Food For Thought

by Nazbanoo Pahlavi

in January's Carnegie Mellon Today

It can't be avoided. It's on every network, on every cable news station, in every newspaper. The map. Red states versus blue states. Conservatives against liberals. George W. Bush may have won the presidency, defeating his opponent, John Kerry, but to Fritz Haeg it felt like everyone lost—and not because of which candidate won. His malaise went well beyond politics. He would articulate it three years later in the preface to a project that unknowingly to him began to germinate on November 2, 2004.


"We watched as the media informed us that the United States had just split into red and blue. I was devastated by the results of the election, but I was also alarmed by the popular story that our country was cleft in two, with supposedly irreconcilable opposing points of view. For us or against us; it seemed like the lines had been drawn and you were meant to take a side."

It's often said by artists—writers, musicians, painters, actors—that to gain perspective of your country, you have to leave it. Not long after the 2004 presidential election, Haeg left the United States for a six-week residency in Australia.

"I wanted to use this break as an opportunity to consider the direction of my work."

Haeg's work wasn't easy to define. He was schooled as an architect, earning his degree from Carnegie Mellon in 1992. But during his collegiate days, it became evident that he wouldn't end up in an office of some skyscraper. In his final year, having fulfilled his requirements, he mostly enrolled in art classes.

The course selection didn't mean he abandoned his future as an architect. The profession had been his life's ambition since he was a youngster going to middle school in Minneapolis where, for fun, he studied copies of Architectural Record at the local public library. His dad noticed his son's interest and took him to meet an architect working downtown. Haeg remembers it distinctly, "the endless grid of fluorescent lights and little desks and drafting tables." And he remembers thinking, even then, that wasn't exactly what he wanted.

In search for what he was looking for after graduating from Carnegie Mellon, he worked and taught for a number of years in Connecticut, New York, California. Along the way, he became difficult to label professionally—architect, environmental designer, artist, teacher. Not long after settling in Los Angeles in 1999, he initiated Sundown Salons, which were a series of community gatherings for knitting, reading, dancing, drawing, performing, and conversing. At the University of Southern California, he taught "Workshop in Architecture" for non-majors and an interdisciplinary course, "Manifesto," at the Art Center College of Design, where the class "read the writings and manifestos of 20th-century artists and designers" culminating in the class having to "orally present our own manifesto on the final day of class."

Haeg was a man who had more depth than simply being classified as someone blue or red. Yet, as he left for Australia, the country was defining itself by only those colors. He recalled his misgivings, politically and culturally, before embarking on his trip of introspection:

"In spite of my migrations, I realized how limited my experience of my own country was. I was also beginning to feel uneasy with the insular, self-referential, and hermetic nature of the contemporary art and architecture community, of which I consider myself a part. Are we elitist, separatist, or just disinterested? Today's media climate allows you to filter your news and stories to only those with which you agree. Have we given up on any sort of real dialogue and returned to our corners to talk among ourselves? What is the appropriate response to the current state of the world, its politics, climate, and economics? What should I do next?"

During his stay in Australia, Haeg explored Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, the Queensland's Daintree Rainforest, and the nearby Great Barrier Reef. It's there his country began to come into focus; what it was, what it could be—the political divisiveness of Americans back home and the interdependence of the indigenous organisms in Australia that thrived on collaboration. The germination of what would become his project had taken another step—to transplant onto the American landscape, in a unique and socially conscious way, that spirit of nature's collaboration.

"I realized how completely interdependent each organism is upon the others. Remove one and the whole system can eventually degrade and collapse. This seemed to be a good lesson at a time when our obsession with independence is perhaps naïve and oversimplified. Sharing resources—water, air, streets, neighborhoods, cities, countries, and a planet—all of our destinies are more intertwined than ever."

He had his creative direction—wanting his next project to symbolically engage all Americans in a space we collectively occupy. The question for him was in what medium. When he returned to Los Angeles in 2005, he was unsure what his project would entail, but he knew where he wanted it to start—in the center of the country, the heartland, the symbolic starting point for an American project.

From there, a serendipitous sequence follows. Haeg, known for his hybrid projects in diverse media, is invited to speak at an event at Grand Arts in Kansas City. He meets curator Stacy Switzer, to whom he mentions his intended geographic starting point. Some months later, Switzer is asked to curate an exhibit on food and eating at the Salina Arts Center in Salina, Kan., about three hours west of Kansas City. Switzer immediately thinks of Haeg, whom she contacts to submit a proposal. Haeg doesn't know anyone in Salina, but being very near the geographic center of the country, the location is just right, and he jumps at the chance to participate. He flies out for a site visit to see where Salina will guide him creatively.

Once there, Switzer and Haeg take a drive through the countryside. Although Salina is a cultural hub for the towns nearby, this city of 50,000 residents is very much agricultural, with classic vistas of prairie plain and farmland—a unifying landscape connecting disparate homeowners—a precursor to the manicured lawns that have taken over the American landscape from New York to California in the post-World War II era. In fact, it is on the front yard in suburban Minneapolis where Haeg remembers spending hours mowing the lawn in the '80s—a stretch of green space, which like a farm takes great amounts of labor, but without an accompanying harvest.


"I think the front yard is a space that we take for granted in this country, and it extends from coast to coast, and we all collectively share it across all geographic, political, religious, and economic boundaries in this country. It's one of those rare geographies that really connects us," he says.

While it was on the front yard where Haeg worked the earth for the aesthetics of perfectly tended grass, it was in the vegetable garden his mother planted in the backyard where his family reaped benefits in the tasty forms of beans and squash used in summertime meals.

After that drive in Salina, Haeg knows the specific medium for his next project. He will comingle the interdependence of nature he witnessed in Australia with his mother's garden and the untapped potential of the American front lawn. The plan is for him to revive the Victory Gardens that Americans were encouraged to plant in their homes more than half a century ago to reduce the pressure on the public food supply and boost the country's morale by giving them a sense of empowerment and self-determination.

Haeg will design, prepare, and plant an edible garden on the front lawn of willing local residents Stan and Priti Cox. On July 4, 2005 (the day of independence), with the support of the Salina Arts Center, is the unveiling of the Coxes' front yard Victory Garden, which Haeg christens Edible Estates.

"An Edible Estate can serve to stitch communities back together, taking a space that was previously isolating and turning it into a welcoming forum that reengages people with one another."

The Coxes' front yard garden will include many herbs and vegetables that come in handy for Priti Cox's Indian dishes. Eventually thriving are okra, green chilies, Swiss chard, a curry leaf tree, eggplant, and tomatoes. Stan Cox reports that reaction from neighbors and sightseers has only been positive. He recounts one of his neighbors being interviewed by the media. "She told ABC cameras, 'Well, when they started tearing up their yard, I thought, what the heck's going on over there? But once they got it done, I liked it.'"

Clarence Ridgley's home is nearly 1,500 miles from the Coxes', located in a Baltimore neighborhood. When Ridgley decides to expand his small backyard garden in 2008, he comes across Haeg's Web site while surfing the Internet for some how-to gardening tips on planting blueberry bushes. He learns that the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore is sponsoring an Edible Estate. Ridgley applies, and Haeg flies to Baltimore to meet with him and eight other applicants in person because it's important to Haeg to select homeowners who have some gardening skills and will be articulate spokespeople for their garden. Ridgley is the one Haeg chooses.

Ridgley, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, knows his neighbors but mainly through hand waves and head nods. Once his front yard becomes an Edible Estate, though, he finds his neighbors regularly dropping by to visit. One neighbor down the street even uses Ridgley's garden for her own crops.

And when local middle-schoolers come by as a part of a field trip, some of the students are surprised to learn that tomatoes grow on vines. "They must think tomatoes grow in a supermarket," Ridgley laughs. Now the neighborhood kids like to pick and eat fruit from his garden; his strawberries are the most popular, and because he doesn't use any pesticides, no washing is necessary. Ridgley and his neighbors hope to work together so that they diversify what plants they grow on their respective properties in an effort at collective gardening across many front yards.

In the past three years, other Edible Estates have bloomed across the country—Maplewood, N.J.; Austin, Texas; and Lakewood, Calif. There is also one in London, England. With each Edible Estate, Haeg works closely with the homeowners to create a garden endemic to their needs and wants, both in the architectural design and in the selection and diversity of the edibles. Local neighbors, arts students, and friends help with the planting.

In the process, he says, people get to know each other—Republicans, Democrats, Independents—it doesn't matter. They are bonded by a common interest of how to best use a previously manicured residential resource. And, by the way, they're eating more healthfully and reducing their grocery bills. The evolution of his project is detailed in the book Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn (Metropolis Books, 2008).

Like its creator, Edible Estates defies labels—it's part social activism, part gardening, part art. It caught the attention of the curators at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art, who invited Haeg to be one of the artists of last year's Biennial, calling him "one of the 81 most interesting contemporary American artists currently working today."

For the Biennial, Haeg created an offshoot of Edible Estates—Animal Estates. He built homes for animals that are having difficulty sharing Manhattan with their nearly 2 million human neighbors. For the displaced native species, he created a 10-foot-diameter bald-eagle nest, a barn owl nest box on a telephone pole, a wood duck nest box over a beaver pond, a big brown bat house, an opossum rock pile, and a bobcat hollow tree trunk. After the exhibit, many of the animal estates were donated to a Manhattan public park where the animals have rent-free digs.

Meanwhile, the seeds of Edible Estates have taken hold. The author/architect/gardener/artist plans to continue impacting the country—in a way that Fox News and MSNBC can never match—by helping to create more Edible Estates in the United States, not in the red and blue states.

Nazbanoo Pahlavi (HNZ'03) is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.

Deferred Appreciation Investment

by Nazbanoo Pahlavi

in Carnegie Mellon Today, October 2008

After graduating from high school, Wayne Cutler, like many of his Long Island classmates, decides not to stray too far from home. He enrolls in a state school in upstate New York and plans to study psychology but ultimately switches to economics. Into his sophomore year, his academic interest hasn’t waned. He even meets with his high school guidance counselor and tells him how much he enjoys his major. After hearing that, the counselor suggests he consider transferring to Carnegie Mellon.

Unlike his counselor, Cutler hadn’t heard of Carnegie Mellon or of its reputation in business and economics. He follows the advice, however, and decides to apply for a transfer.

Evidently, being an excellent tennis player doesn’t hurt his chances for admission. "That probably helped me get in," says Cutler. It definitely helps him become captain of the Tartans’ tennis team—playing number one singles in his senior year. He also takes on a challenging course load in managerial economics. "I didn’t have a lot of time to hang out, watch TV, and eat Sugar Smacks," he recalls.

He does make time for Deirdre Maloney, who is in Pittsburgh completing an internship in her field of vocational rehabilitation. As their relationship grows, he admires her dedication to helping people with disabilities.

Cutler comes up with an idea to help people, too. He knows that many of his classmates are bright, but they lack training in personal money management. So with his roommate and friend David Gustin (HS'84), he makes plans to start a club that will teach hands-on the principles of investing. Instead of seeking start-up funds from Student Council, Cutler and Gustin make some phone calls. They get financial support from Mellon Bank, Federated Research, Value Line, and other financial institutions. He and Gustin raise about $10,000, and in the fall of 1982, about 100 students show up for the kick-off of the Investment Club.

Today, Cutler (HS'83) continues to give strategic advice, primarily to banks and wealth management institutions as co-founder and a managing director of Novantas, an international management consulting firm whose corporate office is in New York City. He also is helping Carnegie Mellon students who have an inspiration like he and Gustin did. The Deirdre Maloney Cutler Memorial Undergraduate Research Fund, named in memory of his wife who died from cancer four years ago, provides opportunities for undergraduate students who have a vision for a project. Additionally, Cutler says the initial $10,000 charitable gift is his message to undergraduates about helping people–a lesson he says he learned from his wife.

When future award recipients ask about the grant namesake, Cutler promises that either he or one of his three children, Shaynna, Brendan, and Wesley, will eagerly share stories about Deirdre Maloney Cutler.

"She was always outward focused," says Cutler. "To me, that's one of the greatest values you can have, focusing on others, not on yourself. That really embodied her spirit."

The Band Played On

by Nazbanoo Pahlavi

in Carnegie Mellon Today , October 2008

On the road home to Pittsburgh after a football game against the Franklin and Marshall Diplomats in Lancaster, Pa., a bus filled with Carnegie Mellon students stops for dinner at a family steakhouse. Diners exchange funny looks. The students may not look out of the ordinary during football games in Gesling Stadium, but they stick out in this crowd. They are Kiltie Band members. And about 100 of them, dressed in kilts, wait to order steaks in a line that goes all the way out the door.

Trombonist and Kiltie Band President Laurel Farmer calls the group a low-key "typical little ensemble," but there's a touch of playfulness in her voice. After all, the Kilties have a loud presence. During their routines at football games, they perform showtime shenanigans, back-and-forth antics with the Kiltie Cheermaster, and the occasional do-si-do. Farmer's outfit alone—complete with knee-high socks and a sporran, a fur-adorned ornamentation hung below the waist—screams Tartan pride. On her red band jacket, she exhibits 30 pieces of personal "flair," buttons and ribbons with such phrases as:

I robots.
Love your body.

In Lancaster, the uninitiated are puzzled, but in Pittsburgh, fans and alumni chuckle, especially when the Cheermaster calls out: "Ye Olde CIT Cheer" after the first offensive play of the game. In response, a horde of Kilties, mostly engineering and science majors like Farmer who share classes during the week, yell lyrics that include:

Square root
cube root
log of e
water-cooled slipstick
CIT!

Fans and former band members who know the words cheer along from the bleachers.

In her hometown of Cincinnati, Farmer was a self-described band geek who practiced disciplined, core-style marching. In Kiltie Band, she isn't required to compete or memorize her music, and the group's director for life, Associate Dean of Student Affairs Paul Gerlach, doesn't expect members to practice beyond two weekly rehearsals. But what the Kilties lack in musical polish, they make up in boisterous energy. And on game day, Farmer and her bandmates like to play their music the way they like to dress—really loudly.

The Kiltie Band is celebrating its centennial anniversary. Since 1908, one element has remained constant—the group's school spirit. If Farmer stays in Pittsburgh, she plans to join the group as an alumna, which is often the case with graduates who remain in the area. That way she can continue to spend time with about 100 of her closest friends.

Naz in Ojai

just arrived in Ojai for a wedding this weekend. I love the drive up north as the scenery smoothly evolves into farmland and countryside and little stores - I haven't been to Ojai before - I should remark that I did see a McCain/Pain yard sign on my way here, whatever that means.

Pulling from the Archives

In the past 5 months or so, I have been busy working full-time, one job in an office plus two others on the ground, and now that I am back in graduate school, my time to concretize my thoughts onto this blog, have been limited. I have a lot I want to write, especially about the recent political discourse regarding democratic vs. republican in the 2008 presidential election. I have witnessed how Obama supporters have reacted to the pick of Governor Sarah Palin as McCain's VP; and some of the reactions I have observed have been rather hypocritical especially in the way they react to her "conservative" positions (I put it in quotes, because I think this dualistic semantics such as conservative vs. liberal, amongst others, is dangerous and convoluted). As I mentioned to my supervisor yesterday, I question Obama as a presidential candidate just like I question (or ideally should question) anyone running for office - but it's the Obamaniacs who really make me worry - So once I get all that together, I will probably do a blog posting. In the meantime, I'm reaching into my archives and pulling out a post from March, still on the subject of politics, and hope you find it edutaining. Look out for 2 articles upcoming in the October issue of Carnegie Mellon Today as well.
----------------
Obama and Schwarzenegger - The artful dodgers

Contributed by: Nazbanoo Pahlavi on 3/14/2008

Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep conducted an excellent interview of Senator Obama that airs on NPR today in which he presses on the issue of Michigan and Florida. After Michigan's vote, I remember Obama's comments that Michigan's vote should not be counted, and yet on the program today, he says that he has "constantly" wanted those delegates seated. Really? Because that is not what he said 5 weeks ago. In fact, his tone was pretty unwavering when it came to this. Steve Inskeep asked three, yup, three times whether he would support a re-do. He asked three times because the Senator kept dodging the question. Oh, politicians are such artful dodgers aren't they?

Listen, what the Democratic Party decided on Michigan and Florida is a moot point- why? Because sometimes it is OK, even noble, to break the rules to bring about real change. I don't agree with those who say rules are rules (rules that, according to Obama, even his six year old could have followed) when those bureaucratic decisions superimpose the voting rights of ordinary people. Are you kidding me? And now, Obama complains that those states don't want to pay for it and that's a reason a do-over should not happen.

Shame on politicians for citing money as a factor in allowing the disenfranchisement of Michigan and Florida voters. This is not a Clinton or Obama thing. This is about those voters and Obama should be fighting to get those voters' voices heard. Now, that would be impressive. That would signify that sometimes achieving change means not following rules - especially when those statues are meant to get states like Iowa and New Hampshire extra exposure.

Hopefully, this political squabbling will soon find it's own detente.

In the meantime, I hope that the media will spare some extra coverage on California's atrocious budget crisis. Teachers have already been laid off . One of my classmates in my weekly Shakespeare class who has been teaching for 20 years, got her slip yesterday. She says that 40 are expected to be laid off in the Beverly Hills Unified District alone which includes only one high school and 5 elementary/junior high schools. I am furious that Governor Schwarzenegger cut the education budget - but then again he is a politican (who better than an actor!) who knows how to spin his words - like when he masterfully dodged accusations of his fuel pollution commuting via private jet almost nightly from his home in Brentwood to the office in Sacramento, because he wants to spend more time with his family (what, the state capital isn't good enough for them?). And I am frustrated that California voters opted against the telephone utilities tax to provide a source of funds for public bodies like firefighters and police officers. When it comes to education - we need to get on the money. When it comes to police and firefighters, we need to get on the money - when it comes to individual voters' rights, we need to get on the money. It's a no-brainer.

Man of the Year

by Nazbanoo Pahlavi
Carnegie Mellon Today, July 2008


A few hundred Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descend under the buzz of a helicopter. Nearby streets are blocked off. The target is a New Bedford textile factory that has federal contracts to produce camouflage uniforms for soldiers in Iraq. The agents expect to find about 400 undocumented immigrants, who will be questioned and detained. An hour after the raid begins, the local police chief tips off Marc Fallon (HS'92), a clergyman and advocate for the Mayan community.

Although Fallon considers his Spanish second rate despite the years he committed to his Hispanic ministry, he knows those seamstresses, and he knows their hearts. And he knows that many of the parishioners struggled through civil war in Guatemala and won't answer to any man in uniform who questions them about the whereabouts of their children.

The law-enforcement officials won't divulge names of those taken away, so Fallon and another pastor, Richard Wilson, figure out who didn’t come home. They determine that 121 children are left behind.

The pastors share their list with advocacy agencies, and a community-wide effort takes root. A temporary shelter is created in the basement of Wilson's church. Community college students volunteer to help. So do the YMCA and area lawyers. And an investment banker in Boston, Mass., even matches bail bonds for about 40 of the detained migrants. "People simply decided to trust one another," says Fallon.

Most of the detained caregivers were reunited with their children within two weeks. For their humanitarian work on behalf of the Mayan community and the 361 undocumented workers detained after the March 6, 2007, raid, Fallon and Wilson were co-selected as Man of the Year by The New Bedford Standard-Times.
—Nazbanoo Pahlavi (HNZ'03)

City Coucilwoman caught styrofoam-handed

City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel was caught by KTLA's news crew with a take out lunch in hand full of plastic and styrofoam - just after L.A. City Council has discussed the issue of banning such materials in an effort to curb excess waste and promote eco-friendly products. She was like a deer caught in headlights, but like any savvy politician, she blamed it on the lack of resources in place to promote eco-friendly alternatives. Really? Ever heard of bringing lunch from home in Pyrex or tupperware, Ms. Greuel?

Faithful blog readers will remember some months back when I "caught" Greuel speeding away from a Valley neighborhood council meeting in an SUV gas guzzler. Public transportation? Eco-friendly alternatives? Until politicans put in action what they preach, why should anyone else follow suit?

There is a serious chasm between eco-friendly lifestyles and styrofoam, plastic, private cars and other self-promoting tools by which we have grown accustomed to as a culture of personal convenience. I hear lots of eco-talk, but when I go to Peet's Coffee or Coffee Bean, I still see people buying coffee with disposable cups, rather than bringing their own reusable cups or thermos. Are people just too cheap to spend the $19.95 on a designer coffee cup?

Once politicans, celebrity "do-gooders" (cough, cough) and others start bridging the hole between what is convenient for them and what is sound for the community, we can not reconcile eco-friendly actions into our lifestyles.