By Frances MadesonGreen Party Mayoralty candidate William Talen, the performance artist and global activist known as Reverend Billy of the Church of Life After Shopping, advocates for a greener and gentler space in our city. When he punctuates his incisive criticisms of Mayor Bloomberg’s corporatist ethos with the word "Amen", it’s less an ending than a beginning. "Amen" becomes an invitation to be included in the conversation about how we are going to unleash our creativity to make this city healthier and more sustainable. Suddenly you understand this common word’s complexity anew—the singularity of the first syllable and the plurality of the second. Reverend Billy’s ability to communicate, to penetrate the noise and refresh the minds of his listeners, is a kind of grace. And after exploring his website and seeing him in action at a recent candidate’s forum (handsome, articulate, deeply intelligent), I have concluded that his candidacy, the theme of which is “The Rise of the Fabulous 500 Neighborhoods” may be the most important, the most pivotal race that NYC environmentalists have ever had the opportunity to join in.
In the allotted 500 words it’s impossible to tell you everything I discovered about Reverend Billy, so I’ll let him tell you himself. You can easily imagine the questions, or better yet, make up your own! But I leave you with a thought experiment: Try, if you can, to imagine these words coming out of the mouth of our current mayor:
“In our city, the domination of highways and pavement, the fatalities to pedestrians and cyclists from cars and trucks, these things oppress us more than we realize. We have normalized them, but it isn’t normal. In the entire country of Denmark there’s an average of seven or eight of these kinds of deaths in an entire year."
“Automobiles isolate us, and iPods and cell phones separate us. We have become so estranged from each other we have to build our communities on purpose. If you find yourself passing someone on your block a couple of times, on the third time don’t pass them by without conversing. It could be as simple as talking about the weather, which we all share; it is our commons. Sixty conversations later you might find yourselves on your knees together planting the community garden."
“In Nairobi, I had the great fortune of meeting Wangari Maathai, the mother of tree-planting there, founder of the Green Belt Movement, and a 2004 recipient of the Nobel Prize. Wangari is the model for Parks Commissioner in my administration."
“New York City is the City of Immigrants; immigrants are part of our eco-system. Our mayor should have used his power to protect our immigrant neighbors from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and deportation. He should have stood up to George Bush and told him, You can’t do that here; you can’t drag our people out of their homes in front of their children and jail them. We won’t let you."
“Homeless people in our city have special knowledge; they have borne the brunt of the corporate oppressors, while the middle class has received the advertising, which we know is all lies."
“When we embrace each other as human beings, some of us don’t always smell so good. But, if we slow down and love our neighbor, we just might find that our neighbor is fascinating—better than a movie. We are the media ourselves. When we are dancing, feeding each other, taking care of each other’s children, living in our neighborhoods with each other, these things lead us to our common sense, to the part of us that knows we are here to love the earth. Because we are the earth.”
About the Author
Frances Madeson is the author of the novel Cooperative Village and lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
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