Helene, Gladys Roth, and Leonard at Womanspace on May 17, 2008.

On Saturday, June 7, 2008, a full-to-capacity Court Street Music in Valley Stream hosted their 7th annual recital by and for students of Helene Williams & Leonard Lehrman, and their friends & families, this year dedicated to the memory of Susan Blake. The major work premiered on the program was Leonard's new song cycle "Long Island Songs of Seasoned Women," settings of 10 poems by 9 Long Island women poets, all of whom are represented in the anthology, "Songs of Seasoned Women" (Quadrasoul, 2007), edited by Patti Tana. Helene sang settings of poems by Tana (opening and closing the cycle), Sally Ann Drucker, Susan Astor, Lynn Green, Pat Falk, Margaret Dinzler Shaw, and Muriel Lilker. Helene's student Ijeoma Merenini sang settings of poems by Marcia McNair and Lorraine Mund. McNair, Green, and Lilker all attended.









Leonard, Helene, Lynn Green, Marcia McNair, Muriel Lilker and Ijeoma Merenini at Court Street Music on June 7, 2008.

Tana, whose mother passed away that evening, sent copies of the book for all in the grateful audience to follow the texts. Musical references quoted in the cycle, which was introduced and accompanied by the composer, include two Christina Rossetti settings of Leonard's, Trouble in Tahiti, La Bohème, Hair, "Dayenu" from the Passover Seder (which Susan attended in Valley Stream regularly), Schubert's "Ave Maria," the anti-war song "Study War No More," which was sung at Susan's burial October 8, 2007, led by Lisa Fishbein, who herself passed away January 29, 2008 at age 51, and two duets from The Booby Trap that had been written for, and performed by Susan: "Bras, Not Genes," and "Pusher Bra." Nassau County People's Poet Max Wheat and his wife Virginia attended the run-thru the day before, and spoke glowingly of the poems and their settings, promising to try to help enable the booking of other performances.















The People's Poet Laureate of Nassau County, Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr. and his wife Virginia.

On Thursday, June 19, 2008, the 55th anniversary of the death of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case held its annual memorial meeting, this year for the second time at NYU's Tamiment Library, which houses the Committee's papers. Messages of solidarity from Robert and Michael Meeropol and the Association pour le réxamen de l'affaire Rosenberg in France. Audience members numbered 132. $1515 was collected. Tributes were paid to members of the Committee who recently passed away: Helene Williams sang Edith Segal's "My Loved One" and "Underneath the Spanish Stars," the latter in memory of Moe Fishman (whose widow Georgia Wever spoke and mounted a beautiful photo exhibit of him) and Muriel Goldring, whose papers, left to the Tamiment, are still being processed, and who also left considerable sums of money to, among others, the Committee, the Tamiment Library, and the Rosenberg Fund for Children. Muriel's late husband Ben, and Moe Fishman, both fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Following Richard Corey's and Julie Eigenberg's singing of Richard's setting of "Ethel's Last Letter," 92-year-old Miriam Moskowitz, who had been imprisoned on the testimony of the same Harry Gold who was a star witness against the Rosenbergs, and who spent considerable time with Ethel in jail, movingly read the chapter on Ethel from her memoirs.














Morton Sobell, the Rosenbergs' co-defendant, Tamiment Director Michael Nash at the podium, "Professor" Irwin Corey and Leonard at the Tamiment Library, June 19, 2008.

Also featured as speakers were this year's National Lawyers Guild award recipient Margaret Ratner Kunstler (Helene performed Leonard's setting of Bill Kunstler's sonnet on Corliss Lamont, in tribute to her); Carol Jochnowitz, author of an eye-opening article in the latest Jewish Currents; and the Rosenbergs' co-defendant Morton Sobell--for whom Helene performed an excerpt from Leonard's & Kim Rich's new opera in progress, Alger: "Are you now or have you ever been a member of a conspiracy... to make life better for other people...?" Fifteen members of The Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus performed three works on texts by Abel Meeropol, the man who adopted the Rosenbergs' orphaned sons: "Lost Forever" (melody by Meeeropol, arranged by Leonard Lehrman); "Conscience" (music by Leonard Lehrman, performed in memory of "the social conscience of Long Island" who had spoken at the last several meetings, Susan Blake); and concluding with "The House I Live In" (music by Earl Robinson, arranged by Leonard Lehrman).

The photo of Susan Blake at the beach on Fire Island, first posted on this blog, is included in the tribute to Susan on the website of The New Music Connoisseur.

Great American Healthy Food Festival!

If you are in Brooklyn on June 28, be sure and visit the Great American Healthy Food Festival sponsored by the East New York Food Co-op. The festival will take place on New Jersey Avenue between New Lots & Riverdale Avenues, Saturday, June 28, 2008, 11am-7pm. Michele Danels, the secretary and one of the founders of ENYFC, spoke on our local foods panel at Green Fest 2007.

Visit Green Fest at Clearwater

Visit our Green Fest booth at the Clearwater Festival this weekend, June 21 & 22 from 10am to Dusk on the Shores of the Hudson River at Croton Point Park. Below is our team at Clearwater 2007.

New York Green Fest 2009

Fri.-Sun. Aug. 7-9, 2009
Howell Hall, Alfred University, Alfred, NY

Spend a weekend sharing skills for sustainable living and sustainable politics on the Alfred University campus in rural upstate New York. Learn how to build a small wind turbine, bake in an earth oven, set up a CSA, live job free, build new media outlets, run a third party political campaign and much more at NY Green Fest 2009, Fri.-Sun., Aug. 7-9, 2009. Green Fest is a benefit for the Green Party of New York. The festival is open to all who are interested in sustainable living and sustainable politics.

The $65 fee for the weekend includes all workshops, tours and keynote addresses, exhibitors, swimming, yoga and hiking. Lodging and meals are additional. Dorm rooms, camping and the Saxon Inn are available on campus. Local bed and breakfasts are also available. Meals prepared from locally-grown food will be served at the Alfred University dining hall.

Our workshop schedule is being developed. We invite Green friendly activists from across New York State to offer workshops on sustainable topics. We also invite Green friendly exhibitors to set up tents and sell their own crafts, local food items, books and renewable energy systems outdoors on the Alfred campus green next to Howell Hall.

New York Green Fest is a biennial event. Green Fest 2009 is our third Green Fest. For 2009, Green Fest is moving to the campus of Alfred University in the picturesque, small village of Alfred. Alfred is in rural Allegany County, 80 miles south of Rochester. The Short Line Bus runs several buses daily between Alfred, Westchester, New York City and Long Island. Green Fest will arrange buses from Rochester for attendees.

For more information, visit our new website, http://nygreenfest.com.

Gay Nicholson earns award for outstanding community service

Gay Nicholson, who gave us a great presentation on community organizing for sustainability at Green Fest 2007, will be the recipient of The Cornell Tradition’s seventh annual Debra S. Newman ’02 Community Recognition Award for her volunteer efforts. Nicholson will receive her award at the National Volunteer Week Day of Service at Cornell. The event will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 26 at the Women’s Community Building, and is designed to be community-wide celebration of volunteerism in the greater Ithaca community.

Nicholson received the Newman award as a result of her strong commitment to community service and leadership, including her work with Sustainable Tompkins, a coalition she helped create in 2004. Nicholson has served as program coordinator for the organization at its founding, and continues to further the organization’s mission by facilitating workshops and study circles, convening the Cayuga Sustainability Council, and much more. More information about Sustainable Tompkins can be found at www.sustainabletompkins.org.

Planning Green Fest 2009

The planning committee has decided to make New York Green Fest a biennial event, and is considering Fri.-Sun., Aug. 7-9, 2009, on the campus of Alfred University in Alfred, NY for the dates and location of Green Fest 2009.

Susan Blake Tribute, 2/2/08

From Leonard and Helene Williams Lehrman comes this report on the tribute to Susan Blake held Feb. 2, 2008, at Court Street Music in Valley Stream. The tribute included showing a video of last summer's performance of the Booby Trap at Green Fest. The purpose of Green Fest is to build recognition for the work of wonderful activists like Susan, Leonard and Helene. We are glad to post this tribute to Susan, whose work at PeaceSmiths has been an inspiration to us all.

"Fifteen of Susan's closest friends came and together watched & listened to more than an hour of video and audio recordings of her, including but not limited to the 9 minutes played at the Jan. 20 Shelter Rock celebration of her life that had been attended by (by our count) c. 135 people. We began with the July 22, 2004 "Return the Light" Fundraiser (at which Susan spoke briefly, and enjoyed watching Lisa Fishbein singing her own new words to "Which Side Are You On?" Lisa passed away last Monday, age 51, so our event was in her memory as well as Susan's. (On Sunday morning, Feb. 3, at United Methodist Church of Huntington & Cold Spring Harbor, the choir sang "A New Wind A-Blowin'" by Langston Hughes & Elie Siegmeister. Siegmeister shared the same Jan. 15 birthday with Martin Luther King and Lisa. We dedicated the singing of the anthem to her memory.)

"Then we watched Susan's speech on Bob Goldberg's video of the June 24, 2007 Cedarmere ceremony at which Max Wheat became, in her words, "the People's Poet Laureate of Nassau County." It was one of the best prepared and best delivered speeches she ever gave. I was proud to be with her, sharing a blanket, that day. Richard Barnhart then read his own delightful verse tribute to Max, a copy of which we're looking forward to receiving, having previously received and posted here his tribute to Susan and her bicycle.

"Next we watched Susan deliver a 2-minute question at a June 23, 2005 Nassau/Suffolk panel discussion on the death penalty, in which she brilliantly summed up the interconnectedness of the death penalty issue with so many other issues today. Max remarked immediately that her words ought to be transcribed and made available. And so they shall be - perhaps we'll have them posted together with her Cedarmere speech, and Richard Barnhart's poem.

"Susan first came into our lives, attending our April 3, 2005 Long Beach Library concert, at which she distributed flyers promoting that June meeting. Two months and a day later, June 4, 2005, she sang in her only concert with the Oceanside Chorale, which I conducted, and which my wife Helene Williams captured on videotape. Watching her quick-change set-up stage managing (for which she got applause) and then getting into the screamingly funny character of Eileen in "Ohio," the Comden-Green-Bernstein Wonderful Town duet with Dorothy Martin, was simply priceless.

"Our first appearance at PeaceSmiths, a recital-cum-party Feb. 17, 2006 for my book, Marc Blitzstein: A Bio-Bibliography (Praeger, 2005) was filmed by Bob Goldberg, and contained a few nuggets we watched of Susan introducing us: She talked about the social significance of Blitzstein's work, thanked the Maldeb and Edgar Lehrman Memorial foundations for their support, and described her own identification with the autobiographical aspects of Blitzstein's radio song play about a composer seeking and finding a social purpose for his work, "I've Got the Tune," reading Elie Siegmeister's vivid description of it, quoted in my book. Our recording of that work, released on Original Cast Records (also in 2005), has been played (by Bill Propp) on WBAI. Copies of the CD were handed out yesterday as party gifts to all attendees, including one member of the PeaceSmiths board.

"After that came the Russian Scene from my & Karen Ruoff Kramer's E.G.: A Musical Portrait of Emma Goldman, filmed by Bob Goldberg Mar. 25, 2007 at the Long Beach Library, in which Susan shouted out the line "So why don't you go back to Russia?" and then played the simultaneous interpreter into English of Emma's confrontation with Lenin on the question of human rights (in Russian, which he insisted that they speak). Then came two numbers performed by Susan at NY Green Fest on the Ithaca Commons, videotaped by Craig Seeman, Aug. 12, 2007: first was Leah Fichandler's & Joel Mandelbaum's "The Causes Are Waiting for You," from the 1983 musical As You Dislike It, slightly updated by me (for Susan), in which she was joined at the end by Helene; second was "The Pusher Bra" from The Booby Trap by Sydney Ross Singer & me, which I wrote for Susan while sitting with her in the drip room at Dr. Michael Schachter's office in Suffern Oct. 4, 2006, almost one year to the day before she died. Cary Bair sang this with her in all other performances to date, but since he couldn't make it Aug. 12 I got to sing it with her. "Don't ever leave me... It must be love..." we sang to each other, with so many levels of both irony and affection such as I shall never forget. One-minute speeches by Susan on the importance of support groups and social activism concluded the NY Green Fest segments shown.

"Then we watched excerpts from the Aug. 10, 2007 performance of the Opera/Musical Theatre Special Interest Group of The Naturist Society at Empire Haven in Moravia, NY. Susan began and was part of the quartet in "A Song to Begin," with music by Gerhard Bronner, who also passed away just last year. Then she launched into the anthropologist's solo, "Where Is the Tribe for Me?" a comic tour de force, followed by the duet, with me, "Words, Words, Words" from Walter Marks's 1964 Broadway show Bajour. Max said in reaction: "I never knew she could be so entertaining!" Nobody did. But maybe if we can get these videos up on YouTube, more people will. A short solo from Capitol Steps preceded 13 selections from The Booby Trap, with Susan's joie de vivre and spirited, singing, acting and dancing holding us all mesmerized.

"The first performance of The Booby Trap in Susan's memory will be held Sat. May 17 at 2pm at Womanspace, at the Great Neck Sr. Center, 80 Grace Ave. in Great Neck. On Sat. June 7, at 3pm, we'll have our annual Court Street Music student recital & house concert, at which Helene will sing the first complete performance of my song cycle in memory of Susan, "Long Island Songs of Seasoned Women," based on 10 poems by 9 poets in the collection, "Songs of Seasoned Women," edited by Patti Tana. We had a preview yesterday of one of those songs, "Long Island Just Isn't Long Enough," on a poem by Marcia McNair, sung by our student IJ Merenini, who will also be singing it (among other things) at the Feb. 10, 2008 United Methodist Church of Huntington & Cold Spring Harbor talent show, and at the Suffolk Peace Concert at Cinema Arts Center in Huntington Mar. 2, 2008.

"The last recording we played was a phone message of Susan coyly telling us that she had unexpectedly become available to join our Seder (which she did attend) last spring; and we immediately invited all present to attend our Seder this spring. We're not sure yet whether it will be Sat. Apr. 19 or Sun. Apr. 20, and we're not sure how many people will be able to come, nor how many we can accommodate, but in the spirit of the Obama campaign, let's all think as positively as possible: 'Yes, we can.' "

Susan Blake's Bike

A sonnet in memory of Susan Blake was read at PeaceSmiths on Dec. 7, 2007, by the author, Richard Barnhart.

SUSAN BLAKE'S BIKE

In Memory of Susan Blake

In college, Susan vowed no more to drive
When, at the wheel, she hit a cat upstate
"It had the right to live and stay alive,"
She countered when her biking I'd berate.

Two times I saw the bicycle she'd ride.
The first was on a cold, bleak winter day.
The snow came down and covered it outside
The nursing home where her mom Betty lay.

The second time was only this past spring,
Deep in a hallway of First Methodist,
Its basket filled with plant sale wares to bring
To her small garden. Lord, how she'll be missed!

Her bike was old and worn, not worth the steal,
But, oh, what tender thoughts those times reveal!

--Richard Barnhart
10/8/07, 11/27/07