The Big Waste

 Unlike most of America, I did not partake in any shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Instead, I chose to stay in bed all day, and engage in another popular American pastime, watching hours of reruns on television. As I was flipping through the channels, I came across a special on one of my favorite stations, The Food Network called 'The Big Waste'. Apparently, top chefs like Bobby Flay, Anne Burrell, Michael Simon and a few others agreed to take part in a challenge to make food for 100 people, all made with found, not purchased food. Throughout the episode, they engaged in dumpster diving, produce salvaging, and gathering 'unusable' ingredients from restaurants, butchers and grocers. I found it a useful way to introduce alternate lifestyles, while simultaneously uncovering the mass amounts of food wasted, due to aesthetic imperfections. If it's not pretty, people won't eat it, so it must be dumped, naturally.

Check out the The Big Waste Episode Online!

The day after indulging in various food dishes, leaves one to think about how much tons of food is wasted yearly and where exactly the ingredients come from...

Krump Culture!

Kingdom Radically Uplifting Mighty Praise, or KRUMP, is a dance form used to both 'praise God and release anger' according to one of the Dorchester Youth Collaborative (DYC) staff members. Krumping is a dance form characterized by high-energy, theatrics, body contortion and improvisation. I became aware of the strong presence of krump in Boston's inner-city, while working at The Center for Teen Empowerment, which seeks to allow youth to use their creative talents to incite peace and promote change in their community. At many of the events, various krump crews would attend and share their talent. Krumping is a way to express anger through dance, rather than violence. Various crews 'battle' each other, but instead of resulting in violent tensions, it is just a channel to share new styles and moves, and express your status as a krumper.

Because krumping functions, in part, as an alternative, or creative response to inner-city violence, ' krumping [can be viewed as] a way to rebel against gang culture.' In this way, it counters the presence of violence in the inner-city, by exhibiting a sense of brother/sisterhood. Structurally, krumping is organized by different crews or 'fams' that create unique dance moves according to a specific style. These 'fams' consist of some more experienced dancers, who take the newer dancers under their wing, as one would in a family. Typically, one member of a crew would dance at a time, while all the other dancers would gather around 'hyping' the performer. This really shows the sense of camaraderie and support, that some of these dancers may not get a chance to experience outside of krump. In this way, I think krumping is a positive way of expression for inner-city youth.  Further, as noted above, there is specific krump terminology, making it exclusive culture, yet the art can be appreciated by a wide audience.

Many of the young people I worked with described krump as a way of life. It wasn't just something you did as a hobby, it defined you. I think krumping is an extremely fascinating art form, that is definitely characterized as an approach to counter the forces of mainstream images of urban violence