I haven’t updated the blog in over a year and honestly I have moved on from it. I’ve tried transferring information over to a normal wordpress.com site and even over to blogger without a lot of success. I’d hate to delete this blog because it’s got a ton of great information and still gets a lot of hits per day but I just can’t keep it up at this point.

If you are interested in buying it, please let me know. I plan to pull the plug in late February.
ericmsteen at gmail

Today I was shown these images of scenes from science fiction movies that were created out of recycled ink cartridges. They’re pretty amazing as both images and objects. The artist is Faith Pearson, who I can’t find much information about. See more images at the Ink and Media Blog.

Hello readers, as you may have noticed I have been quite slow in posting to this blog lately. I am currently visiting Scotland, where I am creating a one-night pub for homebrewers and a series of beer-related events called Pub School. More information about that can be found over at glasgowbeerandpubproject.blogspot.com. So far, things are going quite well. I’m learning a lot about beer in the UK, as well as the climate and what I might call a nervous-readiness for a more vibrant pub scene. Now, don’t get me wrong, the pub scene here is boosting, but in terms of great-beer-pubs they are fewer and far between (in Scotland at least). I think there is plenty of room for some growth here, and I think some of the people I’ve been in touch with could be forerunners in this industry (I hate calling it an industry…rather, it would be work that they would love to do).

I have needed to slow down on my posting to beerandscifi because I have been rethinking the site. I’m not ready to talk much about it, but I am ready to tell you all that I’m going to just sit on it for a while until I figure it out. I think some good time out will help me a lot. Lately, I’ve had this constant nagging in the back of my head that I need to post something, but I don’t want to just blindly post things without a secure direction, so that’s what I’ll be figuring out. With that said I just might post something if I’m really inspired, but I don’t want you to expect anything from me for a while. Please check back to see if/when I’ve started up again.

For now, you are welcome to follow me on twitter.com/beerandscifi where I have been quite active. It’s much easier to post things to that page because they are of less consequence. If I post stuff you aren’t interested on the blog, you’ll stop reading…but you likely will find little weird things more appropriate on twitter.

Beerandscifi.com now has a twitter account at twitter.com/beerandscifi. I’ll be updating twitter as a supplement to the larger stories here.

I’ll be reading through 2 books and posting my thoughts on Twitter. Please follow me and forward me to your friends.
The books are:
1. (Science Fiction) The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard
2. (Beer) Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World by Christopher Mark O’Brien

The Fermenting Revolution I will review on this blog after I’m done reading it. I should be clear that the book was donated to me for review. I asked the publisher for the book because, from what I could tell, the content seemed to match my thoughts that I express on this blog (but not always so succinctly) that good beer is an agent of social change and that good, local beer inspires greater community and helps builds interest in small business. I look forward to reading it and I will be fair in my review.

From Cottage Link Magazine:
John Steinbeck wrote that redwoods, once seen, “leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always – from them comes silence and awe.” As we walked among them in several groves along the 31-mile long “Avenue of the Giants”, we could only echo Steinbeck’s emotion. It ‘s one thing to walk among the ruins of civilizations gone millennia ago amidst noisy shutterbugs and souvenir hawking vendors – it is another to touch the tallest and oldest living things in creation in a peaceful green gallery and feel time itself.

This is exactly what I feel when I visit these forests. My times in the Redwood Forest are some of the most memorable and inspiring I’ve ever had. When I am there I become quiet, realizing that my busy-ness and my striving to become important is not as important as I perceive it. My place in this world is not the center, and I am much less important than I have thought. But this is not a bad thing, it brings me to become less selfish, more caring, and more compassionate of a person. The joys of Friluftsliv.

I gotta love my brother. Here’s the card he gave me for my graduation three months ago. “What would you have done, had it not been for beer”…”You wouldn’t have graduated without it!” It’s actually quite true. For the last two years I’ve been thinking about beer, drinking beer, making beer, creating events around beer, making beer-culture objects, thinking about the social space around the pint, and the idea that the pub is a graduate students true classroom. Do you know how hard it is to explain this to someone without them thinking I’m way out in left field? Maybe I am though. Anyway, I have a 60 minute and a 30 minute presentation that explains it all quite nicely. “Just don’t tell Mom.” I had to let my parents watch my presentation before they really could understand the value of my research and creative activities. I’ve given the presentation in multiple locations now.

I especially like the drawing of me in the future, with my large belly and some weird thing below my face. Must be a double-chin? Still got my beer. And it looks like I’ll still be driving an old car. Anyway, this card made me laugh and I thought I’d share it with you. I’ll soon be reading this book though so that I can “drink as much as I want” and live longer and healthier…

You may be wondering why I’ve not been posting lately. I’ve got some good news for you all…I’ve just graduated with my masters degree in fine art. So, the last couple months have been really fast-paced and I haven’t been able to keep up this blog as I’ve wanted to. BUT! I’ve got a lot to say and plan to say it soon! I’ve got a lot of unfinished business on this blog here. I’ve visited a lot of breweries, I’ve been thinking a lot about beer drinking and having a microtopian ethos, checking out utopian art projects, and I’ve been watching a lot of great sci-fi movies. I’m also going to be reading a couple sci-fi books which isn’t something I do regularly. And for those of you who like the larger variety of things I post about, I’ve been thinking a lot about radical education. Also, Jordan will finish up his micronation list soon and he’ll have a B-sides micronation list.

For now, I leave with an image of me at Laurelwood Brewery.

Hello everyone,
I’m graduating in about two weeks and if you are a Portlander reading my blog I would like to invite you to my final graduate lecture on May 31st. I will be giving a presentation about alternative education and beer as they relate to my artwork. I would love to have some of my readers there! Afterward we will walk down the street to the Beulahland pub for drinks.

Sunday May 31st, 7:00pm
At the Pancake Clubhouse
906A NE 24th, PDX, OR 97232

I recently attended a lecture at Powell’s Bookstore by renowned paleontologist Peter Ward about the end of life. I thought some of my post-apocalyptic readers might find him to be an interesting guy. He’s written a few books, including the Medea Hypothesis, which is what his lecture was about at Powell’s and what I hope to explain here in this post. He made Animal Armaggedon, a mini-series on Animal Planet about animal mass extinctions. He doesn’t believe that humans are an infection on the planet but that we are a part of nature and nature has cycles where mass extinction happens. As humans we can prolong the current life-expectancy of all animal and plant life on earth if we get smart.

He talked about mass-extinctions and how many people now think that they have been caused by meteors hitting the earth. He showed us the Manicouagan Crater, which is 1,000 kilometers wide but caused no species extinction whatsoever (click on picture above for larger picture). Apparently there are many cases of meteors hitting the planet without causing extinctions. He goes on to show that out of fifteen mass extinctions, fourteen of them were NOT caused by meteors. They were caused by living things – by the coming and going of carbon dioxide and the natural production of hydrogen sulfide.

Ward said that overall there is a disappearing of carbon dioxide which, when it disappears enough, will snuff out life on earth altogether. That is the overall trend that has been happening over large amounts of time. But within our own short history co2 levels are rising fast enough (global warming) to melt off our polar ice caps. When that poles disappear there will be more of an equillibrium of temperature around the globe and there won’t be enough temperature difference to move the tradewinds. As wind movement stops and water becomes stagnant, a larger production of hydrogen sulfide starts, as was the case on the coast of Namibia. Hydrogen sulfide kills off the life around it. Life itself, or living things, cause the rise and fall of co2 levels and sets the production of hydrogen sulfide in motion. Mass extinctions are caused by life itself, so life has brought itself to the precipace of extinction numerous times in the past.

That’s all I have for you. I thought it was interesting and I just wanted to share it with you. I hope this was interesting for my readers, especially my post-apocalyptic readers. I don’t necessarily believe everything I hear but I think it’s good to be thinking about energy production, where it comes from and what you should do about it. It’s all part of making the world you want to live in. I doubt I’ll be posting very many articles related to this so if you are more interested, here is a wonderful conversation chain that Peter Ward has been a part of.

The talk was a little hard for me to follow as I’m not a scientist or paleontologist, so there might be holes in this. Also, I don’t know if this information is old news, if people have known about this for a long time, or if this is fresh off the press.

As part of my exhibition, Building in the Post-Apocalypse, I will have a series of events that range from sci-fi movie screenings to building tours to alternative education workshops. This is my “final MFA Graduate exhibition” and I believe it is a very strong show. Please come see it if you are in Portland. Here is a list of the activities and posters if you would like to spread them around to your friends.

MK GALLERY

2000 SW 5th (2nd Floor) Portland, Oregon

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

Check back for updates.
Some events appear twice because they are in multiple categories…

GALLERY HOURS:
Monday – Thursday 10-5
Saturday April 18th, 12-4

ARTISTS RECEPTION:
Thursday April, 16th
3-6pm – Public Social University event
6-9pm – Exhibition Reception
9-12pm – Sci-Fi Screening: Panic in the Year Zero & The Man From Earth

SCHEDULED ACTIVITIES:
April 13th – Monday – 1:30pm – Subjectivity Excercise with the Morphology Chart
April 13th – Monday – 10pm – Sci-Fi Screening – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 16th – Thursday – 3-6pm – Public Social University event
April 16th – Thursday – 6-9pm – Exhibition Reception
April 16th – Thursday – 9-12pm – Sci-Fi Double Feature (see above for titles)
April 21st – Tuesday – 12:30pm – Visions of the Art Building (tour starts in lobby)
MOVIE SCHEDULE:
Daily movies subject to change:
April 13th – Mon. – playing all day – The Lathe of Heaven
April 13th – Mon. – 10pm screening – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 14th – Tues. – playing all day – The Man Who Could Work Miracles
April 15th – Wed. – playing all day – Fantastic Planet
April 16th – Thu. – playing until 3:00 – The Man From Earth
April 16th – Thu. – 9-12pm screening – Panic in the Year Zero & The Man From Earth
April 18th – Sat. – playing 12-4pm – Panic in the Year Zero
April 20th – Mon. – playing all day – Creation of the Humanoids
April 21st – Tues. – playing all day – A Boy and His Dog
April 22nd – Wed. – playing all day – Silent Running
April 23rd – Thurs. – playing all day – Logan’s Run

And we’re back! Over the last few weeks I have been posting what I find to be the top five most interesting micronations. This post contains #2 of 5. The others, so far, are #5, #4, and #3.

Name: Republic of Molossia
Location: There are currently three provinces included in the Republic of Molossia: one in Nevada, one in southern California, and one in Pennsylvania. The country also claims to have territory on part of the ocean floor, and part of a crater on the planet Venus.
Ruler: President Kevin Baugh
About this Micronation: Some may think that President Baugh might be crazy and a little too fanatical about this micronation, but that is what adds to the lure of this strange and mostly imaginatory state.  Keven Baugh says, on his website, that the nation was established in 1977 as a kingdom, but that in 1999 it changed to the Republic and has remained that way to this day. The country had many holidays, it’s own holidays, its own armed forces, and even its own national anthem. There has been a lot of thought put into this micronation, but unlike many of the other nations that I have shared with you this nation seems mostly all made up; all of the provinces are either within the boundaries of the United States, or in places that are inaccessable (Venus and the ocean floor).

The President with a peace pole.

Overall I think this is a very interesting nation because of its strong root in reality, but not really having any reality to base all the ideas they come up with in. There is a lot of information on the countries web pages, and if you are interesting in learning more I would highly suggest going there and doing some more digging around!

http://www.molossia.org/

I shall see you at #1

I just launched a new blog. It’s The Greenwashing blog. The blog is dedicated to showcasing pictures and videos of greenwashing advertisements, or advertisements that use “green” and environment subject matter to trick you into buying products.

Anyone can submit their greenwashing pictures too and I will post them. In some respects, it functions as a postsecret type thing, but with a different focus.

Please join in to the fun!

Yesterday I experienced a couple random events that seem to relate to each other in some way but I can’t quite figure it out. Maybe you can help?

At 5:30pm, I went to the Deschutes Brewery Beer Geek event, where I enjoyed tasting three beers while having fun conversations with people I hadn’t met yet. The brewer would come around and talk to us about how the beer was made. I had wonderful conversations about how to taste beers, and beer-tasting classes that I might look into in the near future. The theme for the tasting was “dark beers” so I tasted the exclusive and limited Black Pearl Dark Ale, the Oregonian classic Black Butte Porter, and the other classic Obsidian Stout on Nitro. I think it may have been a little silly to put two of their classic beers on the lineup, as if we hadn’t already tasted those. Three beers, but one great experience.

I had to leave somewhat quickly because the artist Edgar Arceneaux was speaking down the street. I wanted to be sure to see this. One of the first images Edgar showed was this one. A drawn image of Tuvac from Star Trek Voyager, Tupac Shakur, and Spock. He said Tuvac was the connection between Tupac and Spock. But maybe Spock is the connection between Tupac and Tuvac? Or maybe Tupac is the connection between Tuvac and Spock? It’s confusing, I know. Three people, three beers, one interesting night.

A couple days ago one of the leading sci fi blogs , io9, made an entire blog post about beerandscifi. I am very flattered and say thank you to io9. Since then I have had an overwhelming amount of traffic and a very large amount of new subscribers.

To all the new people, this post is for you. I want to say hello and welcome to the blog and now I’ll tell you a little about what happens here. The blog is about a couple things: mainly beer and science fiction. The interesting thing for me is where those two topics intersect. I’m not talking about sci fi movies that have people or aliens drinking beer, I’m talking about the social value that both topics bring to the table. Drinking beer is, in my opinion, a transformative social act that can build relationships and inspire critical thought. Yes, beer can be abused too. Science Fiction similarly gets us to reconsider the world we live in and see it in new ways, it can help us navigate philosophical and sociological topics. Floating somewhere between beer and science fiction is this idea of utopia, that we can, with those around us, build the world that we want to live in. I’m interested in how we construct our world and how beer and science fiction speak to us concerning this. So, in this blog, in addition to posts about beer and science fiction you will see information about people fulfilling their idyllic lives, contemporary art that involves activism and social engagement, information about Portland (where I live) which is known as the microbrewing mecca of the planet, among a few other explorations as to what utopia is.

If you haven’t skimmed through the blog yet, here are just a couple of my posts that might be worth your while:
A list of utopian/dystopian sci fi movies ranked best to worst.

Capitalist and Communists Chess Set and Portland’s Free Boxes (a generosity economy)

Sci Fi Double Feature Recommendations (themed recommendations)

Beer Recommendations (this is just one of many)

Utopian art group – The M.O.S.T.

Are we creating a Monster? The Plastic Ocean Garbage Dump.

Ursula LeGuin’s The Lathe of Heaven and Portland’s Gentrification

Lastly, I am a graduate student in the art and social practice program at Portland State University. I post here at least once a week (usually) and am open to suggestions about how to improve the blog and make it the best blog it can be. I may be interested in your writing and may want guest writers. You can find my contact info above.

Below is an amazing video about the plastic garbage dump in the Pacific Ocean. The video was made by some of the researchers from the marine research group Algalita. Earlier this year I accumulated some information about this “North Pacific Gyre” and I wrote about it here. Basically there is a spot in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas that has accumulated all sorts of plastics. This, of course, has all kinds of implications on wildlife and our own food sources. Please watch the video below.