Buy Local

Hi Mrs. B,

So, I figured that on an unusual day, I'd talk to you about an unusual topic. Unfortunately, I didn't think to hold off on writing to you about Miss Peregrine and the Home for Peculiar Children for today. (Darn me and my missed opportunity... ::shaking my fist at the sky::) So, I don't know how often you think about this, but it's something that came up recently in a conversation I was having with my mother: is it just as important to buy local authors and artists as it is to buy local produce?



Now, see, I wouldn't often equate one with the other, but it did get me thinking, because I actually tend to buy something from a local artist or a local author when I'm visiting a place. I think it stimulates the local economy just as much, but I'd never really thought about it as that exactly when I was doing it, it was more about taking care of the little guy.

But, there's something else you get to see when you buy local: there's often something very regional about it. Even if you don't like whatever it is, even if you love it, it's really hard to deny that whatever creative product is as effected by the local ... soil, if you will, as that tomato.

I know I love me some home-grown tomatoes in a salad...
I think there might be basil from our garden in here, too....

You want an example? Well, a few years back, I bought a CD. Well, not just a CD, but three of them, partly because I was supporting a co-worker's dreams of being a rap star and part because I thought -- without listening to them, mind -- that my sister and brother would love it. Or I hoped, at least they'd like it.

They didn't.

They spent HOURS mocking it out, because who would equate rap-stardom with Winter in Upstate?

But, where they had problems with that idea, I actually saw a man inspired by his locality to express himself in a medium he enjoyed. I may not have enjoyed it on it's artistic merit either (and I do like rap, just not the rhymes he was spinning), I did appreciate his passion and love for the location he lived in. It was in every song.

Although, since that incident, I've made a point in "checking before buying," if you know what I mean. It may be great if the tomato is grown in one soil over another, but if you don't like tomatoes or if the tomato is rotten, then you've spent your money on something you're not going to eat.

I'd probably beware of this tomato.... The skin just looks all wrong..... 

Same with books, music, or any other form of artistic expression.

Granted, mostly the books I buy when I visit a place are local histories and folklore, sure, but on the odd occasion, I do get some fiction. Like recently, on my trip South, while I was having a craving for reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil again, I took a quick perusal of the local authors offered at the two bookstores I was able to dash into. I ended up sucked into a book that I'm sure I'll talk about later In for a Penny set in Hilton Head. It's one of those things that I love: going to a place and reading a book and thinking "Hey! I know that place! I've stopped there." Or hearing the things that only a local thinks or knows about a place. And so far it's been really good. (And to throw a shameless plug back toward an earlier post, The Lightning Time, one of my favorite books as a kid, was also written by someone who was, at the time, a local author about an area near and dear to my heart.)

I have a lot of local books to try still, since it seems the "to read" pile out weighs the "read" pile by an elephant (at least).  So, here's to the "local books".

This omnivore is going to put a few of them on the menu over the next few months. And hopefully, we'll have a chat about them, you and I, Mrs. B.

Best,
Odd