Interview<\/span><\/b><\/center> <\/p>\nWhat originally inspired you to write Living
\non The Earth, and where did you get your information? <\/b><\/p>\n
When I arrived at Wheeler Ranch (a California
\ncommune) in the early spring of 1969, I was enchanted by the beauty of
\nthe place, the serene and loving nature of the people and the spiritually
\nappealing nature of voluntary primitivism. I set about learning everything
\nI could to prepare myself to live there. I realized I was not alone
\nin needing to learn basic outdoor skills, and decided I would make a manual
\nfor the other new people on the land as I learned what I needed to know
\nfrom more experienced members of the community as well as reference books
\nsuch as Dick’s Encyclopedia of Practical Formulas, which was published
\nin the 1890’s.<\/p>\n
Making a book was not a new endeavor for me.
\nI had already created two illustrated books which were not published–a
\ncookbook for living cheaply in the city, and a book of drawings into which
\nI divided the words of the chapter Solitude from Walden by Thoreau–three
\nto four words per page. Filling notebooks with drawings and words
\nhad been my way of life since my mid-teens, and still is today. What
\nwas new for me was taking it to a publisher. I started by approaching
\nStewart Brand founder\/editor of The Whole Earth Catalog, a friend of Ramon
\nSender, with whom I later wrote Being Of The Sun. Stewart offered
\nto review the book in the catalog and suggested I go to Book People, his
\ndistributor, to see if their new imprint, The Bookworks, would publish
\nit. They did.<\/p>\n
What has inspired you to re-release the book
\n30 years later? <\/b><\/p>\n
I’d been thinking about it for awhile.
\nI got the rights reverted from Random House in 1994, and I had been
\nworking on updating the contents of the book and approaching publishers
\nand agents since that time. The back to the land movement has only escalated,
\nwith intentional communities growing all over the world. The Y2K
\nscare brought a lot of people into serious questioning of their way of
\nlife. I also saw evidence of hippie style among people in their teens
\nand twenties.<\/p>\n
What kind of things did you have to change
\nin the book? <\/b><\/p>\n
Developments in sustainable technology and
\nprotection of the environment were foremost. I added new recipes
\nfor basic health food items I didn’t have then–amazake, granola, seed
\nyogurt, sauerkraut, sorbet. I corrected and enlarged upon many of
\nthe practical directions. For example, in addition to the basic soap
\nrecipes in the original book, there is now a beautiful recipe for natural
\nvegetable oil based soap enhanced with essential oils.<\/p>\n
Is the book as relevant today as it was 30
\nyears ago? <\/b><\/p>\n
This remains to be seen. Over the years,
\nI had heard from many people how personally important it was for them.
\nErik Frye, who helped revise the new edition, was moved to make a life
\nstudy of conservation and sustainable technology after receiving the book
\nas a gift when he was eight years old. Dove White, who contributed
\nmaterial to the revised book, was national president of the Junior League,
\na very conservative women’s charitable organization, at the time she purchased
\na copy of the original book in Manhattan. A year later, book in backpack,
\nDove was heading west to start an intentional community in Oregon.
\nToday she is an environmentalist writer. Several people told me they
\ncarried it around the world. One young woman contacted me over the
\nweb to tell me her mother had named her after me. She was born in
\na teepee, of course.<\/p>\n
Could you go back to the communal life you
\nlived then? <\/b><\/p>\n
Wouldn’t that be great!! For me, this year
\nis about driving around telling stories and singing in bookstores and other
\ngathering places, but there’s no telling what will come after that.<\/p>\n
Posted by: skip
\nViews: 25395
\nTopic:3\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Book Review of Living on The Earth and Interview with Alicia Bay Laurel by Skip Stone (author, Hippies From A to Z)Alicia Bay Laurel is the author of Living on the Earth which will be re-released on April 22, 2000 (Earth Day). Alicia will be doing a book tour across America for eight months. Her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hippie-havens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"http:\/\/www.hipmarket.com\/hippy\/aliciasign.gif\")
<\/center>![](\"http:\/\/www.hipmarket.com\/hippy\/alicia.jpg\")
Book Review<\/a> of <\/span><\/b>![](\"http:\/\/www.hipmarket.com\/hippy\/livingontheearthsm.jpg\")
The early ’70s was a time of great optimism (and despair in true Dickens fashion).![](\"http:\/\/www.hipmarket.com\/hippy\/alicia2.gif\")
<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.hipmarket.com\/hippy\/alicia4.gif\")
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