Electricity

One of my favorite pastimes is living without electricity. I refuse, for example, to use pneumatic chisels in my stone carving class, opting instead for the hammer-and-chisel-struggle of centuries ago. The only way to appreciate MichaelAngelo is to work by hand.

As with stone, so with bread. Bread you buy at the market is most likely machine-made--even the organic loaves. People making bread at home enjoy the satisfaction of watching the bread rise inside the sanitized compartment of a bread machine after the dough has come together in the same bread machine or--for a more rustically modern feel--in a food processor. That mixing a dough in a food processor is somehow a concession because, after, all, you're not using an automatic machine, or buying a loaf from a market of mass-produced foodstuff--that's atrocious. I never want to be one of those people. I prefer mixing the dough by hand, feeling the gritty clumps of flour stretch and stick and gather together, binding with moisture. I need to know how the dough feels, to smell it, scrape it from underneath my fingernails, watch it rise, and most importantly: to hear it rise.

If something can be done without electricity, I prefer any method of making any thing that is independent of machines or electricity. The more independent the better. To live without electricity is to live fully. My favorite moment out of all my thirteen years in New York City was the summer of 2003, when there was a blackout spanning several days. I ate fresh fruit and coal-fired pizza. I spent the day painting and conversing with my boyfriend without having to wait for commercial breaks or the quiet of late nights when most everybody else is asleep. I don't hate electricity, however; I simply sometimes choose to ignore it.

But I don't own a bicycle.