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Farmlab Public SalonSam EastersonFriday, April 2, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

The Museum of Animal Perspectives: Crowdsourcing Remotely Sensed Wildlife Imagery

This presentation will focus on the history and future of the Museum of Animal Perspectives (MAP). The Museum of Animal Perspectives collects and displays wildlife imagery that has been captured using remote sensing cameras. Through the presentation and interpretation of this imagery, the MAP endeavors to expand the public's capacity to empathize with animals and plants.

MAP founder Sam Easterson is a video naturalist. Included among the museums that have exhibited his work are the Whitney Museum of American Art (Biennial), the Walker Art Center, the New Museum and the International Center of Photography. In addition to working as a video naturalist, Sam Easterson has also held staff positions at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and at the Te Tapa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand. Most recently, Easterson worked as a Senior Producer at the Royal Ontario Museum, where he developed video content for the ROM’s new permanent Schad Gallery of Biodiversity.

Above: Burrowing Owl In Burrow

Courtesy: Sam Easterson/Museum of Animal Perspectives

Further Information

Science Friday
New York Times Lens
MAP Site

Farmlab Public SalonJuliano BrotmanFriday, March 26, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

New Perfect Food is Here:

A way to finally do something about all that green talk!

Juliano Brotman began working alongside his father, a chef, at the age of eight. By ten years old he was cooking at full gourmet status, able to make any of his father’s one-of-a-kind creations. Although constantly cooking dishes of butter, oil and flesh, even at a young age he realized that flesh and fat were just the medium; it was all about the spices – “edible alchemy!”

After wilderness encounters in Palm Springs at the age of fifteen, Brotman became a strict vegan. Health food chains wouldn’t be around for years to come however and, as he explains: “there was nothing! I was a raw fooder and I didn’t even know it until I started having to explain.

At 18 Brotman moved to Chicago where he found some raw fooders eating simple whole foods. There was, he says “only wheatgrass, fruitarians and salad-tarians. Even before I was a vegetarian and vegan, I followed in my father’s footsteps of not simply cooking, but creating. I always made wonderful new creations that blew people’s minds! When I turned RAW these amazing recipes continued! Everyone is genius at something!” In the years that followed, the RAW chef saw a shift in health consciousness – organic food became more accessible, vegetarian food became a menu option – and he moved to San Francisco. Here he found the city’s raw food group and attended their first raw potluck party. “It was a large, eclectic crowd, all interested in what raw food could do for them. But the potluck spread consisted of wheatgrass, fruit, fruit salads, many salads, bowls of dried fruits, nuts and seeds, and rejuvelac.” In contrast when Juliano’s food showed up – pizzas in 3 flavors, burritos, ice cream and chocolate avocado pudding – everyone went crazy!

In August 1994, Juliano opened RAW in San Francisco – the world’s first raw cuisine restaurant – and in 1999 he published RAW, the UNcook BOOK, the world’s first raw food cookbook of ‘Decadent Foods’. “Juliano”, he says, “has changed the world!” "There have never been so many flavors going into my mouth at one sitting", says the Vegetarian Times.

Click for more information

Above: Raw dishes at Planet Raw, images courtesy of Juliano Brotman

Farmlab Public SalonVan Zan FraterFriday, March 19, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

Jesus is my Homeboy - the real story

You may think you know Jesus is my Homeboy. It's the image you've seen on tee-shirts, hats and badges. It's the iconic design worn by celebrities too numerous to mention. It’s that shirt you’re wearing right now – but there is much more to Jesus is my Homeboy than just an image.

Jesus is my Homeboy was not developed to make a fashion concern motivated by cashing in on a trend. It is not a calculated ploy to make money; it was born of inspiration gained from life experience. It is now time to tell the real story behind the success of Jesus is my Homeboy.

Van Zan, President and CEO of the Jesus is my Homeboy Foundation Inc., served in the Navy during the Viet Nam War Era. He is an actor, a singer, and has performed with his family music group, “The Fraters”, at, among other places, the Brentwood and Wadsworth Theaters. For 14 years he was a union AFGE local 1061 representative, serving as a Steward, Vice President and Executive Vice President consecutively until 2002. He established the Jesus is my Homeboy Foundation Inc. a non-profit human services organization in 2007 to provide assistance with burial expenses and grief counseling for innocent victims of gang violence. The founder, a victim of gang violence himself, Van Zan has a deep commitment to assisting families and individuals in this sudden and unexpected time of crisis. Other services to be provided in the future.

Further Information: www.jesusismyhomeboy.org or www.jesusismyhomeboy.com

Farmlab Public SalonRobert BirchardFriday, March 12, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

HOORAY FOR EDENDALE!

A celebration of the birth and early growth of the movie industry in Los Angeles. Award winning film editor, writer and film industry historian Robert S. Bichard presents over 100 images exploring the first movie studios in L.A--which were established a century ago. The Selig Polyscope, Keystone, Pathe, Mixville and Norbig studios constituted L.A.’s first “Studio Row” in the 1910’s, and Hooray For Edendale! will take you inside the gates of these long-vanished pioneer film factories. This is a must attend event for anyone interested in the history of Los Angeles and the movies. This program was recently presented at the Hollywood Heritage Museum and the Los Angeles as Subject Archives Bazaar.

Image: Mack Sennett directing "Stolen Magic" (Keystone, 1915), Hans Koenekamp is the cameraman. Courtesy: Robert Birchard

Further information: http://www.rsbirchard.com

Farmlab Public SalonRoy A. BrownFriday, March 5, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

Vet to Vet:

Gladly Teach, Gladly Learn

The mission of Vet to Vet is to serve all veterans, their concerns, and emotional, spiritual, educational, vocational, transitional, real and present needs. We are veterans from every branch of service. We are combat vets and peacetime vets. We come from different backgrounds of every kind. Many of us have experienced the heat of battle and the consequences that often follow. Adjustment for us has not always been easy. That is why we have come together in partnership and cooperation with VA medical centers to offer peer support and education to our fellow veterans.

Vet to Vet is a peer support program that utilizes recovering veterans in a peer capacity to help other veterans. The program is a recovery-based model that involves veterans as both consumers and providers of mental health services. Vet to Vet provides a way for recovering veterans to be able to talk to others who have been through the same or simular experiences. It strives to educate veterans through direct interaction. Vet to Vet also involves consumers and families in orienting the mental health system towards recovery and develops paid positions for veteran(s) within the facility/network to work with mental health leadership in developing peer to peer.

Starting in 2003 with Roy Brown (Director) and Stacey Maruska (VA Liaison), Vet to Vet Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System has grown to be one of the premier Vet to Vet programs in the U.S. It also serves as the national training site for coordinators from across the country.

Further Information: vet2vetca.org

Metabolic Studio Public SalonWes JacksonFriday, February 26, 2010, NoonFree Admission

We Can Now Solve the World's Oldest Environmental Problem

Wes Jackson, President of The Land Institute (founded in 1976), will describe how, through a combination of genetics/plant breeding and ecology/evolutionary biology, we can save our agricultural soils and waters from erosion and chemical contamination.

Born in 1936 on a farm near Topeka, Kansas, Jackson attended Kansas Wesleyan (B.A Biology, 1958), and went on to study botany (M.A. University of Kansas, 1960) and genetics (Ph.D. North Carolina State University, 1967). He was a professor of biology at Kansas Wesleyan and later established the Environmental Studies program at California State University, Sacramento, where he became a tenured full professor. He resigned that position in 1976.

Dr. Jackson’s writings include both papers and books. His most recent work, The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge, co-edited with William Vitek, was released by University of Kentucky Press in 2008. Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place, also co-edited with William Vitek, was published in 1996. Becoming Native to This Place, 1994, sketches his vision for the resettlement of America's rural communities. Altars of Unhewn Stone appeared in 1987 and Meeting the Expectations of the Land, edited with Wendell Berry and Bruce Colman, was published in 1984. New Roots for Agriculture, 1980, outlines the basis for the agricultural research at The Land Institute.

The work of The Land Institute has been featured extensively in the popular media including The Atlantic Monthly, Audubon, National Geographic, Time Magazine, The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Life magazine named Wes Jackson as one of 18 individuals they predict will be among the 100 "important Americans of the 20th century." In the November 2005 issue, Smithsonian named him one of “35 Who Made a Difference” and in March, 2009 Wes was included in Rolling Stone’s “100 Agents of Change.”

Wes Jackson is a recipient of the Pew Conservation Scholars award (1990), a MacArthur Fellowship (1992), and Right Livelihood Award (Stockholm), known as “Alternative Nobel Prize” (2000). He has received four honorary doctorates and in 2007 received the University of Kansas Distinguished Service Award.

Further Information: The Land Institute

Farmlab Public SalonBuck McGibbony & Yuki Uehara-McGibbonyFriday, February 19, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

Geocaching – An Adventure Network

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

This salon will offer you a brief introduction to the technology and practices of Geocaching. We will share a few stories from our adventures while Geocaching and talk about how you can get started yourself. We will introduce you to Geocaching in a simple concise way and you will have the opportunity to go out and discover a Geocache for yourself at the event. Bring a GPS if you have one, but it’s ok if you don’t since we will a few available for use.

Buck McGibbony is a software engineer & computer technician residing with his wife Yuki in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. Buck is currently owner of WiseWerks, a small software development and consulting company. When not tweaking computer programs or running around L.A. fixing printers and hard drives Buck enjoys flying, hiking and traveling.

Yuki Uehara-McGibbony is from Japan and came to Los Angeles in ‘93 to study theatrical lighting. After working for stage productions as a freelancer for over 10 years, she decided to settle down in a cubicle. Now she happily works for a Japanese company as bilingual secretary. Yuki enjoys Geocaching while on vacation and here in Los Angeles.