tv [untitled] July 29, 2010 12:00pm-12:30pm PST
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we had a conversation with carlos. i said this is the best idea, get it into a homeless shelter. don't get me wrong, we improved the food, x number of percentage comes from sustainable sources, etc. but it is not the real deal. the argument is cost. even in san francisco, we are not giving up. it remains an on going challenge. we have gotten salad bars in our schools [applause]. a few questions, here. food depends on r farms. farm lands are being paved over. how can we protect them from being developed? >> by protecting our farmers.
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this wave, this criteria for buying in the public schools could keep those farms in business. could go right to those farmers. because you decide you are going to decide from local people. so there you are, you are an engine. we only have 500 people we serve a day. in berkeley, they have 10,000 kids in the public school. just imagine. we support 2 farms entirely. we have 85 people that we buy from during the course of the year. just food. and then there are all the other supply that is we buy. just think what could happen if you had school a school system in nebraska buying from local
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people? >> i saw recently the governor of washington state signed interesting legislation as it relates to no longer procuring the lowest prices for some of their school-related lunch and breakfast programs. are there examples that you point to and say boy, for we can just do what we are doing in dublin, ireland? >> yale is doing a lot of work on distribution of food from small farms in connecticut into a big institution and figuring out the ways they can use the packing facilities for canning the tomatoes from the local farmer and having the delivery come to the university. and if they can be doing that research on it, then sharing that is a beautiful thing.
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>> couple of questions, has it been difficult to spread your philosophy to urban communities and what solutions, more specifically, can you offer to help education poor communities and support those students? if money is used as the excuse and easily used in declining resources, how do we realistically break through? >> we start growing things on every available lot. >> i wasn't joking. just think of what happened during world war ii. i grew up on my parent's victory garden. they were asked to do this as a
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part of the war effort. they saved all of their tin cans. they kept their milk cartons. they turned out the lights. it is the way you were brought up. it is free food when you grow it. every time i see a vacant lot, i think my god, how much food can be grown. there are beautiful people doing research on ecology action with john jevens. how much food can be grown in the least amount of space. he is doing projects all over the world and teaching people intensive gardening. there are amazing farmers who can help us accomplish this. we need to have the mayor.
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>> need leadership. >> the president of the united states just saying, hey, please help us. help us. help us make this change. >> couple of questions about private funders. has the private and foundations gravitated beyond your foundation, is this an easy sell? >> what we have to do is make these models and make them really good. that is what has happened with the schoolyard. we put a lot of money into one. we have one in new orleans. it is amazing. this has been an idea, not a berkeley or san francisco idea, something that requires a kind
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of special fill anthropi and what better way to buy food than people that need money in that city? so the farmer's market is helping to supply the school. now the kids are going out into the neighborhood and picking up cans and bottles and examing them, recycling them, making them into art work. it is a beautiful project. and it is a universal idea, as i say, it is not something that we dreamed up. this is the way people have been living since the beginning, buying things from
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local people. eating them together with the family and friends. we are just coming back to our senses. >> we have talked so much about children l. the question is, what is the best way to reach adults that have fast food ingrained into their system? thoseover those of us that know. >> planting the perfect ripe peach. i thought if he just could taste this. >> president clinton in terms of fast food addiction. [laughter]. >> once you taste you can't go back. it is very, very -- it is not just the taste. it is the care that comes with
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the taste. see you feel this. it is a lot of non verbal kindsover longings that i think a lot of people have. and then we need to connect up with that. sitting at a table and eating garlicy foods. it works in some beautiful way. you go to italy and you see that really translated into the culture. that is why that movement is so strong and why they are so successful in combatting the globalization of food. in other countries like france, they are just opening the doors.
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>> most of the best practice, most what you see happening, that by way of example is happening outside the united states. any other parts of this country and region? now you are talking about peaches and things. >> we have a good friend up in maine. he has a green house. a very kind of organic and affordable green house situation. he grows them and closes in the summer. he is growing salads. we had to learn to eat differently at different times
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of the year. when we were doing this project at yale, what are we going to eat for 9 months out of the year? we found all kinds of dried beans, dried fruits. we found vegetables, all of the beautiful heirloomed potatoes and made syrups. we ate fish. we used to know how to do this. nobody knows how to cook, true? so when we teach this course in school, one of the outcomes is everyone is going to learn how to cook and farm. it is going to be a beautiful
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outcome of this core curriculum in ego gastronomy. edible education. sounds a little too gastric. it really says what it is. it is a huge, beautiful subject that we need to be studying. >> are people teaching this stuff? new york university? >> slow food university. >> there is actual slow food university? >> university of the gastroano, ma'amic sciences. they send students around the world to intern. >> is berkeley teaching any of these things? god for bid, stanford? [laughter]. >> all of the forestry programs.
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i mean, definitely, we have michael pollen at new york university. we have marian nesum. kelly brown teaching psychology. we have to connect in a way. we sort of imagine this event moving around the country. we'll continue to always have something in san francisco. we want to go to chicago, new york, and new orleans and really bring people to experience different parts of the country to pull us together of a slow food nation. >> because of time, i want to wrap this up. we don't have time to talk
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about the work you have done in edible schoolyards in new orleans. the slow food nation is going to happen in san francisco this labor weekend. how can people get involved, not only slow food nation, but with also get involved in this whole movement? i want to learn more, i have to know more. is there a book you recommend? a website? a brochure we can pick up or a phone number? >> we do have a brochure. there are lots of brochures. certainly the website of slow food nation is a way to get connected and understand what
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is happening in international movement. that is what is most important. this isn't just the united states. this is an international organization in 131 countries. we are having this conversation around the world and that is what needs to happen. we need to unite in that way. there are all kinds of incredible books. fast food nation is no. 1 homework piece. michael pollen's books bring us into the big picture around food. of course my own books. but we have to really think about what we are eating everyday. really pay attention to this. and thank goodness we have
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farmer's markets within 15, 20 minutes. >> i live in san francisco. >> i love organization like the people's groceries, taking food that is left from the farmer's market and taking it down to the poor sections of town and offering it. we need a big wholesale farmer's market in san francisco. >> we need to be able to have a place that gathers food that we can distribute it to the schools and hospitals and institutions around san francisco. so i think that funded by the city. it has to be affordable. >> you didn't hear my budget speech today. [laughter].
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if people want to contact you and support the foundation? >> that is how they can, they can look up the website. and send their very big checks. we are trying to make the models, paying teachers to breathe life into this idea. that is what is going to make it convincing for the powers to be. >> it is dinner time. i hope you are going to think wisely tonight. i want to thank becca proda and thank you all very much, ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause. [applause]. >> thanks, gavin. [applause].
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commission and tampa does go public library established an arts master plan for the city soon to be renovated branch library. almost 10 years later, the san francisco arts commission has integrated a collection of vibrant new artworks by bay area artists into five new libraries, and there is more on the way. here is a closer look at some of the projects. >> the branch library improvement program is a bond funded program undertaken by the san francisco public library to upgrade each of the branch libraries throughout the neighborhoods. one of the great benefits of this opportunity is that each of these branches has a unique
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artwork that has been created specifically for that branch, based on input from people who live near that branch, in the surrounding neighborhood. >> trur- minded. there was a lot of community support for the project. i try to make it about the true hill and its history. they were something that natives used for making houses. the construction of the pond is based on abalone house construction. at the bottom of the form, it is woven into a rope which transforms into a manufactured rope. that is a reference to the cordish company, a big industry
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at the waterfront that went along with the shipbuilding industry. other examples of art work in libraries that you might be interested in seeing it is dana zed's glass shatters in front of a library. there are a wall sculptures in the lobby of the glen park branch library. and then there is an illuminated book on the wall of the mission bay library. >> "ocean current." we are on ocean avenue, so there is a connection to that. that is what this is about. culmination of all lot of dialogue, processing over a five-year period. that is longer than most art
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projects take, but i really feel like the product was enriched from that. making the sculpture involves forging and fabricating steel. we used to deal to create this flowing, central sculptor, heating, bending, grinding, painting, bending, and adding a patina to it. layers and layers of craftsmanship that went into this. >> of the artists who participated in this project are all bay area of projects. they work in a wide variety of media. metal, glass, natural elements, photography, just a range of different approaches and aesthetics. so we have created a nice collection of art work that is reflective of the current date.
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from the census but our commission. john mean today to talk about in off festival is the executive director. welcome. i understand this is the 13th annual festival. can you tell me the name? >> the name is a celebratory name. we also celebrate what we call the asian-pacific islanders as well, in terms of culture, experience, and multidisciplinary arts. >> the festival is actually very wide-ranging. you have 16 venues, and how many different performing arts centers? >> we have over 85 artists participating, 16 venues, 21
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events. there are over 15 groups that are performing. >> there recently kicked off at the beginning of may and will continue through june 13? correct? >> that is correct. unlike in the past years, we have had to expand the festival because there has been so much activity and so many people want to be part of the celebration. we're very honored and pleased to have the festival going all the way into june. >> we're kind of coming in on one of the groups. >> francis is one of the pioneers of the asian american jazz movement and is also one of san francisco's very own. we're very honored at the cultural center that we can be part of the program. >> an addition to him, what are some of the other highlights of the festival? >> we have three gallery
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openings in the festival. one is called reclaim, which is a film art. the others are receptions that are happening at four different the supervisors' offices. the other is called mining the creative source. >> think you for sharing the content with us on "culture wire." >> thank you very much. >> it is in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the strikes at uc-berkeley of the study of ethnic studies. it is a celebration of that history, as well as some of the other items. >> what led to this multidisciplinary collaboration? >> i am from san francisco, and from the 1960's on, that is the aesthetics.
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the poets, working with the musicians, dancers, the waitresses, the jazz club, actors, whatever. the idea is we are all a community and we share this common story. >> did you reach out to the dancers? how did it come together? did they come to you? >> the choreographer and dancer actually was a student of mine and residency in cameron house and chinatown. i developed a friendship with her over many years, and also with the spoken word artists. i met him at a benefit at one of the benefits in chinatown. it is part of that ongoing really rich relationship building that happens in our arts community. >> i got a chance to hear a little bit of your performance, and i am a big fan of john coltrane, and you play a
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phenomenal sax. can you tell me a little about your musical influences. >> a particular piece about john coltrane was he reached out to asia and his global vision. as an asian american growing up and coming up in this country seeking some recognition, that was a very meaningful, making that kind of contribution. i really owe a debt to john coltrane for recognizing my culture and uplifting it as part of the music as well. >> i know that your family history is really rich and complex in terms of illustrating how the chinese has occurred over the last two centuries. it could talk about that? >> it began in the 1870's, when my great grandfather, instead of coming with everybody else to the united states to build a railroad, he went off the coast
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of madagascar are. -- madagascar are. he met a woman there who is creel, african-american, french, and chinese. they married, and they had family, and i am the product of that. growing up here in the bay area, we have some influences because it is the gateway for emigration. from many countries. you walk down the street, you are participating in that mix. in my music, i really want to express and represent that kind of topic that goes on in the streets. it is the most exciting part of being here. >> francis, thank you very much for being part of "culture wire" and thank you for being one of the great artists of san francisco. >> thank you so much.
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