All those slashes might seem to indicate a place that’s trying too hard to be everything for everyone. Thankfully, that’s certainly not the case. Their multi-functional mix works. Moreover, it thrives. 61 Local is a privately owned public square, where creativity, community, and collaboration collide.

Photo by flickr user ethikus.

Dave Liatti is the owner and mastermind behind 61 Local, which he opened in 2010. A former Sixpoint Brewery engineer, acclaimed foodie and designer, and one of the entrepreneurial icons behind Brooklyn’s locavore movement, Liatti’s vision for 61 Local is more than just another bar. “61 Local is a meeting place for friends, a watering hole, a house party, a creative space and an inclusive environment that fosters collaboration and the positive exchange of ideas,” Liatti and Kris de la Torre, his manager, told me.

The one defining characteristic you can pin on the place is its theme. Everything at 61 Local – from the beer you drink, to the cheese on your sandwich, to the stool you sit on – is locally sourced. The cavernous interior is repurposed from its roots as a sprawling town house and garage, marked by a large map on the wall to indicate the exact origin of each item you’re consuming. Here, locavorism reigns. But Liatti’s aim goes deeper than just practicing ethical eating and buying habits; his reason for sourcing locally is that it creates stronger relationships. At 61 Local, the aim is to bridge the gap between the care and creativity of the craftsmen and the customer who enjoys their products.

“The relationships we have with our vendors is one of the greatest pleasures of working at 61 Local. In almost every case we have met face to face with the individual or collaborative that’s behind the product,” de la Torre says. “We strive to understand their process, their inspiration and their needs as a small, independent business. Opportunities are arranged every month for our staff – and sometimes customers – to meet with different vendors, volunteer with them and establish a personal connection that many bars do not prioritize the same as a public house would.”

But what does all of that mean for the customer? More ambitious than sourcing locally is maintaining a profitable business that exists to serve its community. 61 Local is a community center. Literally. “The community center component of 61 is really evident as you watch the slew of patrons through the course of a single day. In one afternoon you could easily see artists from Invisible Dog Art Center next door co-mingling with professional and home brewers meeting to swap some brew, creative professionals who work from their new home office at 61, babies and neighborhood moms, three generations of a family celebrating an anniversary, urban farmers delivering flowers for the tables or selling us some greens, neighbors gathering to pick up their CSA share, actors prepping for an audition on our mezzanine, or any number of friends who know that coming into 61 probably means running into a good friend or beer buddy,” says de la Torre. “It’s great to feel this sort of buzz.”

And there’s quite a buzz. Shortly after its opening, the blog “Brooklyn Based” said that Liatti has “turned 61 Local into a creative hub for neighborhood artists and foodies looking for a place to kick back and collaborate.” TimeOut New York said, “With its single-minded focus on hyperlocal purveyors, Dave Liatti’s sprawling beer hall doubles as an unofficial clubhouse for Brooklyn’s DIY artisans.” New York Times’ food critics said of the establishment, “Never has hanging out at a bar seemed so virtuous.”

Photo by flickr user bhuny.

Any New Yorker will tell you that it’s hard to find a true ‘third place’ that achieves community building free from the trappings of profit-mongering. This raises the question: is localism a kind of temperance to avarice?

I once heard a customer come up to the bar at 61 Local and try to order a Coke. In a fascinating exchange, the bartender kindly explained that they don’t carry those kinds of goods. “Most customers are really excited and appreciative to forgo the typical bar selection for something a little closer to home. Who knows? That soda they just got served might have been made by the couple sitting next to them at the bar. There’s something extra enticing about that.”

What’s different about 61 Local is the intention behind their entrepreneurship. “At 61 we really strive to make connections. Taking the time to meet and understand who is behind each of these events has allowed us to bring together some wonderful, ambitious and creative individuals. What makes this successful is that often times new projects are born from the connections first established at 61 and we are more than happy to provide the context for realizing these projects.”

How Liatti’s vision was actualized is as much a product of his surroundings – he’s lived in DUMBO since before it was called DUMBO – as of his own brilliance. “The creative, DIY nature of what is happening in Brooklyn right now has absolutely shaped 61 Local. The public house was born as a resource for just that sort of effort. This is also why we carry such a large number of products ‘Made in Brooklyn’ and much of our programming is geared towards spotlighting local projects. The spirit of 61 is very much a reflection of present day Brooklyn.” And as for how they want 61 Local to grow: “It would be great if the reach of 61 Local continued to expand and we became more widely acknowledged as an advocate for local projects and community building. If more bars could act as a resource for their community that would be a positive step.”

Part of 61 Local’s neighborhood is negatively affected by the environmental dangers of the Gowanus Canal, a south Brooklyn sewage gross-out that recently received superfund status. With the addition of a new NBA arena nearby – the hotly debated Atlantic Yards – sewage overflow is likely to increase, sending the Department of Environmental Protection into a tizzy.  Last year, 61 Local received a DEP green infrastructure grant to build a roof garden that will absorb rainwater, which will help prevent the run-offs that cause sewage overflow and serve as a rooftop garden to grow herbs and vegetables to use in the restaurant.

This is just one example of how 61 Local is experimenting to see how privately owned ‘third spaces’ can be defined by the goal of caring for the community it serves. It might be idealistic to say that locavorism can completely transform communities and the way we think of free markets. Cultural homogeneity is still a wolf at the door of those dining at the local-only table. But perhaps it’s not too far-fetched to wonder if, in locavorism, we’re seeing a mode of capitalism that’s fueled by collaboration as much as competition. Of the customer it asks: can we consume more virtuously? Of the vendor it asks: how can we create deeper value from this good? From both these questions, 61 Local is finding positive and profitable results. Lets see who follows suit.

Want to check out what’s happening this summer at 61 Local?

“Summer at 61 Local is going to be HUGE! We are currently developing a free bike tour to Red Hook every first Saturday. Riders will get to meet some of our friends making delicious things down in that ‘hood and end the journey with lunch and a beer at 61. We’re also hosting new lecture series on local ecology and the watershed, spending lots of time at various urban gardens in Brooklyn and will offer plenty of opportunities for customers to tag along. We also have a great line-up of seasonal brews coming out on tap and a growing selection of exceptional wines on tap as more wineries jump on board with the keg program.” – Kris de la Torre

We get tickets, and she tells me she will treat for lunch after we are all done — the first reason I brought her along.  And as we walk toward the modern wing, she now discovers the second.

“Mom, is it okay if I write down your responses to the art?” I ask, pulling a small black notebook out of my backpack before she answers.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she says.

We walk toward the wall in front of us.

“What do you think of this one?” I ask her.

In front of us a canvas stretches across the wall, the length and height of a man, except that no forms or colors are painted onto the canvas’ surface.

“Well…” she says, “Am I missing something?”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“I mean… is this it?” she asks. I stand next to her, just to her right.

“Hmm. I see what you mean,” I say. Then suddenly I step backward. “Let’s look at it from back here,” I say.

My mother joins me, taking steps backward, continuing to stare at the canvas in front of her, her head still. We look for a few more seconds.

“I think there may be a white paint on the surface,” I say, watching my mother’s face. My mother squints her eyes. Her mouth squirms. Then she sighs, turning to look at me.

“I’m sorry, Lizzy,” she says, “I just don’t see anything at all. It just looks like a blank canvas to me.”

“Fair enough,” I say, grinning. I make a note in pen on a page in my notebook.

We move on to a sculpture hanging on the wall just a few steps away. We pause in front of it.

“Is that what I think it is?” asks my mom.

I laugh. “Almost definitely,” I say, “Marcel Duchamp was famous for his urinals.”

“And that is ‘art’?” says my mother, pointing at the urinal, “Who decides these things?” She makes a few furious hand motions and then turns to leave.

“Hold on, hold on,” I say, scribbling in my notebook. “I came to find one piece in particular. We can leave after I see it.”

My mother sighs and follows me deeper into the gallery. Soon I catch a glimpse of purple and grey paint from a few rooms away: one of Jackson Pollock’s lavender masterpieces.

"The public is not willing to work at understanding a piece of art, and artists are not willing to explain themselves. We find ourselves at a tragic impasse."

“Here it is,” I tell my mom. We sit down in front of it on a wooden bench. “Okay, so what do you think of this one?” I ask.

“Well,” says my mother, “On a first glance, it looks like some of the paintings you created in pre-school.” I laugh.

“And on a second glance?” I say.

My mom stares at the painting for a bit before answering. “As I stare at it,” she says, “I begin to feel sad. It seems sad to me. Is that right?”

“Sure,” I say.

“And… it looks like it might be raining. Isn’t it called ‘Lavender Mist?’”

“Yeah, that’s great, Mom,” I say. I nod, trying to encourage her to go on.

Instead she says, “But, hun, I still don’t get it. So can we leave now? I’d like to grab some lunch before we head home.”

I smile. “Okay, Mom,” I say, and we make our way toward the cafeteria and then out into the open air, both convinced our outing was a success: for me because my mother was willing to stare at modern art for thirty whole minutes, and for my mother because she knows I will not force her to step into another art gallery for another ten years at least.

The truth is, most visual artists I know have mothers and fathers like mine — they love their children, they may have even paid for art classes or a creative degree, but they do not understand why in the world their children are so enthralled with the visual art of our time (or the time before us). They may not even understand the art their own children create.

Yet I have found that the world of museum art has no respect for such viewers, even if the artists have a personal connection to this broader non-artist audience through their own families. The audience that seems to matter most in this circle is the world of curators and critics and collectors: those people who ultimately choose the art that will hang on blank gallery walls, who write articles about its place in art history, and who pay thousands of dollars for a piece of history to hang above their stone fireplaces.

Artists in this culture find it an insult to have to sit down with an art-illiterate person to explain their work. It is beneath them; the work should speak for itself. But what if it doesn’t? What if someone needs help in understanding why an artist’s work matters?

This is troubling. If an ordinary person, like my mother, has no interest in stepping into the National Gallery on her vacation, then art has become entirely irrelevant to the general public. Visual art does not matter anymore. It holds no power to move culture, to touch children, to change hearts and minds.

And in fact, the public’s views about art are not really that surprising. When you look at the art that has been lauded for the past sixty years, you can see why most people feel that visual art, particularly art that hangs on the walls of art museums, was not made for them. They “just don’t get it.” (Though, really, who does?)

The public is not willing to work at understanding a piece of art, and artists are not willing to explain themselves. We find ourselves at a tragic impasse.

However, in this chasm between art and the public exists a movement of local artistry — artists who are showing and selling their work in their local communities, who are telling stories through their artwork, who are painting real people they know, who are willing to sit down and explain the abstraction in their work. They are not afraid of the public. In fact, to them, the public is their primary audience.

In my hometown in Colorado, a gallery, the Modbo, has formed a collective of local figurative painters who meet together monthly to critique each other’s work. The owners of the gallery have developed a reputation for the art they show, and the community has responded: the work sells. Non-artists can stop into openings and talk with artists directly about their work, asking questions and developing a relationship with the artists in the collective.

I cannot tell you that this group is single-handedly changing the art world, but I know they are fighting a movement of artists who care less and less about audience, and more and more about self-expression. These visual artists are held accountable: they exist in a community of artists who critique their work, and they exist in a community of people who will buy their work only if they connect on a personal level with the art and the artist.

I wonder if visual artists already accepted into the museum world could use their influence to change the cultural attitudes of audiences and artists towards each other. The larger the audience, the more true fame and influence an artist has.

I also wonder how often we consider our audiences in our art-making. Our audience matters. Art loses impact if we create only for ourselves, and often, our best art comes from considering others.

Perhaps we can hope for a turning of the tide, a swing back toward the center of the pendulum arc. Self-expression has had its heyday. Now, let us return home, back toward art made with others in mind. I can tell you that my mother, and perhaps yours too, might even venture inside a gallery to take a peek at what we make.

When people are cultured, the results can be as varied as the catalogue of cheeses. So too are the means by which people become cultured.

I was cultured by El Fantastico.

My cousin and six years my senior, El Fantastico died of heart failure at the age of 36. He weighed well over 300 pounds, ate junk food non-stop, smoked pot every day he could, drank liberally, and was as lazy as a hippopotamus on the Nile. He never graduated from high school, never had a high-paying job, and never married.

That was sixteen years ago. I’ve outlived El Fantastico by ten years, have multiple degrees, a well-paying job, a wife of 25 years, and a great family. Still, a day doesn’t go by that something of El Fantastico doesn’t touch my life, or the lives of my three children.

El Fantastico loved everything truly “cultured” in life. When I was ten, he introduced me to music. We’d sit for hours listening to the smooth grooves of Sam & Dave, the psychedelic spasms of Arthur Brown, and the sorrows of the Moody Blues. His record collection was as immense as he was. He listened to everything from Ray Charles to Queen to Aerosmith, all vinyl, hundreds and hundreds of records to be re-catalogued and revisited.

And there were the classics: the seminal zombie films Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, the groundbreaking science fiction of Forbidden Planet and Star Trek, the comedy greats George Carlin and, of course, Monty Python. We’d stay up late to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus on public TV. Once a year, they’d show Monty Python and The Holy Grail on Memorial Day weekend. What would I be today without the Holy Grail?

El Fantastico was also a collector of rare things. His vast comic book collection educated me in everything Marvel. Back then I could tell you the names, alter egos, and origin stories of superheroes most people never heard of. We all know of the Silver Surfer, the Fantastic Four, and Thor. But do you remember Luke Cage Power Man? Or how about the Iron Fist? Galactus and the Watcher? The Brute and Howard the Duck? There were so many. He collected only the best: comics of Marvel and EC, and sometimes Atlas. Never anything so pedestrian as DC. I think it was the art that drew him to comics. He loved the brilliant colors and fantastic poses and immense emotion in those old comic book frames. (Yes, I learned art from El Fantastico. Have you ever seen a Frazetta? No? Check him out. El Fantastico had several, right between his posters of Boris Karloff and Farrah Fawcett.)

When I was eleven or twelve El Fantastico taught me to play chess and Risk. He was a master at anything that involved strategy, especially board games. I don’t think I ever beat him in a serious game. He loved to win, and if he was losing, he loved to cheat. Sometimes I wonder if he enjoyed cheating more than winning. To him that was the best kind of joke. The only time he was serious was when he was lying, and when he grinned without looking at you he was cheating. Honesty wasn’t something I learned from El Fantastico.

Later, we rebuilt the core of his turquoise 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 from the ground up. Since El Fantastico was skillfully lazy, I had the honor of doing most of the work, and learned about motors and transmissions and axles and bearings. When it was running, we’d cruise Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak and have the kind of exalted fun you can only have rumbling down a late-night road in a classic muscle car.

By the time I was fourteen, we were going out more than staying in. That was before cable TV or cheap video tapes. If you wanted to see a movie, and it wasn’t on broadcast TV, you went to the theater. There were Three Stooges Festivals at the Main and sci-fi double-features at the drive-in. Downtown, the Prudential ran The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday and Saturday at midnight for years. By sixteen, I’d seen it 29 times. You want culture? Visit a long-running late show of Rocky Horror.

Finally, before we grew apart and I went my own way, El Fantastico became the live-in caregiver for six mentally handicapped adults. He had the entire basement as his apartment, which he filled with all that was El Fantastico: comics, music, art, movies, games, and friends. The large man tenderly cared for his charges, ensuring they were always safe and had everything they needed. More than that he treated them like brothers and sisters, drawing them into the world of El Fantastico, enriching their lives just as he had mine.

I can’t think of much that El Fantastico left that prepared me for success. But, man, he lived. We lived. I wouldn’t trade the years in that cerebrally hedonistic wilderness for anything.

And more music than ever is being made today. With the advent of YouTube and the rise of distributors like CDBaby, Tunecore, and Bandcamp, it has become easier to skirt around the traditional industry and make your own music– and many people are doing it.

Under this looming avalanche of sound, one needs certain survival skills. It’s not possible to listen to everything out there, or even what any good musical aesthete is “supposed” to listen to, so we’re forced to pick and choose. This is well and good.

Much of the time, at least in my own observations, I find our choices are governed by personal taste, what we “like.” Now, taste certainly has something to do with it. But lately I have wondered whether, in our consumer-driven, individualistic society, taste hasn’t started to get the better of us.

Think of this scenario: have you ever been in the iTunes store, or on YouTube, and said “Naaah” after listening to a new track of music for maybe 30 seconds? An artist’s creative output, judged within a few blinks of an eye. I raise my hand as guilty. Now, sometimes music is just that bad, and deserves an easy dismissal, but I fear that when this becomes a pattern in our listening experience, it is a sign of the tyranny of taste.

In his pop culture analysis, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, Ken Myers observes,

“In an age of egalitarianism and relativism, it is easier than ever to regard matters of taste as wholly private and personal. I like Bach, you like Bon Jovi, praise the Lord anyhow. But is aesthetic judgment purely a subjective and neutral matter? Is ‘beauty’ exclusively in the eye of beholder? Is something ‘beautiful’ just because I like it, or does it have some objective quality rooted in creation that allows me to recognize that it is beautiful?”

Myers raises the question of an objective standard of goodness and beauty in art, and he argues that such aesthetics are spiritually based, “Culture has very much to do with the human spirit. What we find beautiful or entertaining or moving is rooted in our spiritual life.” This is true of any culture that has held to an objective worldview. The problem, Myers points out, is that today’s more subjective ethos arises out of a cultural relativism. With the disappearance of any concept of transcendence, personal preference reigns. The result of relativism and the commodification of music, is that pop culture today is increasingly market driven. We are so awash in it wherever we go, that it is only fitting that individual taste would be the dominant factor in our artistic consumption decisions.

The problem is, when we let our own sense of taste dominate our artistic sensibilities, we can begin to think that music as an art form is our servant, that it is there for our sole benefit, and exists only to satisfy us. A lot of music and music listening today has become a form of emotional masturbation. We tend to like and listen to music that matches our mood or makes us feel good.

But music does not exist solely for us, which is hard to remember in our age of market-crafted pop stars and he-who-gains-the-most-votes-wins talent shows. As the late Francis Schaeffer observed about perspectives on art, “The first is the most important: A work of art has value in itself….If we miss this point, we miss the very essence of art.”

Scott Avett, singer and songwriter of the Avett Brothers, has recently made a similar connection between the value of art and the “success” of art in pop culture terms:

“In all types of art there is a choice. Create what you feel because you believe in it, or create what you think will be ‘successful’. The difference between the two is this: with the latter, that which will be ‘successful’ can only succeed’ for a temporary moment with you and your physical state. But that which is created in sincerity, that which reveals part of your soul without control or plan, will outlive all of us and be generated between men for years to come. Though the work may not succeed in number of viewers, it still bears a life.”

As music listeners, I think it is helpful to remind ourselves of this truth from time to time. What we hear bears a life of its own, sparked by the life that created it. And if it has been made for beauty, that beauty is part of it regardless of our like or dislike.

So what’s the pay dirt? How should understanding this reflect in our music listening experience?

First, I think it should remind us not to devalue the very thing that we enjoy. Treating music as just a means to an emotional end makes listening a utilitarian, rather than artistic, pursuit.

Second, we should be aware of how the dominance of taste can close us off to types of music that we wouldn’t normally listen to, which is to our detriment. Technology has made a wide variety of music more available to listeners,  but it has often also led us into our own own tiny, personally-crafted ghettos.

This leads to my third point: we should actively find ways to expand our own sensibilities. One thing that I have done in recent years is to seek out and listen to older musicians who have been recognized for their musical talent and prowess. I admit, the sometimes dated nature of the sound has occasionally  jarred my personal preferences, but I’ve also been surprised by how much truth and beauty I have found.

Fourth, we should seek to become more aware of our own spiritual traditions and what they teach us about beauty. What is the place and value of beauty and art in our worldview? This question of aesthetics is an age-old one, and its pursuit is one which will not offer up easy, drive-through-window answers. I’m still wrestling with these questions, with my own culture, and with my place within it. But these questions are worth grappling with and worth pursuing, for they are the pursuit of the eternal over the temporal.

The American in me is more muscular,
talks loud shit with the boys
and drinks beer because he likes it.

The American in me smells right,
like wood chips, cigarettes and sweat
and his wife likes two out of three.

The American in me votes ardently,
carries the political history of his father
and holds country up to family.

The American in me married his high school sweetheart,
said “I love you” through the tears
and has been saying it every morning ever since.

The American in me goes to the coast on vacation,
always says he’ll retire there
but knows he won’t make it that long.

The American in me is a veteran
of everything if you’re asking him
and yes, he is ready for a fight.

The American in me hits hard,
like the first cold wind of winter
freezing brittle bone to break inside out.

The American in me works on the clock,
hates and loves the overtimefor the effort it takes
and the empathy it creates.

The American in me sits at the head of the table,
flanked by loving wife and obedient children
and he loves them when he has time.

The American in me tries to stay healthy,
dilutes his tuna with beer
and wears his gut like a varsity jacket.

The American in me goes by Jon,
spells it without the “H”
and always peers over just to make sure.

The American in me is the American in you,
and the American in you doesn’t recognize the American in me,
nor me in you, nor you in me, nor us in I.

I would like to say that I have been very busy, that my kids keep me running, that my other work overwhelms me, but there are no excuses. I have not put the words to the page, I have not written. It is not writer’s block, it is a drought, a writer’s desert, and I found myself on the fringe of it. Then I sat at the keyboard and noted that I am sick of myself and sick of this age, and with that I wandered from the fringe of the desert to its center, my body becoming like sand.

***

I’ve thought often of Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer:”

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

I want to sit in front of my window. I want to watch the light shift across my yard until the horizon fills with color, silhouetting the trees. I want to wonder at the moon and not google anything about it at all.

***

I treated the coming winter like I was ocean-bound. Obligations, in these times, feel like stones in the hems of my clothing. I gather so many, and then someone else comes along and needs something. I think, I can’t. I’ll sink. I want to run, or rip out the hems, for fear of drowning.

That’s why I asked someone else to manage the details of my writer’s group. It was a preemptive move; I planned to be absent; I was sharing the weight before the waves broke.

So how was it that I found myself standing before them, unshowered? I confessed. I told them the truth: I need drops of mercy in the form of assignments, assignments in the form of emails, creating an obligation.

What is it about obligation, that it can have the power to both oppress and free us? Maybe it isn’t obligation, maybe that’s not the right word. All I know is that I’m not in the ocean. I’m in the desert, and I need to find water.

I know how I found myself at that meeting. A desert wanderer knows that an area with life can give life.

***

I am blessed with friends. If you met them, you would marvel. One loves football and loves to make her house a beautiful place. When the call comes to hang out with her and learn how to make pretty things, I say yes. I’ve never dreamed of doing this, but in this dry place I have to say yes, I have to embarrass myself. It is time to take that dreaded first step and try something new, be the fool.

The pretty things will be edible. Cakes. We will take classes and decorate cakes. It comes easily to her, mostly, but I stumble along in a cloud of powdered sugar.

She may feel bad for me, but I don’t. I’m happy to do something hard. It’s satisfying to make food, yet food is temporary. A cake will not be my legacy.

It’s good to remember what it’s like to be a learner. I worry about the narrowness of our current culture, the way the internet tries to present me with more, more, more of what I seem to be interested in knowing. It absorbs the bit of me it knows and calculates, offering me days of shoes and sports scores and theatre ads. I will become a micro-market instead of a person, eyes trained by algorithms and SEO, unable to see past what I know.

Our class makes flowers. Roses, lilies, violets, apple blossoms, daffodils, carnations, poppies, daisies formed of buttercream, royal icing, fondant, gum paste. I’m not always pleased with my work. The teacher says no flower is perfect, not in the way you’re thinking.

***

The assignments come. How did I meet my husband? Have I ever written a haibun? Try it. What do I think about this video game theme song? Write a setting that suits the song “Hurt” as performed by Johnny Cash.

From dry ground, shoots of green. Words.

***

It is better to be in a house of mourning than a house of mirth, the Teacher says in Ecclesiastes. I attend a funeral honoring a man I’ve never met. It is Saturday, the day before Easter.

He lived to be 93 years old, the grandfather of another dear friend. This friend has relationships with her parents and grandparents and sister and extended family that spill over onto all of us. She invests. Because of her, because through her I have learned what love of family and friends looks like, I go to the service.

They tell stories of his good humor and his quiet faith. I learn he was in the Navy during World War II. Underneath the surface of his card playing and travel and love for his family, underneath this ordinary life, he had been a part of bigger things.

We stand and watch the men from the VFW hall fire into the afternoon air. Someone plays Taps. A flag is lifted from the casket, folded, and presented. It gets me every time.

Obligation, I realize, is the wrong word. Relationships don’t have to be like that, work doesn’t have to be like that, as if they’re burdens. Being part of the whole, contributing, sacrificing, grasping hope of a future full of people and promise, these are the things I’ve forgotten.

***

I have two assignments yet to fulfill. One will be about my daughter and an imagined holiday. For the other, I will send this, this story written from an oasis in the desert, the air moist and starlit, the sand quickened. He asked me to write about endings.

Imagine receiving an electric drill to use at school—and the freedom to learn and explore while building things with it. That’s what happens at Brightworks, a year-old nonprofit private alternative school located in San Francisco’s Mission District.

The school is tiny—just 20 students between 6 and 13 years old—but it’s building quite the reputation for its innovative learning philosophy. Brightworks takes its cues from the maker and tinkering movements, which do away with formal classroom instruction in favor of project-based experiential learning.

Students aren’t divided into traditional grade levels, either: The school allows kids to interact naturally across age groups—older students work on more sophisticated projects while younger ones learn primarily through play. And, instead of relying on tests to measure learning, the school’s students create portfolios.

The GOOD video team recently paid a visit to Brightworks and caught up with cofounder and director Gever Tulley. It might seem impossible to scale the Brightworks experience for a public school with hundreds of students. But the focus on giving children authentic, creative experiences that prepare them for the future is something every classroom and school can replicate.

 

Watch the video HERE!