Thursday, January 13, 2011

Good Idea #4: Marry A Corporation


If you love corporations so much, why don't you marry one?

I mean, they're legally people, right?

Or are they? I mean... what the hell? If they're legally people, and are entitled to free speech, they should be entitled to get married too. Which means that you should be able to marry one.

While I did come up with this idea on my own while thinking about the unsuccessful run for congress by Murray Hill, Inc (actually a group of lawyers setting out to prove what a ridiculously stupid notion the idea of corporate personhood is), somebody else also came up with this idea at almost the same time, separate from me, in Florida.
You can learn more about his event here. I look forward to learning about how it goes! Stay tuned for updates!

Sidenote:This may be a loophole for gay marriage. Who's to say you can't marry your partner because you've got the same gender identity? What if your partner creates a corporation that states in it's ledger (a legally binding document) that it identifies as being the opposite sex? Just get your partner to incorporate as a corporation of the opposite sex! No need for expensive surgery that only reinforces our binary gender roles! It smashes two stupid legal birds with one absurdist legal stone.

Which is why it's such a Good Idea

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Good Idea #3: Aerial Alice in Wonderland


While Alice is already a far out, fantasy-entertaining young woman, and Wonderland an enchanted, mind-bending place, it can only be made better with aerial dance. Done on lower hanging equipment than say, circus trapeze, aerial dance is about movement, creating the space where there is no trapeze and dancer, only the dance. Trapeze, silks, hoops--the possibilities! The Chestire cat, on a trapeze! Alice, falling down the rabbit hole, falling in a silk. The Queen! Bounding, flying across the stage on a huge double point trapeze. I would love to see Wonderland adapted into a swinging, circling, hanging, wrapped, tangled dancing world.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Good Idea #2: Dress as other holiday mascots on Halloween




Halloween is awesome!


But you know what's even more awesome? Messing with people!

Now, on Halloween, there are very few ways that a person can effectively do that. People already are dressing up in very un-normal ways. So that's to be expected. People go from house to house knocking on people's doors and ringing door bells. So that's to be expected too. There are lame ways to mess with people, like toilet papering their house, or throwing eggs at them. But they're also really old hat.

Why not publicly celebrate a different holiday on the wrong day?
More specifically, dress up as the mascot for another holiday!

Next Halloween, try dressing up as Santa Claus, and get a big bag, and fill it with presents (the good kind, you're Santa Claus, remember?). Go door to door, as is normal on Halloween, but instead of saying, "trick or treat!" instead bellow: "MEEEEERRRRRRY CHRISTMAS!!!!" and hand the person at the door a gift. Then wish them a happy new year and walk away.

Alternatively, you could dress up as the Easter Bunny, and hand them colorful plastic eggs filled with candy, and wish them a "Happy Easter!" in your best rabbit-voice.*

Even though wacky behaviour is allowed on Halloween, people still won't quite know how to react. But they WILL probably think it's hilarious, and it will most likely brighten their day.

And that's why this is such a Good Idea.







*[Editors note: Easter and Christmas are the only two widely known holiday mascots I can think of, as most other holidays haven't been so atrociously commercialized as these two and focus more on spirituality than mascots. If you can think of another non-halloween holiday mascot, by all means, dress up as them, stay in character, and celebrate that holiday on the wrong day.]

Good Idea #1: Public Greenhouse

So being downtown is supposedly more efficient that living in the country, but everybody who lives in the city, and is eco-conscious also wants to live in the country.

Do we have to live with this paradox? NO!


Create a public greenhouse in the downtown area!


After reading "Cradle to Cradle" by William McDonnough, I have been thinking hard about the use of buildings and how they create the environment of the city.



While talking about pipe dreams of architectural fantasy with the co-creator of the Good Idea Book, I looked across the street at the Portland Public Market building and saw that a very real and concrete possibility was sitting right there in front of me.

The ceilings were tall enough to facilitate the growth of fruit bearing trees, and there was enough floor space that one could have plenty of raised bed gardens to provide a wide variety of crops year round. What the facility lacked in size (compared to your traditional farm), it made up for in being able to use all existing footage for crops, year-round.

By compartmentalizing the interior space and creating greenhouses within greenhouses, even plants from a foreign biome could be grown locally.

Just imagine: Organic, locally grown oranges? In Maine? It could be a reality!


Well great idea, but how will it generate income so we can make back the money we invest?


First, such a space should be deemed a tax-exempt economic zone, from either the city or state. It could be brought under the administration of the school system, or public works, or waste management, or any other municipal entity, as it would ultimately serve as a public resource for composting waste, for education in organic gardening and sustainable living, and for providing food.


How to generate income for the operation and maintenance of such a facility:


Number one is obvious: Pick-your-own organic produce, year round. Anybody who has a garden plot on their land knows that there is nothing like fresh produce picked right from the garden. This facility would offer that quality of produce year round. People could, using the CSA model, become subscribers to the farm, just as people purchase subscriptions to other public utilities, like tapwater, and electricity, from municipal non-profits.

Number two is less obvious: TOURISM!

By charging admission, much like an art museum or public botanical garden, giving teaching tours that teach about how the space was created, and how it is run and operated, as well as the benefits of sustainable living, a public greenhouse becomes a tourist destination. Plus, how cool would it be to see a greenhouse garden in the middle of the city?

Another added benefit, is it would give people living in the downtown area a place to send compostable food wastes. With on-site composting, we can make use of the organic material that would normally go up the smoke stacks of your regional waste management facility, or worse, sent to a landfill to be preserved forever, and mixed in with toxic waste, rendering it unusable for agricultural use in the future.

Private niche markets could develop in the city, with eco-conscious people paying to have their compostable waste taken to the greenhouse. If your city has a "pay per bag" garbage pickup system, offering a reduced rate, or even free pickup for compostable material would provide more than enough organic material to feed the soil of the greenhouse.


So to recap, a public greenhouse provides the following:


* Educational facility
* Supplements the school lunch program
* Locally grown organic food, year round
* Reduction in the waste stream by diverting compostable materials
* An eco-tourism hotspot, bringing in dollars from outside of town

Good Idea #0 : The Good Idea Book

What is the Good Idea Book?


Well, a while ago, two people had a really good idea:

Make a book filled with good ideas and share them, for people to try out.

So after a while of trying to figure out how to make this an actual book, without any money to start it with, we started the Good Idea Book blog.

What we will be publishing:

* Good ideas that we think are really good that get sent to us
* Good ideas that we think are really good, that we make up
* Photos or videos of the results of people putting a good idea into practice.

All of the good ideas published here are open source, and meant as projects for you to try out.

So stay tuned!