MiChelle Jones

by MiChelle Jones

If self-proclaimed lazy environmentalist Josh Dorfman isn’t the Earth-friendly being of the future, he certainly is the eco-guy of the moment. Through his blog, his radio show (on LIME Radio and Sirius) and now his book all sharing the Lazy Environmentalist tag Dorfman aims to show that you don’t have to give up life’s pleasures in order to save the planet. He favors a friendlier approach, avoiding gloom and doom predictions and applying Madison Avenue techniques to the message instead. You have to understand human emotions, how we make decisions, Dorfman says over lunch at a Nashville eatery. Whatever the hooks are, that’s what still works. For Dorfman, that means adding aesthetics and convenience to the environmental equation, as he does in his new book, The Lazy Environmentalist: Your Guide to Easy, Stylish, Green Living, a compendium of ideas, suppliers and options that take reusing, reducing and recycling to a whole new level.

In the book’s 272 pages (which are printed on 100 percent post-consumer waste, as one would expect), Dorfman discusses the clever refashioning of leather miniskirts into shoulder bags; using organic, as opposed to conventionally grown, cotton, the latter being one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world ; and making bamboo flooring selections. The good news for people who want to live green, but who may not have or want to spend a lot of, well, green, is that national chains and manufacturers Macy’s, Wal-Mart, Levi’s and Nike among them are increasingly turning to these sorts of materials.

Dorfman is a smart, funny guy with whom one could easily discuss any- and everything. However, one might also come away wondering how seriously he takes saving the planet. It was just this sort of questioning of Dorfman’s environmental cred that led to the launching of the entire Lazy Environmentalist enterprise.

You see, he wasn’t brought up sans electricity and red meat by hippie parents, though he jokes about throwing Saturday bake sales as a child in honor of his family’s cause of the day. And, OK, there was the time he was kicked off a kibbutz after only a week for organizing a labor protest. But, he also has a solid business background and his environmental epiphany came while he was selling bicycle locks in China (he had to be quite the salesman since, as he says, the locks were a little more expensive than the bikes ). Contemplating the Chinese fascination with American lifestyles, Dorfman says he saw a connection between a billion bikes and a billion cars . . . and starting thinking about, not necessarily a doomsday scenario, but about quality of life. Fast-forward a few years after Dorfman earned an M.B.

A. in international business; worked in Geneva, Paris and Hong Kong; took a stab at screenwriting in Los Angeles and dropped out of a Ph.

D. program in D.C. and he had figured out a way to combine his business acumen and his growing concern for the planet. The solution was Vivavi, a furniture and home-furnishings company launched in 2003 and whose motto, Live Modern + Tread Lightly reflects the philosophy of greener living through good design.

Along with water-conserving bathroom fixtures, paints low in VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and electric cars the products Dorfman talks about in The Lazy Environmentalist he also praises Method’s all-purpose cleaners. It’s the best-looking cleaning product ever and it’s cheap, he says. It’s also available in places like Target and Costco. I love that product for all those reasons. He gets practically rhapsodic talking about TerraCycle organic plant food. Fast-food waste is fed to worms, the worms poop it out, then it’s packaged in soda bottles, he explains. Everything is recycled it’s waste and it’s packaged in waste. How could anyone question the commitment of someone who gets so excited about worm poop (especially while eating lunch)? Well, one of Dorfman’s first Vivavi employees did. He says she was almost hyperventilating when she tearfully asked him whether he truly was an environmentalist. You don’t talk like an environmentalist, you don’t act like an environmentalist, he quotes her as saying. Dorfman mulled things over and then blogged about how he didn’t mind saving the planet, but he wasn’t going to give up long, hot showers. The blog led to an offer for an Internet radio show, which led to a contract with Sirius. Now he’s bringing his laidback environmental platform My voice is: I’m your pal, man; I’m with you, he says to a new medium. Whatever the medium, his focus is the same, concentrating on what people are willing to do to take better care of the planet and mixing in a little style.

If self-proclaimed lazy environmentalist Josh Dorfman isn't the Earth-friendly being of the future, he certainly is the eco-guy of the moment. Through his blog, his radio show (on LIME Radio and Sirius) and now his book all sharing the Lazy Environmentalist tag Dorfman aims…

Memoir

Memoir

Buzz Aldrin

Interview by MiChelle Jones

by MiChelle Jones

There’s nothing like seeing Buzz Aldrin’s name on one’s caller ID. His office is calling from California for part two of our interview to discuss his second memoir, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon. He sounds more relaxed this time around: there are no phones ringing in the background, no email alerts sounding on his computer and he’s not shouting out fax instructions to a staff member.

At 79, the former Apollo 11 astronaut and the second man to walk on the moon is incredibly active, traveling the world promoting space exploration and his space lottery idea and also just enjoying himself. He’s been to the North Pole (on an expedition with ABC’s Hugh Downs for “20/20”) and is finalizing a South Pole excursion. A longtime avid diver—he’s the guy who developed many of NASA’s underwater training procedures for the Apollo program—he shot B-roll shark footage for the 1981 Bond flick For Your Eyes Only, visited the Titanic wreckage with a British documentary team and still dives regularly.

Aldrin’s schedule remains almost as packed as the world tour he and crewmates Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins took—or, rather, were subjected to, in his opinion—after their July 1969 moon flight. Along with his annual visit to the Paris Air Show, he’ll also make a number of appearances in observation of Apollo 11’s 40th anniversary.

“I’m standing by for NASA endorsement of different events,” he says, his gravelly voice assuming a cadence indicative of his many years of military training. He says he’ll squeeze in some sort of book tour when he can. But what he really wants is a spot on Oprah’s show. “I would appreciate that invitation. . . . This is a book that’s about a human,” he pauses, then laughs, “drama.”

Magnificent Desolation is an account of Aldrin’s difficult years—decades, really—following the moon landing. He discusses alcoholism (no, he wasn’t drunk when he punched that Apollo hoax theorist), infidelity, divorce, financial troubles, a frequently strained relationship with his father, depression and a stalled career, among other things. He’s right, this is definitely Oprah territory. As hard as it has been for Aldrin (and many of his fellow Apollo astronauts) to talk about their experiences in space—more on that later—you’d think he would have found it nearly impossible to open up about personal matters, or that it was perhaps difficult to revisit some of the most trying periods of his life.

“No, I don’t think so,” Aldrin says. “The stories, the photographs, the activities have been related in progressive interviews over 30 years now. It’s just a question of deciding: what is the output going to be? Are we looking for a dramatic movie to reach large numbers of people, or are we going to try to put more detail, more things down in writing because there probably won’t be another real chance to do that.”

He spent less than a year working with co-writer Ken Abraham and also bringing in other people for interviews. “It was quite satisfying to renew some of those acquaintances,” he says. There were astronauts, family members and Aldrin’s children. “[to get their] perspective now on their adolescent observations, and teen-aged and subsequent witnessing of the progressions in my life,” Aldrin says somewhat ruefully.

Magnificent Desolation starts on a high note, though: July 16, 1969, the morning of the Apollo 11 launch. It makes for a great opener. “It always has,” Aldrin laughs. He takes readers through that morning and does a marvelous job of putting the technology of the day in perspective for those used to 21st-century devices: “Many modern mobile phones have more computing power than we did. But those computers enabled us to measure our velocity changes to a hundredth of a foot per second, determine rendezvous and course corrections, and guide our descent . . . to the moon. You couldn’t do that with a slide rule.”

Aldrin spends the first three chapters in space, describing what he saw and how he felt about it. He describes the astronauts’ relief at having landed successfully, the deafening silence once the Lunar Module’s engines shut down, planting the American flag (“I still think it’s the best-looking flag up there out of all six”), and just wanting to sleep on the return flight to Earth. He writes about the mission’s iconic images, including the ones he shot of his footprint: “Framed in the photo was the evidence of man on the moon—a single footprint. . . . That’s kind of lonely looking, I thought. So I’d better put my boot down, and then move my boot away from the print, but only slightly so it’s still in the frame. . . .”

That’s a lot more than he’s willing to say over the phone. The question, the one every interviewer has to ask, is met by a pause just this side of uncomfortable. “Well, I know it would be nice to pinpoint, but there was a continuity associated with kind of moving beyond each achievement successfully and the culmination is being in the Pacific Ocean,” he concludes with a laugh.

OK, but is there one thing in particular, one tiny detail about being on the moon that stands out even after all this time? “We were sightseeing, looking back and seeing the gradually diminishing size of the back side of the moon, and I think most everyone who’s seen it would say the crater named after the Russian pioneer Tsiolkovsky is probably the most unique feature that stands out. You gotta take our word for it,” he says, his voice becoming slightly mischievous, “because only 24 people have seen it, plus the cameras.”

Though he gets why people feel compelled to tell him where they were on the night of July, 20, 1969, he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life reliving those seven hours on the moon. Instead, he’s interested in promoting continued space exploration and developing new rocket technology (he holds a couple of patents for rocket design).

“I’m known as an astronaut, and I am still thrilled with that designation,” he writes in Magnificent Desolation. “But I don’t want to live in the past; as long as I am here on Earth, I want to be contributing to the present, and I want to stride confidently into the future.”

Children's & YA

Children's & YA

Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart

Interview by MiChelle Jones

by MiChelle Jones

Together or separately, Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart have popped everything: classic stories (Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book), Christmas scenes (The 12 Days of Christmas), bookmarks and ornaments, frightening phobias and creepy monsters (Mommy?). And, beginning with 2006's Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs, the pair began exploring the fascinating animals that stalked the earth millennia ago. The third and final part of their extremely popular Prehistorica trilogy, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Mega-Beasts, will be published this month.

Speaking by phone—make that phones—from their New York studio, Sabuda and Reinhart clearly have this interview routine down pat, identifying themselves before each comment. "We were finding that a lot of teachers and educators, and even librarians, were using pop-up books in their classrooms or for reading time," Sabuda says. "We would go to book signings or to conferences, and educators would say: Oh, we really love pop-up books and it would be great if we could use them more in the classroom."

Add to that the pair's love of prehistoric animals and Reinhart's degree in biology, and a pop-up book on dinosaurs couldn't have been a more perfect project. Each Prehistorica book begins with Reinhart diving into research, consulting books, museums and the Internet.

Remembering his own childhood reading habits, Reinhart aims to make the words bring the animals to life. "I really try . . . to find interesting information, quantitative information how big the animal was, how long it was and all those sort of things but also, interesting, weird, gross facts, because that's fun, that draws the reader in." Reinhart uses wry humor, alliteration and other devices to ensure his text is both informative and entertaining. Of the brontothere, for example, readers are told: "Alas, these hulking horned herbivores may not have been the brightest beasts around, since their brains were only about the size of a man's fist." And in a marvelous juxtaposition of text and image, the woolly rhinoceros (coelodonta), described as shortsighted and dangerous, is shown tripping along, almost as though dancing, in a mini pop-up.

Mega-Beasts introduces a menagerie of towering, lumbering or flying animals, constructed from hand-painted paper in shades of purple, blue, gold and auburn. "We can use sponges for scales, or use combs and run it down the paint to make feathers," Sabuda says. "The opportunity to make different kinds of surfaces and textures, which is so important for this series, is much easier to come by using this technique." Mini pop-ups are used liberally in Mega-Beasts and function like sidebars or pull-down menus augmenting the main spreads.

The team first incorporated the form in their 2000 adaptation of The Wizard of Oz and it is now a standard feature in their books. "If a reader is interested in just a big pop and wants an overview, that's great," Sabuda says, "but if they want to delve just a bit further, those little mini pops will allow them to get that information, too."

Reinhart agrees, "It gives us the opportunity to showcase more creatures and show animals that aren't necessarily the big stars like a saber-tooth tiger or a woolly mammoth." So while you're on the spread with the beautifully rendered, though nevertheless menacing, quetzalcoatlus (there's a helpful pronunciation key after every name), check out the flying fossils flap for a view of an absolutely disgusting (that's meant as a compliment) meganeura dragonfly, its wings delicately formed in clear plastic. After reading text under the airborne saber-toothed feline, peek under the flap on the right-hand page to see a powerful mastodon losing the struggle to escape a tar pit. "Oh, yes," Reinhart and Sabuda respond in unison at the mention of that last pop-up. "We visited La Brea Tar Pits and that [scene was] inspired exactly by that imperial mammoth sinking into the sculpture there," explains Reinhart.

Getting back to the woolly mammoth, as the page is turned on that magnificent spread, the animal moves toward the reader, trunk unfolding, tusks getting closer (this pop-up is also effective when seen in one's peripheral vision). Other impressive large pop-ups include the intricate skeleton of the brutal killing machine cynognathus and the very tall (as in 20 feet) indricotherium, moving at what appears to be a fast clip across a vibrant depiction of a prehistoric landscape.

"I think our books are kind of the high-tech version of regular books," Reinhart says, "they're very complex. The mechanisms we use are a little bit beyond what has been used in the past . . . we use a lot of new paper technology."

Given that, what other elements would Sabuda and Reinhart like to incorporate into their books? "Sound for one thing. I have a big book that I'm killing myself to finish right now," Reinhart says, laughing, before describing his forthcoming Star Wars encyclopedia, a celebration of the 30-year anniversary of the first Star Wars film. He describes himself as a huge fan not like normal people, beyond and says he wanted to incorporate breathing sounds into a spread showing 360-degree views of Darth Vader's helmet. "It's hard-core, but it's really cool," he says, adding that limited editions of the book might include sound.

As for Sabuda, he'd like to do something for the youngest pop-up fans. "It would be great to be able to create a series of pop-up books with un-tearable pop-ups," he says. "We would have to develop some kind of paper that was impregnated with Tyvek or plastic or something so it would be much sturdier, and it wouldn't break off, because pop-up books really get loved to tears."

In the meantime, the two are planning their next series, Encyclopedia Mythologica, about myths and legends. While both Reinhart and Sabuda also have their individual projects, Sabuda says exhaustive series like Prehistorica and Mythologica are best handled as team efforts. "That type of work would take a good two years, two-and-a-half years to do alone, so there's no way one of us all by ourselves could get that done."

As for divvying up the other ideas, Sabuda says they choose projects that appeal to their personal interests, like Matthew working on Star Wars [Reinhart interjects: "I wouldn't let him touch it." Sabuda responds: "Right."] and the whole series of white Christmas titles.

"People always ask where we get our ideas," Sabuda continues. "There's a never-ending chain of ideas that go on towards infinity, it seems like, which is good. "