Help WorldChanging Hack the Publishing System

"Here's how the system is supposed to work: you write a book. If people think it's good they buy it. If enough people think it's good it becomes a bestseller and widely read, spreading new ideas into the public debate.

"Here's how the system actually works: you write a book. Unless your publisher spends large sums of money on marketing and promotions to convince booksellers that you will be a blockbuster, your book remains obscure, often quickly sinking out of view, and few people have a chance to see it, let alone encounter the ideas it contains."

WorldChanging, a site dedicated to visioning and building a better future using tools, models, and ideas, has just published a groundbreaking book. WorldChanging: A Users Guide for the 21st Century is a compendium of the most innovative solutions, ideas, and inventions emerging today for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future.

Unfortunately, the state of our publishing system makes spreading news of important new books like this quite difficult without gobs of cash and big publisher advertising budgets. There is another way, however. The WorldChanging Team requests that we buy the book from Amazon.com at the same moment and push the sales ranking to the top. Amazon's ranking system is explained in a WorldChanging blog entry from Saturday.

Here's what they're asking:

On November first, at eleven minutes after eleven a.m. (Pacific time), please go to Amazon and buy the book.

Better still, go to Amazon and buy the book on the first, and in the meantime blog, email, talk up the book and do whatever you can to encourage everyone who you think cares about sustainability, innovation, and social change, everyone who wants more solutions in the public debate, to join you on buying the book on 11/1 at 11:11 am PST [both WorldChanging and Amazon are based in Seattle]. Please help spread the word.

We can do this. We can make the corporate publishing system pay attention to us—IF we work together.

So mark your calendar. Set an alarm. Tie a string around your finger. 11/1 at 11:11 am.

Show up on November 1st and let's show the blockbuster machine that people who care about ideas are smart enough to hack their system.

Saturday Fun

A week ago Saturday I took a most challenging hike up to the overlook. Rather than the normal route, I instead hiked to the peak, which is no more than a hundred paces to the overlook. Then, I cut off to the right and walked down and around to beneath the rocks that form the overlook cliff. And then what did I do? I hiked crawled up the cliff. It was the type of rock climbing thrill where there were times when I said to myself, "There's no turning back now. I have to find a way to the top." This was normally after moments when I had to propel myself up to a new handhold, using momentum and trust.

About halfway up, Jonathan, Naf, and Benjy appeared to my right, on their hike down the backside trail. Then, about 30 feet from the top, I looked up to see Tamuz, Kristen, and others looking over the edge and calling me crazy. I lost no confidence in my destination and continued to squirm my way up. There's a small pine just beneath the top that I was able to use as a foothold and push my self up to peak over the edge and surprise Casey and Aaron, the only two left to see. So, I rested there for 30 seconds before reaching over and pulling myself up to the surface.

I stayed only for a moment before I left to catch up with the guys, who were planning to check out the caves Jonathan and I had discovered a month before off the blue trail. Two weeks before this return visit, I helped JR reblaze some of the trails and we used yellow CAUTION tape to mark an unworn trail to these caves.

This past Saturday, organized by Shir Ya'akov, we had our first Freedman music recording session in the Bet K'nesset (synagogue). As a first experience and a pilot run for Shir, it was really somewhere in between jam and recording, and Shir realized that he or someone needs to be seated at the mixer with the headphones to monitor the recording full-time. Otherwise, voices too far from microphones get lost. It was a fun time, though, with lots of great songs sung. And there will be followup sessions to sing more songs associated with ADAMAH and Teva.

First Kvutzah for Ben

Ben had his first group of kids this afternoon.

Nili asked me at breakfast if I'd be willing to take a group of students up the Red trail this afternoon. And so, after lunch, I led a dozen fourth graders from Beit Rabban and their two teachers to meet the film crew at the peak to head with Nili and Pesach to the overlook.

On the way, a few of the faster hikers among them took a different side of the trail, forgetting what landmarks would show them where to turn. I fetched them and we got up a few minutes more to find Pesach, who'd come in search of us. I was thrilled to find him taking over, not knowing we would see him up there.

Eventually, Nili took over, introduced the latest challenge to the kids, and led them blindfolded in a single file line to their destination, where they would sit at the overlook, remove their eye-coverings, and bear witness to the awesome view. And at that point, I spent eight minutes hiking back down to see if there was any maintenance work to do. Not much more than putting tarps up around the hot tub for the weekend mikvah. Now, need to catch up on news of the day and then bike down to Kaufman to get my laundry.

Teva Fall 2006 - New Beginnings

"Rice cakes depress me." That's what Eli said last Tuesday night when I offered him the last few bites of my rice cake–PBJ sandwich, which was especially funny because a couple nights before, JR, Chelly, and I had watched the new version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Hey, at least it wasn't the PBJ on sesame tamari rice cakes that I made a few nights later. That was actually kind of interesting, because my tongue on the edge about to take each bite I tasted the tamari, and then there was no other flavor but peanut butter the rest of the way through.

A month ago, someone was telling a story about the need to journal about experiences before forgetting about them. I took this as a final reminder to share my first three weeks of Teva fall 2006 with you. Then, I promptly got sidetracked and continued to neglect this need. Now, I'm ready to force myself to begin again.

Backpacking
Less than 24 hours after Casey and I arrived in August, the group departed on its annual backpacking trip (which was missed last year due to the timing of the chaggim). We spent four days hiking, working together, cooking, teaching and learning from each other, and having a blast. Wednesday, we hiked over Bear Mountain, the highest peak—but not highest point—in Connecticut. On the way and at the top we met with several groups of freshman orientation hiking groups from Yale and Smith.

Thursday afternoon, we dined, packed up camp, and hiked to the turnoff from the Appalachian Trail to Paradise Lanes, which would lead us to the bottom half of the Undermountain Trail (I hiked this route up and back last year for Rosh Hashanah). We did our last togetherness activity (Negotiating Squares) and then, around sunset, started our hike down the mountain. Yes, this would be a night hike, without artificial lights glaring until space was too dark to walk with night-vision alone. We made great time, so we stopped for an extended snack and rest near the end of Paradise Lanes where we also waited for Eli to make his second descent. He had hiked out a while ahead of us to support a girl who'd injured her ankle (she also left Teva), and returned to camp to get his stuff. Soon enough, he joined us and we hiked the rest of the way down. Arrived at the trail head at 11:15, so far ahead of our midnight pickup time, so we napped and chilled in the parking area, trying not to get run over when the vans finally arrived.

Bike Ride
After a good night's rest, we switched gears in a flurry to get ready for the Hazon Ride weekend. The ride was fantastic as always, with a new route on the first day. I saw enormous pumpkins on Sweet Corn Lane, narrowly avoided a Rusted Bark salamander that was moseying across the road, and nearly ran over a snake was squiggling the other way a while later. I rode the century again and was the last rider to roll in at the end of the day. However, I made better time than last year, arriving about 45 minutes sooner.

I offered moral support to one flat tire repair on the first day, got frustrated that Surprise Lake Camp staff considered "regular plates" to be those made out of 100% virgin paper compared to my Frisbee, and supplied my pump to two flat tire fixes on the second day where two riders hit nails in the same place along the Manhattan Greenway. There was rain during the Shabbaton weekend but after only a bit of drizzle Sunday morning, the rest of the ride was greeted with gorgeous weather.

Thanks to all who supported me through my training and sponsored my ride. If you'd still like to donate, I'd really appreciate your help getting my total sponsorship up to my $1800 goal (I'm at $1200 so far). You can do so for another couple weeks.

Work
I've developed quite a routine working for Teva and Freedman this season. I've got scheduled hours for each and I'm spending most of my time uploading photos of kids to Teva's Web site and assisting Freedman's maintenance staff with various projects. There's been painting, pine needle blowing, and lawn mowing, along with dishwashing, food prep, pot washing, sukkah construction and deconstruction, and much more. Plus, there's my tech support for both offices, including Elat Chayyim, which moved in early last month. And, I'm Energy Man again, monitoring thermostats, turning off lights, checking for air and water leaks, and trying to save Freedman some money on its bills.

I've made myself available for almost anything and many more people than last year are noticing and asking me, "Is there anything you can't do around here?!" In truth, the one thing that could stand out is that I don't drive, but I'm validating the nickname, Super Ben, they gave me last year and proving that it's the best title I could have.

People
Other than that, life is great! Would be nice if the weeks didn't seem to fly by as fast, but at least there's no shortage of stuff to do … which obviously has kept me from writing for so long. And the people are so wonderful to living. Back from last year: Casey, Eli, Jonathan, Risa, and Sara; new faces: Pesach, Mati, Chelly, Miriam, Yona, Shira, Annie. And Simcha, who was an educator some seasons ago and is back as Program Director.

Casey was my roommate last year. He, Eli, Jonathan, and I decided to switch up our rooming arrangements to keep life fresh, so Eli and I are rooming in his old room, a wide room with a wall of windows facing the lake. The other two are upstairs in the largest bedroom of the house, which has become known as the B&B, because it has an extra bed space and then some. The main hall of Brown House is full of all the girls while the back and upstairs plus one room in Cedar contain the guys.

More
Recent highlight before I publish for the night: I spent this past weekend, Simchat Torah, the last of the autumnal chaggim, in New York City. Like last year, a bunch of us went to B'nei Jeshurun, an unaffiliated congregation somewhere between Reform and Conservative in the Upper West Side, for an evening of dancing and singing with their 14 Torahs. It was as crazy a night as last year, though I wasn't as much in the mood for the dancing, but the experience peaked when Shir Ya'akov, Elat Chayyim's techie, started beat-boxing during the last round of dancing and the rest of the jam session that followed the service. He and songs he'd taught the Freedman community earlier this season, along with Tamuz' always-amazing voice, were the best of the night, one-upping last year's Teva-led jam.

Other features of the weekend included Friday evening's Shabbat pot-luck party at Chana and Kevin's apartment in Park Slope (Brooklyn). Chana is the sister of JR, who was a Teva educator last fall. JR visited Teva for Sukkot (all last week) and joined those of us who headed to the City for the weekend; he's headed home to Toronto later this week. I stayed at Noam's place in Brooklyn again and also connected with one of his housemates, Jon Lev, who was one of Mike Tidwell's first interns when Mike was getting Chesapeake Climate Action Network started five years ago.

Saturday morning, I decided not to wake up uber-early to head uptown to Romemu, a new Renewal congregation formed by Rabbi David Ingber, as was my original desire. Instead, Noam and I headed back to Chana and Kevin's for an afternoon of brunch, singing in the sukkah, a walk to Prospect Park, some Frisbee and disc golf in the park, and a while just chilling and singing in the sun and wind. Eventually, we left to head toward BJ for the night and after that we went to Jay Michaelson's new apartment, above which there was a rooftop party. And who just happened to show up? Ilan Glazer!

Sunday was filled to the brim with a noon lunch at the Veggie Dim Sum House in Chinatown, the first half of Noam's street hockey game, a walk down East Broadway where a street festival was taking place, and one more party to close the night … a pot-luck-turned-pizza party at Yoni's apartment back up town with great company, great falafel (which we'd picked up at the street festival), and lots of smiles. We wished we didn't have to leave.

So, perhaps this year I'll make the time to regularly log my sights and sounds. A weekly post couldn't hurt, I suppose.