HOLLY NADLER
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The big thing these days in eco circles is sharing stuff. Recently Oak Bluffs artist Betty Wolfson told me that back home in Northampton, she and her neighbors hold a lawnmower in common, since at no time on the planet has an entire block of homeowners been seized with the urge to mow their lawns at the exact same time.
With the economy going floop! it seems to me that we as townsfolk could think of items for common use. It’s kind of a Yankee thing, so why don’t we roll up our sleeves, and pull up our socks (now that’s something we’re unlikely to share) and give it a try?
We’re already accustomed to one method of sharing — the library. Look how natural it is to share books. And if you happen to read something from the library that you simply must have for yourself for all time, say Alexander Pope’s Moral Essays, or Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind (and who wouldn’t want either one of those?), then you buy it from a bookstore or order it on-line, and everybody’s happy.
So let’s take it to the next level. Why don’t we share clothes? As with books on our own private shelves, we’d have our own garments languishing in our closets, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could visit a nice big barn of a clothes place — maybe that yellow building on Hiawatha that was originally meant to be a laundromat? — then find the rack that had our size, and check out a snappy, tight-waisted, dotted Swiss Lorraine Parish gown to wear to that fund-raiser? You’d need to return it cleaned, and ironed if necessary, maybe even dry-cleaned, but how much of a hassle is that? Realistically this wouldn’t work with the jeans and sweatshirts most of us don most of the time; the incentive is missing for the exchange of ugly, boring, holey clothes. But we all have hanging in our closets fancy gear we’ve worn once to a cousin’s wedding, never again to be broken out for a fresh occasion. Don’t you wish you’d checked that same garment out at your local clothesery, and returned it promptly years ago?
The next item up for sharing is art. No, I’m not recommending that people swap their Matisses and Picassos — we all have Matisses and Picassos, do we not? — but let’s be honest about most of the framed posters and watercolors we hang on our walls. When was the last time we really looked at any of them? If we rotated our art with the frequency of MoMA, maybe we’d start appreciating it again.
We should definitely start sharing bicycles and cars. There are foreign cities with legions of bikes for the use of all. You grab one, peddle around on some errands, then ditch it at the nearest stand. How civilized is that? And cars! How on earth did we ever get to the tipping point where each individual person requires one full car? Mark my words, future generations (if we’re lucky enough to have future generations) will look back on this era defined by automobile gluttony and marvel that we hadn’t yet caught on to their own practice which will be that every block, just like Betty Wolfson’s, shares a lawnmower AND a car for the use of all. “Hi, this is Lucy. Does anybody need the car on Tuesday at 11? I want to drive up to Uncle Abe’s farm for apple picking. In fact, why don’t we all go?”
Am I being serious or goofing off? You tell me.
On to town news . . . Oak Bluffster Tom Dresser sent this bulletin: he’d like to promote the annual Miles of Memories Walk for Alzheimer’s Services of Cape Cod and the Islands, which takes place this coming Sunday, Oct. 5. This year the walk will run from Little Bridge to Big Bridge and back, a decent two-and-a-half-mile jaunt. The organizers have invited kayakers to circumnavigate the waters while we walk, which, Tom says, “Should be entertaining, if nothing else.”
On another front: Artists For Obama will hold a fundraiser at Dragonfly Gallery, the weekend after next, with upwards of forty artists donating works for the event. For more information, e-mail Hermine Hull at jschil01@comcast.net.
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