Arts & Opinion.com
  Arts Culture Analysis  
Vol. 10, No. 2, 2011
 
     
 
  Current Issue  
  Back Issues  
  About  
 
 
  Submissions  
  Subscribe  
  Comments  
  Letters  
  Contact  
  Jobs  
  Ads  
  Links  
 
 
  Editor
Robert J. Lewis
 
  Senior Editor
Bernard Dubé
 
  Contributing Editors
David Solway
Nancy Snipper
Farzana Hassan
Samuel Burd
Andrée Lafontaine
Sylvain Richard
Marissa Consiglieri de Chackal
 
  Music Editors
Diane Gordon
Serge Gamache
 
  Arts Editor
Lydia Schrufer
 
  Graphics
Mady Bourdage
 
  Photographer
Denis Beaumont Marcel Dubois
 
  Webmaster
Emanuel Pordes
 
 
 
  Past Contributors
 
  Noam Chomsky
Mark Kingwell
Naomi Klein
Arundhati Roy
Evelyn Lau
Stephen Lewis
Robert Fisk
Margaret Somverville
Mona Eltahawy
Michael Moore
Julius Grey
Irshad Manji
Richard Rodriguez
Ernesto Zedillo
Pico Iyer
Edward Said
Jean Baudrillard
Bill Moyers
Barbara Ehrenreich
Leon Wieseltier
Nayan Chanda
Charles Lewis
John Lavery
Tariq Ali
Michael Albert
Rochelle Gurstein
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward
 
     

gene logsdon 's
HOLY SHIT

Todd Simmons

reviewed by
TODD SIMMONS

___________________

Todd Simmons is the editor of Wolverine Farm Publishing.

With a title like Holy Shit for his latest book, author Gene Logsdon set himself up perfectly to lob (lob!) one joke after another about, well, shit. I mentioned to a friend recently how humans don’t seem to be as funny anymore, and he said, isn’t that just called awareness? My friend was right, but later on I realized humans are not as funny anymore because most of us are aware of the growing calamities the world over, but most of us are still not living right, in a variety of ways, and it’s hard to be funny when you’re living so wrong. Gene Logsdon gets to make all those jokes about poop because he is right, and right by the bucketful. He is right to advise us on how to better manage manure, and he is right to keep an open mind about using what is now considered waste as a fertilizer. No kind of poop goes unexplored -- cows, horses, goats, sheep, pigs, cats, dogs, birds and bats, humans -- you name it, and Logsdon dives in.

Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind is a national treasure, a book so right it rings the Liberty Bell on every other page. What carries this book along is how Logsdon disarms you with his wit, his country charm, and his experience -- this book would mean next to nothing had it come from a research department at a university. However, reading about Gene on his family’s farm, spreading manure on the fields, or putting down additional bedding in the chicken coop, makes his answers to our wrongly perceived problems seem like the only answers. I can see many, many people taking issue with what Logsdon has written, and if he didn’t have experience -- both his own and human history dating back thousands of years -- Logsdon might be banished to the outhouse. However, history is with Logsdon, and we would all do well to get to know manure a little more intimately.

“Chicken manure is the easiest of all barn manures to handle, mostly because chickens do not urinate in the same way that, say, a horse does, flushing out enough in one session to drown a chicken or two. Nevertheless, I am often shocked at the mess I sometimes see in the coops of even very small flocks.”

I love books like Holy Shit that so clearly define and solve a perceived problem. In managing our manure better, we could instantly conserve vast amounts of water, end our dependence on commercial fertilizers (their end is coming anyway), build up the health of our soil, grow amazingly nutritious food and learn how to properly use pitchforks again.

Who would have thought our salvation could come through shit?

Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind
Paperback, 272 pages
Published August 30th 2010 by Chelsea Green Publishing

Related articles:
Oceans Drowning in Plastic
Bottomfeeder
Teflon and your Toxicity
Retreat from Meat
Cell Phone Users Beware
Slice and Salmon Lice
The Soya Bean Conspiracy
Can Red Meat Take the Heat


 

BENEFIT CONCERT FOR HAITI, SALLE GESU, JAN. 20TH (Papa Groove, Ariane Moffatt, Bïa, Kodiak, Echo Kalypso, Doriane Fabrig (ex-Dobacaracol), Claude Lamothe, Ian Kelly, Pépé: Box-office 514.861.4036
19thfloor.net = shared webhosting, dedicated servers, development/consulting, no down time/top security, exceptional prices
Film Ratings Page of Sylvain Richard, film critic at Arts & Opinion - Montreal
MARK GOLDFARB - CERTIFIED SHIATSU THERAPIST
Montreal World Film Festival
Festival Nouveau Cinema de Montreal, Oct. 10-21st, (514) 844-2172
CINEMANIA(Montreal) - festival de films francophone 1-11 novembre, Cinema Imperial info@514-878-0082: featuring Bernard Tavernier
Montreal Jazz Festival
Listing + Ratings of films from festivals, art houses, indie
Montreal Guitar Show July 2-4th (Sylvain Luc etc.). border=
TRAVEL PERU - RENT-A-CAR
madyart.com
Armand Vaillancourt: sculptor
Canadian Tire Repair Scam [2211 boul Roland-Therrien, Longueuil] = documents-proofs
Available Ad Space
Donations
Valid HTML 4.01!
Privacy Statement Contact Info
Copyright 2002 Robert J. Lewis