Copyrights and Patents

As I promised my colleagues, I telephoned a friend (a good amateur tango dancer) who is an intellectual property lawyer to discuss possibilities for our new product. He gave generous information about options and said if we bring him a graphic of it, he would know more. Now we will discuss this issue at our next meeting a week from today.

Another step taken. Many more to go.

Small Steps

I read minutes of Friday's meeting of all participants in our manufacturing project, saw corrections from one of my colleagues. I did a little research on what looked like an American supplier of a major product we need only to discover it is a subsidiary of a US corporate giant, alas, and reported on that to the others.

These are the little steps I can take today that are leading to our achieving our goal of manufacturing and having in distribution a thousand of the things we are making right here, right now in New York, once a city with much light industry.

I know from my sixty-three years of life that big changes often result from a series of small steps. I am willing to take these small steps. In fact, this process is very enjoyable so far and it is not at all difficult to make these small steps.

What is lacking here for me is an element of solidarity. We are working closely as a group, but we are not in any way affiliated with others who seek major systemic changes in US manufacturing and the US economy. I think about that. This project may or may not turn out to be a vehicle for solidarity. What it is doing for sure is giving me experience in starting up a project that already is a cottage enterprise and may grow into light industry here in New York. That alone is a lot.

Seeds of Thyme

A bottle of McCormick dried thyme leaves that I bought at the local Gristedes supermarket on 86th and First Avenue cost over $7.00 with tax. A smaller bottle of another McCormick variety, cost $6.00 but it was worthless powdered thyme.

In addition to not knowing who grew the thyme plants, where, how, when, and by whom it was processed, I also know that for little more than seven dollars worth of materials (and a lot of my labor to be sure), I could grow enough thyme in George's courtyard to supply all of this Yorkville neighborhood of the Upper East Side. I would not use chemical fertilizers nor pesticides nor genetically engineered seeds and would provide it fresh for six months or more of the year. People could dry their own if they wanted or I could provide naturally dried thyme during the months when fresh is not available.

I do see locally grown herbs in the Key Food store on Second Avenue and 92nd Street in the summer, so some people are working on this.

A hunt for seeds to plant in my milk jug "serres" has been very unsatisfying. In spite of all the Italian gardeners in my Carroll Gardens neighborhood, the places where I could swear there was seed for sale just a few years ago have none now. Barb and I were in a garden store in Soho a few years ago, but it must have closed; I can't find it. Calls to a number of places in this city (I refuse to even consider a big chain anywhere in the five boroughs it may exist) have revealed no seed for sale.

Organic seed is available online, so the carrots, lettuces and French beans will be grown from seed produced outside of the city, ordered online, and delivered to George's. Pity.

Does anyone know of a source of seed anywhere in New York?

Carrots, Lettuces, and French Beans

The story says, "Lettuces, French beans, and radishes," but I want carrots. Also herbs and marigolds to ward off insects. I had announced to George that I was not going to consult about the details, but rather that I am going to grow food in his tiny New York City garden, currently wild and untended with the remnants of a few plants from previous tenants. I asked for and was given a shovel as a Christmas present and will mostly grow soil organisms this first year. Also, since my previous gardening has all been in a different climate, I will learn about how to grow plants in this one. Barb, George's sister who gardens in a Chicago suburb, gave me some ideas about starting seed in gallon milk jugs that can be made into mini greenhouses and I already know a lot about building soil. I must also learn how to make compost in this climate with what is at hand. The arrival of a truck load of manure from my brother's Tennessee farm, the best present he ever gave me, is not only not forthcoming but would be overwhelming in the space here. Also, the grass clippings from a lawn which were staples of the compost heaps I have had that the Southern sun just cooked without much work on my part are not part of this picture either.

All of this is, of course, fun for someone like me who enjoys digging in the dirt. It is also what I can do now to resist the products of the corporate agriculture that is polluting the planet and poisoning its people.

There are rather a number of New Yorkers who grow food in our postage stamp sized back courtyards and on the roofs of many of our buildings. I don't yet have any aspirations to joining with others to distribute food in any way, but I may do that. One of my colleagues, an artist, in our alternative manufacturing project, wants to learn how to garden. She and I really enjoy working on things together, so we will do this. That is already a step toward broadening the scope of this effort.

More later.

Making Things

To my right were examples of the product we are making in early stages of design. We sit around the table and discuss the issues on our agenda. In some ways this may look like any small enterprise in the early startup stages.

We are not ready yet to publicize our product for a variety of reasons, but I can say that it is not subway parts. Last summer on that long walk from Park Slope home, I had that flash of insight about talking to my friend Jeremy about making something--like subway parts. I wanted to do something to reverse the flight of manufacturing from this country. I had read that when NYC wanted new subway cars, there were none made in the US; the city had to buy foreign ones. Making subway cars really seemed impossible and subway parts not very likely, but I liked the idea. There is something solid and important about subway parts.

It is perhaps more appropriate for me to be collaborating with other artists who want to make a product right here in the city of New York, things more in line with skills I already have, things we can make ourselves right now.

My original inspiration was not only about manufacturing here but about a very different model as well, maybe a worker owned business, a more egalitarian institution than prevails in most US business. I want to avoid the capitalist, corporate model all together. My idea was to produce something useful right now, to share any profits, ultimately to have all workers earn "a living, not a killing" doing it.

When I learned that my friends were interested in manufacturing a specific item here in the city as opposed to in China or somewhere as well, we decided to start exploring together. We have already done research on materials and suppliers, gotten suggestions from helpful individuals about ways to produce our first products, set goals for this year, made some prototypes--not bad for three weeks.

Our goals are modest and attainable. We plan to have in distribution one thousand of these items by the end of the year. Our enterprise will be more the "cottage industry" type this first year, but we are thinking now about what more complex production would require. Everyone has put in a small amount of money to get us started and we are all contributing labor and will contribute much more of it. One important result will be to know whether there is really any demand for what we are making. If we find there is a market, we will already know some things about how to produce more items and will have some funds to expand production.