During the growing season, tiny farming can be kinda all-consuming—lots to do!—and it’s easy to wind up in a rather pleasant local bubble, especially if you’ve turned the daily news OFF. Watching this documentary last night, RIP: A Remix Manifesto (2008), popped that bubble for me, for a while. Although this doc is on the surface mainly about music, remixing and mashups, copyrights and intellectual property law, it’s REALLY about…EVERYTHING, and independent, small-scale farming fits front and center. I could go on (rapidly vanishing control of SEED comes to mind), but it’s more of a watch-it-and-see-what-YOU-make-of-it deal—at least catch the last 30-40 minutes. It can be a little scary, that feeling of larger human forces and events surrounding you just a little beyond your ability to focus clearly on what’s going on or how it’s affecting you on the day-to-day. Still, you don’t have to be an activist or on a mission from God to save the food system or the entire planet, I think we all need to feel our place in the larger scheme of things. On that basis, this film can definitely be energizing and…inspiring. (Yikes, it’s that word. :) So there you have it: you can stream it for free at Canada’s National Film Board. Now, I’ve gotta pick up a new front tractor tire for the little Kubota and till up this year’s garlic patch. Back to the local… :)
