So you’ve seen that I’ve developed a new curiosity for urban farming. I love the idea of growing local. Here in NYC, I found downtown and near-midtown farms. It appears that cities around the world are becoming hot beds for urban farming. And new ideas pop up daily.

Mashable presented 11 small-big and big-big ideas for the future of urban farming. Here are my favorite picks of the bunch for the most interesting ideas for urban greening.

Green greetings: Postcardens (UK)

Temporary and tiny Postcardens are perfect for urbanites with little space and limited attention spans. These green greetings are mailable, so say hello to friends and spice up their desk space for about $13.

Micro farming: Merry Project (Japan)

Kid-friendly farming is attractive to urban todds who like to get their hands dirty. Putting those discarded bottlecaps to good use and creating a teaching tool makes Merry Project’s bottlecap farming a great idea. Kits cost about $2 each, and house seeds for herbs and small produce.

Vertical farms for vertical living: Vertical Farming (US)

Here’s the most expensive and most controversial of ideas, but interesting nonetheless. Vertical Farming challenges the horizontal blueprint. By creating high-rise, stacked farm systems placed in central urban locations, plantings would have a small footprint and can be harvested easily. Critics cite extensive water and energy use, and question actual savings over the traditional farm model.

The Vertical Farm Book costs about $11. Listen to Dickson Despommier’s big idea.

PS I received a Whole Foods gift card. It was enclosed in a wrapper that is recycled and embedded with wildflower seeds. I’m getting ready to plant it and I hope it will grow. Kudos Whole Foods, great idea!

Images: © Postcarden; © Merry Project © 2012 Janet Giampietro, Whole Foods wrapper shot with my first generation iPhone

Great, great idea to promote books and reading!

World Book Night, 23 april 2012, is an annual celebration designed to spread the love of reading and books. Tens of thousands of people will go out into their communities to share the joy by giving out free World Book Night paperbacks. (Yes, printed books – love the digital way – but for me, nothing beats the real thing.)

Launched in the UK in 2011, World Book Night has expanded to the US this year and will continue in the UK and Ireland. Here are the 30 titles that will be distributed.

It’s one night of giving books in the hopes of promoting the value of reading year-round. And a great way to help support our disappearing brick-and-mortar bookstores and struggling libraries.

Why 23 april? That date commemorates the births/deaths of many literary figures including Vladimir Nabokov/William Shakespeare and Cervantes.

I’m heading over to get involved. You can too (before 6 february)!

We all know that texting while driving is an absolute no-no. I propose that texting while walking should be banned as well.

If you live in a place where you have huge expanses of walkspace or European piazzas, then have at it.

But this is Manhattan people. There’s hardly enough room for the population as it exists now to find room on the sidewalks and move at a decent clip. If you’re behind texters (as I always seem to be) they are usually walking at a snail’s pace, and weebling left to right.

I personally witnessed the hazards of texting while walking last week. One guy on West 21 had his foot run over by a cab. Luckily he didn’t seem to be badly hurt. A young woman was nailed by the big, heavy door of a retail store by an exiting shopper. I’m not sure that she even noticed – never missed a beat on the keypad.

I say, get out of the way! Move to the left or right of the sidewalk. Stand against the buildings with the smokers to send your messages. And pick up your head – the crosstown blocks come up really fast, as do the cars.

How do you feel about texting while walking?

Left: Flickr image by kevin dooley. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) Right: Flickr image by mattjiggins. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Seems as though I just wished the curious g readers a Happy 2010. Did you catch up on my top 10 lists of the best films, plays and books (according to me, of course) and my yearly discoveries?

As the new year approaches, a special thanks for another year of following the curious g. Here’s hoping good things emerge in 2012.

Cheers!

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Albert Einstein

How about that – Einstein and I have something in common.

Some of the most interesting finds I made in 2011 were random – and local – discovered while walking around the city. As the world struggles through economic challenges, political uprisings and figuring out what to do with occupy-ers, there’s always something new to find and explore from the mainstream to the fringes. Good thing too.

In chronological post order – my 2011 discoveries…

1 > Bard Olympics

Since I penned A celebration of Shakespeare: 38 plays in 38 languages, one dropped. I’ll leave it to you to figure out where I went wrong. Get booking, looks fantastic – maybe the productions will travel.

2 > Happy Smappy

My quest to research the state of happiness continues after discovering that chasing that elusive emotion may be more harmful than we thought.

3 > Cartesian order

How do you keep millions of people, places and vehicles mixing it up on a 12- x 2-mile island, without imploding? And keep a city open to future development? Grids baby.

4 > Politics, Italian-style

Italians proclaimed a big “No” to Silvio Berlusconi’s government and four big “Sí’s” to referendums. The vote may have been the biggest turning point in Italian government in 20 years – leading to Berlusconi’s november resignation.

5 > Adieu Barnes

This year we bid adieu to the fabulous Barnes collection housed in its historic home in lower Merion, PA. While the artwork is being moved into a new museum in Philadelphia, we’ve lost a completely personal way to experience Barnes’ fantastic and eclectic collection.

6 > NYPL @100

Why does an extensive, big-city, free library system covering three boroughs work so well? Find out as the New York Public Library celebrates 100 years of education, research and entertainment for millions of New Yorkers.

7 > Wrong Turn

The buildup to Hurricane Irene was endless, and the preparation – sometimes over the top. Irene shut down major cities on the East Coast, turning them into ghost towns. With all the attention focused there, the powerful Nor’Easter that followed was underestimated.

8 > Taking Root

Urban farming made a huge leap this year in NYC with the sprouting of many new and inventive plots in developing microcommunites. Uptown, downtown and into the boroughs, local restaurants were the beneficiaries of some of the freshest ingredients restaurants have seen in a long time.

9 > Onesies Rule

With only one more numeric occurrence remaining for another 100 years, this year number lovers latched on a string of “ones” in search of mystical and spiritual narratives.

10 > Spinning DUMBO

Jane’s Carousel has finally been moved to its new home in DUMBO: Situated beautifully between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. It seems fitting that one national treasure spins among many other historic New York landmarks.

Onward to 2012.

What was your best discovery in 2011?

This past Saturday was a stunning December day in NYC. Temps in the mid-50s at this time of year are rare, so everyone takes their activities outside before the freezing temperatures, whipping winds and snow and ice storms create a state of near hibernation. For me anyway.

I headed over the Brooklyn Bridge into DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). One of my favorite NYC walks takes me through parts of the East Village, SoHo, NoLIta, Chinatown, and the city and Federal courts area.

Nestled in DUMBO is Brooklyn Bridge Park where Jane’s Carousel was recently relocated. The carousel (merry-go-round, as we called them) had been resting in a storefront on Water Street for years, awaiting its mainstage position between the two bridges. It’s a wonderful place to see spectacular views of Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights, and a great area to walk, shop and explore many remnants of old New York.

And then there’s the spectacular Jane’s Carousel at your service. Here are a few facts about this fully restored piece of history.

• Manufactured by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1922
• Made up of 48 carved horses and 2 chariots, attributed to artists John Zalar and Frank Carretta
• Contains the original scenery panels, rounding boards, crests, center pole and platform
• First carousel placed on the National Register of Historic Places
• Housed in a pavilion resting between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges designed by Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Jean Nouvel

Tickets are $2.00 per ride. All the information you need to plan your Jane’s Carousel visit can be found here. PS: It’s worth a trip over any bridge.

Images: Top and small left/right flank details © Jane’s Carousel. Location images and montage: © 2011 Janet Giampietro, shot with a first generation iPhone.

The first visual that popped into my mind when I read the 2011 word of the year was nearly everything designed by the prolific Karim Rashid.

Last week, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year (WOTY) 2011 was revealed:

I know what you’re thinking. I had the same reaction. That’s not a word, and did I miss its usage?

I think of that phrase as a condition, and that’s quite different from a lexicographic (is that a word?) entry. Slate’s David Haglund wrote a terrific post on this very subject. I could not have expressed my thoughts better on why 2011’s WOTY is a loser.

“Occupy” summed up 2011 for me. Both as a word, and if you want to get technical, as a condition.

Far more interesting was the 2011 List of Banished Words. Oh, here were the frontrunners and the 2010 WOTY and 2009 WOTY, as a point of reference.

Images © Karim Rashid: Matryoshkarim Nesting Furniture, 2011; K-8 Dogbowl, 2003; Totem Desktop Landscapes, 1999

Today, 11 november 2011 at 11:11:11am, time and date will sync to a perfect uninumber palindrome – an amazing event that happens only one day every 100 years. How cool is that?

Who cares, what does it really mean?

Not much, but then again, if you’re creative, you can make a story where there actually isn’t one. And millions of number lovers do, and will.

More coincidence than deep significance

Those of us who like numbers, patterns and sequences wait for these occurrences. We’ll attach meaning – because we need explanations.

It’s called apophenia: The natural urge to find patterns in things.

Practiced within reason, apophenia is instinctive to all humans as a way of drawing conclusions about the world. For example, it helps us to reconcile abstract drawings as representing human figures, or helps us find patterns in phone numbers to remember them.

11.11.11 doings

• A plethora of ceremonies, rituals, meditations, and prayers with the focus on seeking higher inspiration. One of the most popular is The Gathering in Sedona, Arizona.
• Engorged casinos: it’s a big day for gamblers. The 16th century scholar, Petrus Bungus, considered the number 11 pure evil. Not so for Blackjack and Keno players.
• Worldwide estimates count over 250,000+ weddings scheduled for 11.11.11. Las Vegas is poised to break the 7.7.7 wedding records. The day has been booked over a year in advance. Next year (12.12.12) is the last opportunity in this century for a matching DMY date. Better get going now to hold that date.
• One of the more creative events, 11 Eleven Project is asking for video/music uploads worldwide, which will be assembled into music videos and photo montages. Grab your recorder and get going.

Amidst all of this manufactured silliness, let’s not forget the actual meaning of 11 november in the US: Veteran’s Day, a day of remembrance of those who have sacrificed in service to our country.

It’s that time again – when logophiles sit front-and-center picking the Word of the Year (WOTY) – the defining word deemed the new and best summary for the happenings of 2011.

While no words have been chosen for the WOTY as yet, some frontrunners being tossed about are:

• Occupy,
• Downgrade,
• Winning.

For dictionary watchers, the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate^® Dictionary added over 150 new words to our usage in August. It’s no surprise that many of the additions are extracted from social media (including the phrase itself):

• Crowdsourcing,
• M-commerce,
• Tweet.

More words and their definitions added here. Here’s the 2010 WOTY and 2009 WOTY.

What’s your nomination for 2011′s WOTY?

Halloween greetings to the curious g readers!

Costume prepped? Broomstick, or favorite mode of transport ready for this year’s festivities? If you prefer visiting haunted sites to dress-up, here’s last year’s list of the 5 best haunted haunts.