Chapter 4 of Ariel's Book – or – Bogged Down By Blogs.....

Wow, Chapter 4 of Ariel's book has a lot going on! It takes on the enormous topic of a band's presence in the 2.0 web. There are a lot of great suggestions - however, I did get a bit overwhelmed at a certain point (but not that easily! I have been plugging away at this pretty steadily!), but I am proud to say I just started a 'blogroll' for the blog here (look a ways down the page in the right-hand column).

The part of the chapter I had some difficulty with is a large assignment to find 50 blogs you'd like your music to be reviewed on. She suggests adding them to a blogroll on your blog, as well as reading / commenting on / interacting with them. Well. I got a bit bogged down and boggled looking around the internet at blogs, and realized it will take quite a while to find 50 that might be a good match for my quirky little band. So in the spirit of trying to keep my life in better balance (it's a struggle for me to have time to play music & get enough sleep let alone work and exercise!), I decided to begin with a modest blogroll, and expand it as time goes on.

I started the blog roll with a few music/marketing type blogs I already had on my Google Reader (such as the always great Derek Sivers' blog - and Ariel's blog of course :-)). Then I added a couple of blogs that reviewed our previous CD, 'green' - Collected Sounds and musicdyke. Beyond that, I added a variety of music blogs in a few different categories, from online music sources I've enjoyed (somafm, KEXP), to west coast-based blogs located in areas that I want my band to play or play again soon (Portland Mercury and KZSC Santa Cruz for example) as well as a few others that looked interesting. Please check out the list and feel free to suggest more!

Here are two other things I did that Ariel suggests in the chapter:

- Joined the Podsafe Music Network. This is apparently now called “music alley” from mevio, and I added our song Velveteen.

- Create a Flickr Photostream for the band. I had started a Picasa one a little while ago, but hadn't gotten very far... So, I went ahead and created a Flickr one that has a more pictures, and also joined a few groups there that Ariel suggested.

She also suggests using twitter, which we have already had started doing (Follow us!! :-) ).

Whew! This has all been great, but ok, I'm tired now. Better go play some music, as that is what this is all about in the first place! And - also work on our record release which is coming up very soon!!! Yay!!!

- Melissa

p.s. - My back has been feeling quite a bit better this week, thanks for asking. ;-)

Grrrlz Rock, Comedy, & Easily Overwhelmed Girl Getting Her Voice?

This month, my band Demimonde Slumber Party (DSP), is one of many performing in the Grrrlz Rock concert series. I plan to play a new song in which Easily Overwhelmed Girl (EOG) confesses her coping response to the increasing number of endangered species...

Giving a voice to the EOG inside me requires that I keep in touch with my sense of humor. It is not too hard for me to be comedically inspired after attending a great Grrrlz Rock event last week - The Oregon Women’s Comedy Festival. (For more info, here are a couple of stories about the festival from The Register-Guard: the 2007 festival ; the 2006 festival.)

Endangered species and humor? How does that work? Come see DSP play next Saturday at Cozmic Pizza and find out! It is an all-ages show, plus it is an early show, so that makes it easy for all of you with early bedtimes! Starts at 7 pm, with us slated to play second, with Beth Willis, Soulicious, and Complicated.

Hope to see you there!

Ecopsychology – is Mother Earth in your Family of Origin?

I learned about the concept of ecopsychology at the first Bioneers Conference I attended (see post about Bioneers), and I found it to be very compelling.

Ecopsychology addresses ideas such as: a person's overall health and well-being is related to the health of the environment beyond just their physical health and well-being (i.e. polluted air, water, or food makes you physically sick). In other words, the destruction of the environment would affect a person's mental/emotional health as well. Conversely, living in a healthy ecosystem would increase a person's mental/emotional health as well as their physical health.

This line of thinking leads to considering that say, restoring a wilderness area would not only be 'healing' for the environment, but therapeutic for people as well. Another example could be children's overall well-being could be increased by participating in an urban garden, thinking of it as beyond just a learning experience or a chance to perhaps grow some healthy food.

This may all sound obvious, but such a ingrained part of 'Western civilization' includes ideas about 'taming the wilderness' and controlling nature, that this kind of thinking really goes against the way much of how society is structured. And that includes everything from city planning to the medical system - as well as psychology.

To me all these are connected, and make me think of such things as the 'study' that showed that mothers who lived in housing projects with green areas hit their children less than mothers in housing projects with no green areas, or that hospital patients with a view of trees healed faster than those with a view of a brick wall.

What I think is how healing it can be for both humans and the environment to heal the relationship between humans and nature. Indeed, our survival as a species (as well as the survival of many other species) depends on it.

Here is a wiki page on ecopsychology that has more info plus links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecopsychology

Chocolate - and Eating Local

Yeah, I like chocolate. I didn't have it for a very many years, because I get so addicted to it. But for now, I am having it again. I try to have as much of my food as possible come from local sources, so chocolate is an exception...

Speaking of local food sources, it is great that the idea of "Eating local" has become more widespread, for example, check out "The 100-Mile Diet".

Here are the two kinds of chocolate treats I currently am enjoying (well not right at this minute!). I chose them because they are organic, don't have animal products or much sugar, and don't have soy (Why not? see related post on soy):

1. Coconut Bliss

Dark Chocolate flavor of course! Delicious and only four ingredients! (organic coconut milk, organic agave syrup, organic fair trade cocoa, and organic vanilla extract) And as a bonus, it's a local company!


2. Vivani Organic Dark Chocolate – 85% cocoa

This is also delicious and only three ingredients! (organic cocoa mass, organic cocoa butter, and organic raw cane sugar.) It was hard to find a chocolate bar that didn't have soy lecithin. [I did find one other, Green & Black's Organic Mint Bar, it is very good, but also a bit sweeter than my 85% very dark chocolate] It is not a local company however - this chocolate comes from Germany!


I admit, when I first started having chocolate again, I nervously thought of the scene in the movie Chocolat where this guy eats a lot of chocolate in a chocolate shop window and then passes out... Hasn't happened yet, but you never know!

The China Study

I am reading a book I would highly recommend to others. It is called The China Study, and it is reminding me of all the reasons to eat plenty of organic veggies, fruits, and grains (some reasons I already knew about, plus a lot of new reasons!).

Although I have been vegetarian or vegan for almost all of my adult life, when I get in busy/stressed mode, I sometimes need reminders that things like humus on toast, although quick to prepare, and not too unhealthy, do not fulfill all the requirements of a healthy diet...

I first came across the book on a the blog (that I would recommend also) of a musician named Christine Kane:
http://christinekane.com/blog/on-giving-up-dairy/

I also recommend Steve Pavlina's site which has an interesting article relating to this book:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/09/the-china-study/

Here's a couple links for the book:
The China Study (Has an excerpt you can download)
Amazon.com

Green Social Networking

The other day I googled "Green Social Networking" and came up with this:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/green_social_ne.php

Which had a list of five examples. I 'applied' to Zaadz (http://www.zaadz.com/), the one that jumped out at me first, and this evening was 'accepted'. I am hoping this will be a good source of connections & inspirations - I'll keep you posted!

Healthy Food – Soy Bien?

One of the central things to maintaining my personal sustainability is eating healthy foods. This can be difficult, especially during busy or stressful times, or while traveling. So it is particularly frustrating when I think I am eating something healthy, and then a whole bunch of articles come out warning of its dangers.... Obviously these kinds of articles usually have to be treated with some amount of skepticism, since studies are often funded by food product companies with an interest in their food being touted as an essential part of a healthy diet...

So, when I was recently unable to avoid articles about the dangers of one 'health' food I definitely have eaten a lot of – and enjoyed - soy (just google 'soy dangers' and you'll get more info than you want), I decided to be a bit cautious and minimize soy products. Until I read more, I want to avoid potentially harmful hormonal and chemical effects - and I also want to avoid genetically modified soy.

I want to learn more about how soy has been used traditionally to get a perspective on a reasonable approach to soy's place in a healthy diet. I haven't had much time to research this yet, but here's one article where a physician suggests using soy similarly to the way it was eaten in the Japan in the late '50s. The main thing I would add to his suggestions is to use organic or at least non-genetically modified soy products:
http://www.johnleemd.com/store/soy.html

There is one soy product that I have not given up, and am still enjoying very much - organic tempeh. Tempeh, being fermented, is not supposed to have the potentially harmful qualities attributed to soy in these articles. The other day I caught myself saying to someone “They can't take my organic tempeh away!!!”, so I guess this whole evils-of-soy thing has been a bit traumatic for me... Sigh...

Easily Overwhelmed Girl (EOG)'s Efforts to Get Greener – an Introduction

This is the beginning of a journey to answer the basic question:

How can I work towards greater sustainability?

For me this means striving towards a healthier balance in my life as well as making a difference in the world around me. When I am out of balance, I get uselessly stressed out and have no personal sustainability, much less ability to make a difference around me – so to me the ideas of internal and external sustainability are inseparable. So, since I am very easily overwhelmed around these kinds of things, a big challenge for me will be trying to keep it simple, remembering to focus on the positive, and somehow keep my of sense of humor – at least about myself....

Alright, here I go!!! Wish EOG luck!