My Life is a Soup Opera: The High and Low Tastes of a Brooklyn Culture Critic



 

Considering I've written hundreds of articles, and only earned a few thousand dollars publishing them, it takes chutzpah to think anyone would want to read a retrospective selection.

Yet, given the difficulties I had learning to read, and the fact that English was my worst subject before college, I never thought I would become a writer. Thus, it's the psychic rewards of writing that motivate me. I would go so far as saying, "I write, therefore I am."

But who cares about culture criticism? I admit, "Those who can, create. Those who can't, criticize." However, what's creative about criticism is the reviewer's ability to channel the artist, not out-smart him or her. It's also the diversity of subjects that is challenging. Here's where a liberal arts education comes in handy.

Therefore, the unifying thread is the mind behind the words. And mine dives in at the point of attraction. The review, then, becomes a love affair. Will there eventually be a falling out? Or will we settle into a comfortable old age together? These are the bounds of the embrace.

Brooklyn, itself, has become (once again?) not so much terra ferma as a space of the imagination. When I moved from New Jersey into my new wife's coop in 1995, I accidentally became the fourth generation on my mother's side of the family to live in the borough (after a lapse of 44 years). Susan Palm was from Wisconsin, a commercial artist who preceded me by 13 years. So I had a lot of catching up to do.

I believe by now I qualify as a born-again Brooklynite, whose thirst for culture can be satisfied within the boundaries of the third-largest "city" in the country. And within what is also known as Kings County, the Gowanus Canal has become an imaginative ground zero, because if this U.S. government-certified cesspool can be reclaimed, anything is possible.
 

Does this mean I've jettisoned my prior existence? For me, the hinterlands are Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, where you might say I played minor league literary ball.

However, I like to think I had the same high standards then as I have now, for I will always remember one of my comp lit prof's mottos, "Virtue is its own reward." Thus, I can justify including earlier articles in this collection by passing this judgment: "Well, you can see he was a Brooklyn culture critic in the making."

[From time to time, I will upload to this blog articles I've published or written before on autobiography; nature; art, music, and dance; theater and film; poetry; other literature; urban planning; science and religion; and mental health.]

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Urban Oasis Uses Horticulture Therapy to Renew Lives

Inside the main greenhouse at Urban Oasis 

 

Susan Palm is as cool as a cucumber. She has to be to tolerate me, her husband. This attribute also applies to her profession.

In almost seven years of employment at Urban Oasis, the horticulture therapy and job-training program of Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, Brooklyn's state hospital, she has learned to trust nature, which will take its course...

if Susan and other workers sow, winnow, transplant, fertilize, weed, water, control pests, and harvest in a timely, organic manner. Now that doesn't sound like too much work, does it?

However, the goal of Urban Oasis is not just to see how high the bitter melon vines will grow each summer. The program offers a dozen at a time of the hospital's 250 patients an opportunity to renew their lives after the experiences of mental illness and drug addiction.

Contrary to the notion that digging in the dirt is a reversion to childhood, learning to help plants grow is one of the best ways to recover from what may seem like personal dead ends.

Most of  Urban Oasis' patient-workers--they are all paid minimum wage--learn valuable job skills, even if they don't go into the gardening/landscaping business. After discharge from Kingsboro, some get jobs in Brooklyn's burgeoning agricultural fields (on once vacant lots).

Horticulture therapy is one of the recreational therapies, such as the use of art, writing, drama, and dance to complement talk therapy. On the one hand, these approaches allow clients to express themselves non-verbally. On the other, they encourage them to take action to improve their lives.
 


Rudbeckia grown at Urban Oasis

 

Urban Oasis was the brainchild of Susan Braverman, a rehabilitation counselor for 40 years at Kingsboro who became a specialist in gardening. It started in 1997 with patients growing a few vegetables for sale to the staff, and developed into two greenhouses and two large outdoor plots supplying the outside community as well.

Before retiring in 2010, Braverman worked closely with the hospital's administration, the NY State Office of Mental Health, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, NY State Department of Agriculture and Markets, the Horticultural Society of NYC, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to assure Urban Oasis flourished.

In a 2008 Community Gardening interview, Braverman explained, "What is most meaningful to me about Urban Oasis is the amazing group of clients I work with. They are my heroes, who teach me lessons in horticulture and life, making our program a beautiful Eden."      

The current three-member staff, assisted by these clients, run a weekly farmer's market popular in the largely Caribbean East Flatbush neighborhood, contract with a half-dozen community gardening groups in Brooklyn to provide "veggie and flower starts" in the spring, and sell both indoor and outdoor plants to walk-in customers. The income from these sources offsets the non-staff costs of the program.

Beatrix MacLeod, Urban Oasis Coordinator

As the senior employee of Urban Oasis, Susan Palm is an example of gardening's rehabilitation power. For 30 years, she was a commercial artist in the fashion and home goods industries. Unfortunately, computer designs eventually made her hand-painting skills obsolete.

A lifelong gardener--she grew up in the much hardier Zone 4 of Menasha, Wisconsin vs. Brooklyn's Zone 6--Susan was first drawn to flower garden design because of her aesthetic eye. Fortunately, Susan Braverman recognized her potential as an urban farmer who could teach gardening to people recovering from mental illness and substance abuse.

To appreciate the scope of the Urban Oasis operation, you can  peruse the spreadsheets Susan maintains for keeping track of the dozens of vegetables, herbs, and flowers they grow. Or you can experience the bounty in its seasonal glory, especially such Islands' favorites as bitter melon, callaloo, Malibar spinach, long beans, okra, eggplant, cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers, basil, thyme, and lemon balm.

All this nurturing of people and plants keeps Susan healthy and employed past retirement age. l'm "rooting" for her to continue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

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Urban Oasis Uses Horticulture Therapy to Renew Lives

Inside the main greenhouse at Urban Oasis 

 

Susan Palm is as cool as a cucumber. She has to be to tolerate me, her husband. This attribute also applies to her profession.

In almost seven years of employment at Urban Oasis, the horticulture therapy and job-training program of Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, Brooklyn's state hospital, she has learned to trust nature, which will take its course...

if Susan and other workers sow, winnow, transplant, fertilize, weed, water, control pests, and harvest in a timely, organic manner. Now that doesn't sound like too much work, does it?

However, the goal of Urban Oasis is not just to see how high the bitter melon vines will grow each summer. The program offers a dozen at a time of the hospital's 250 patients an opportunity to renew their lives after the experiences of mental illness and drug addiction.

Contrary to the notion that digging in the dirt is a reversion to childhood, learning to help plants grow is one of the best ways to recover from what may seem like personal dead ends.

Most of  Urban Oasis' patient-workers--they are all paid minimum wage--learn valuable job skills, even if they don't go into the gardening/landscaping business. After discharge from Kingsboro, some get jobs in Brooklyn's burgeoning agricultural fields (on once vacant lots).

Horticulture therapy is one of the recreational therapies, such as the use of art, writing, drama, and dance to complement talk therapy. On the one hand, these approaches allow clients to express themselves non-verbally. On the other, they encourage them to take action to improve their lives.
 


Rudbeckia grown at Urban Oasis

 

Urban Oasis was the brainchild of Susan Braverman, a rehabilitation counselor for 40 years at Kingsboro who became a specialist in gardening. It started in 1997 with patients growing a few vegetables for sale to the staff, and developed into two greenhouses and two large outdoor plots supplying the outside community as well.

Before retiring in 2010, Braverman worked closely with the hospital's administration, the NY State Office of Mental Health, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, NY State Department of Agriculture and Markets, the Horticultural Society of NYC, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to assure Urban Oasis flourished.

In a 2008 Community Gardening interview, Braverman explained, "What is most meaningful to me about Urban Oasis is the amazing group of clients I work with. They are my heroes, who teach me lessons in horticulture and life, making our program a beautiful Eden."      

The current three-member staff, assisted by these clients, run a weekly farmer's market popular in the largely Caribbean East Flatbush neighborhood, contract with a half-dozen community gardening groups in Brooklyn to provide "veggie and flower starts" in the spring, and sell both indoor and outdoor plants to walk-in customers. The income from these sources offsets the non-staff costs of the program.

Beatrix MacLeod, Urban Oasis Coordinator

As the senior employee of Urban Oasis, Susan Palm is an example of gardening's rehabilitation power. For 30 years, she was a commercial artist in the fashion and home goods industries. Unfortunately, computer designs eventually made her hand-painting skills obsolete.

A lifelong gardener--she grew up in the much hardier Zone 4 of Menasha, Wisconsin vs. Brooklyn's Zone 6--Susan was first drawn to flower garden design because of her aesthetic eye. Fortunately, Susan Braverman recognized her potential as an urban farmer who could teach gardening to people recovering from mental illness and substance abuse.

To appreciate the scope of the Urban Oasis operation, you can  peruse the spreadsheets Susan maintains for keeping track of the dozens of vegetables, herbs, and flowers they grow. Or you can experience the bounty in its seasonal glory, especially such Islands' favorites as bitter melon, callaloo, Malibar spinach, long beans, okra, eggplant, cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers, basil, thyme, and lemon balm.

All this nurturing of people and plants keeps Susan healthy and employed past retirement age. l'm "rooting" for her to continue.