Back in 1965 Green Acres hit the airwaves,
Green acres is the place to be
Farm living is the life for me
Land spreading out,
so far and wide
Keep Manhattan,
just give me that countryside.
In Green Acres, Eddie Albert had a midlife crisis and moved to the country. Eva Gabor, his wife, came along. If I remember right, they had a pet pig. Update Obi’s Sister reminds me the pig’s name was Arnold.
At the same time as Green Acres, Mr. Whipple made his debut. He brought in a new age of sanitary comfort.
Several years later I worked with a girl who lived the truly organic lifestyle at a commune in the countryside that inhabited a farmhouse with no running water or electricity. She was a very pleasant girl with BO.
Well, now you don’t have to leave Manhattan to take up Stone Age living and ditching the Charmin (no Arnold, though):
Via Ith, The Year Without Toilet Paper
Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.
Using no paper really means no paper:
Nothing is a substitute for toilet paper, by the way; think of bowls of water and lots of air drying.
After reading the article, I felt sorry for their neighbors, since any kind of “sour odor” in Manhattan living means one thing: roaches. That’s if you’re lucky – most likely it also means mice and rats.
And if The Husband’s middle-age crisis had propelled him to no paper living, he soon would have become The Ex-husband: “For better or for worse” specifically excludes air-drying.
Update
As for commuting to work on a Razr scooter, either Mrs Conlin’s short, or I hope they’re making them in adult sizes.
Update, Wed. 28 March: The Daily Ablution washes away the unsanitary pretense.
The pig’s name was Arnold.
Fausta,
The most telling line in this story, the one that shows the gulf that seperates the Times (and Colin Beavan and Michelle Conlin)from the rest of us:
“Olive oil and vinegar are out; they used the last dregs of their bottle of balsamic vinegar last week, Mr. Beavan said, producing a moment of stunned silence while a visitor thought about life without those staples.”
Sarcasm? Usually not part of the Times’ repetoire…and while maybe I don’t eat as much salad as I should, I would never sit in stunned silence contemplating life without a trendy salad dressing…I’d just grab the ranch or bleu cheese….
I really feel for baby Isabella….
Ranch dressing on the arugula – Tes!
The poor little kid.