Editor’s Notebook

Editor’s Notebook: Does this new size make us look fat? We hope so

By Greta Belanger deJong

Every decade or so we like to change things up around here — or maybe down. Welcome to our “new” look. If you’re a longtime reader, you’ll remember that twice in CATALYST history we have been this smaller size: at the very beginning in 1982 and again in the early 2000s. As I write this, I’m on pins and needles to see how this version will turn out. Lord knows I’ve done more math in the past few months trying to wrap my head around all the new dimensions. Anyway, I hope you like it. The preliminaries look terrific. Thanks to my staff and our advertisers for your patience and willingness to trust that this, indeed, is a great idea.

Another instance of “everything old is new again”: This issue, we bring back “Ask Umbra,” an environmental advice column by Umbra Fisk from Grist.com, an online environmental news organization. You’ll also find her well-researched answers to readers’ questions in our Weekly Reader, which is emailed out every Thursday. Not a subscriber? Hop on our website and sign up. It’s free. You also get my picks for the upcoming week’s most “catalytic” activities around town, an occasional love note, a few ads from loyal supporters, a fun post from Z. Smith for “The Novice’s Grimoire” and, probably most beloved by most readers, Ralfee Finn’s weekly astro forecast. Go here to sign up: www.CatalystMagazine.net.

Congratulations to James Loomis, our “Garden Like a Boss” columnist, who recently joined the staff of the Wasatch Community Gardens. He’ll be developing a 1.5 acre blighted urban lot across fro the Utah Arts Alliance (just west of Gateway) into an urban farm, “teaching and mentoring a team of our underserved population in organic gardening, regenerative agriculture, small business skills, and how to smil from dawn till dusk,” he says. Come to think of it, congrats to Wasatch Community Gardens for landing James for this job. Good choices, folks!

Poet Stanley Kunitz said, “It is out of the dailiness of life that one is driven into the deepest recesses of the self.” That is good to know because there haven’t been any grand adventures around here lately. Just work and lot of focus on the garden, which rewards the soul on some days and looks rather palid on others, but is a gracious respite from the scourge of politics.

13781705_10208416532524580_8888284171052727379_nHere’s me, on a good day with some of my plants and with Malia, toy Rottweiler (or whatever she is), aka vamooser of trash pandas because she is fearless in the face of the raccoons who nightly visit our back yard (last week a mama and some babies wandered into the house when the back door was propped open into dusk—simultaneously terrifying and hilarious). And also a picture of Mosey, who apparently feels at home with dinosaurs, at least the small plastic type that lurk among the garden plants and shrubbery.

Greta Belanger deJong is the editor and publisher of CATALYST.

 

This article was originally published on August 1, 2016.