On this first day of a new year, a time of earnest resolution, we turn to a grassroots visionary whose message exuberantly rejects the prevailing spirit of the times: Brad Kittel, and his ideas for pure salvage living. Consider Kittel’s simple, brilliant and direct proposal…
As others look to extract energy and resources from the last remaining natural preserves on the planet, whether on land or beneath the sea, the pragmatic deconstructionist Kittel proposes a radically different, recuperative mode of mining:
Against the compulsion to live large, and to accumulate vast quantities of stuff housed inside grotesque McMansions (exhibit A) that function as theaters for the gilded self, Kittel proposes a strikingly different aesthetic, built into Tiny Texas Houses (exhibit B):
EXHIBIT A: LIVING LARGE
IS ANYBODY HOME?
EXHIBIT B: LIVING TINY
SCALED FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Returning to Kittel:
We suspect 2014 will be another year of self-delusion, pretending that we can live forever on board our hyper-consumerist blimp, kept aloft by hothouse financial algorithms, copious amounts of methane produced deep in the bowels of power, and by (other) natural gas fracked from every backyard in North America. Yet at some point (we have no clue as to when) the overblown blimp will find its tiny pin.
When the blimp meets the turf, we will be grateful for creative destroyers such as Brad Kittel, as we reconfigure the future from salvaging the discarded past. For 2014, DP resolves to pay close attention to those who are crafting a sustainable future ahead of the curve, be it how we grow our food; construct habitat; manufacture clothing and other basic necessities; or most importantly, on how we choose to imagine the world, with or without us.
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The idea for Desperado Philosophy descends from Melville, who crafts the novel Moby Dick such that without the Rachel (a blood-soaked whaler to be sure, but not to the exclusion of everything else), Ishmael’s tale could never have been told. Ahab’s Pequod remains the flagship for the grand American delusion, thus we cannot ignore her. Yet we shall also sail from time to time upon the the Rachel, to keep a sharp lookout from the crow’s nest for survivors from the inevitable wrecks.
NARRATOR FLOATING UPON A BOOK BOX
Desperado Philosophy 