Jennah Ferrara, 2011
Wrapping the model in a towel to ensure against breakage isn't a usual way to prepare a subject for a photo shoot. However, I thought nothing could better illustrate this article than introducing my ceramic snail, an inadvertent knockoff of the orange symbol of Slow Cities and Slow Food, to one of my favorite Pittsburgh restaurants, known for its tasty and reasonably priced dishes and atmosphere of neighborhood conviviality. Since I planned to visit during a time when business was slower (because as a former waitress I couldn't in good conscience do otherwise), when I entered there were only two servers and one table of patrons.
Waitstaff Joe and Hannah cheerfully volunteered to help create spontaneous snapshots for my article describing Slow ideals of upholding quality of life over speeding through the days. Joe detailed his fondness for escargot and posed with the snail; Hannah gave the mollusk a thumbs-up.
I moved over to the single group of customers. A Slow convert at the table who told me he was already all about "taking my time" excitedly offered to have his picture taken holding the snail trying to eat his falafel sandwich. His girlfriend asked if I wanted a photo of the figurine close to her plate of grape leaves. After I'd snapped all the pictures, I thanked everyone from the bottom of my shell and turned to leave, but the only person at the table who hadn't yet opened his mouth, smiled and stopped me by yelping, "Hey--you forgot your snail!" Smiling broadly I said, "That's probably the only time you'll ever say that in your entire life."
How often have you thought, "I never have enough time," or "Everything goes by so fast."Or maybe you've just accepted that's how everything has to be and have adapted around this. My friend Joanne took a tai chi class where she asked to learn all the movements in the first class so she could perform them randomly around the house. The instructor patiently told her, that's not how it works: you learn them one at a time. Slowly.
A few years ago I took a generally themed yoga class at Pitt where the pace was so unexpectedly rapid on the first day that even undergraduates in great shape were complaining. (So it wasn't just me: come on--speed yoga?)
The power of language has created another meaning for a now empowering word that had almost always had a negative connotation. In many ways, "Slow" now defines areas and attitudes that are right where you want to be. In the new Slow movement the word is not meant to be interpreted negatively or even literally: Slow means endeavoring to live life at its correct pace, however an individual interprets it. Sometimes this is literally slow, sometimes not. "Living in the moment" is lost when time is seen as something to fight against.
Slow promotes asking questions about how life and time intersect, and with luck people will be able to have freer ways to come up with answers. Almost every pursuit can go Slow, from bicycling to teaching to fashion. Spending a few moments with a search engine and some of your favorite ways to spend your time will probably reveal different ways where they join with Slow. There are actually sub-movements within the movement. Slow's individualism doesn't preclude a communality of like-minded people.
Origins of Slow Cities/Cittaslow
Living Slow itself involves only individual choices and requires no official checklists or demands. Yet, to join Cittaslow (say CHEETA-slow), the "international network of cities where living is easy," potential members must fulfill 55 pledges in six categories: environmental policy, infrastructure, quality of urban fabric, encouragement of local produce and products, hospitality and community and Cittaslow awareness. A Cittaslow town's population is not allowed to exceed 50,000 for to qualify for inclusion and proudly display the symbol of an orange snail with buildings cascading down its back. (How quickly this traditional figure of the negativity of slow--not to mention slime--grew to be a mark of distinction that so many endeavor to earn!)
Slow Cities first emerged in Italy in as an offshoot from the Slow Food movement, which arose in the late 1980s when outraged Italians protested the construction of a McDonald's near the famed Piazza di Spagna in Rome. Slow Food has grown to more than 100,000 chapters in 153 countries, and has planned more than 5,000 initiatives, such as the tending of 300 school gardens across the world. The Slow movement itself originated from Slow Food, which also embraces traditional ways of life and rejecting globalization while simultaneously living in the present. In the words of the eco-gastronomical group,
Slow Food stands at the crossroads of ecology and gastronomy, ethics and pleasure. It opposes the standardization of taste and culture, and the unrestrained power of the food industry multinationals and industrial agriculture. We believe that everyone has a fundamental right to the pleasure of good food and consequently the responsibility to protect the heritage of food, tradition and culture that make this pleasure possible. Our association believes in the concept of neo-gastronomy - recognition of the strong connections between plate, planet, people and culture.
The website quotes several Slow Food leaders such as Carlo Petrini, the founder and president: "Slow food unites the pleasure of food with responsibility, sustainability harmony with nature." Another offshoot, Terra Madre, focuses on sustainable agriculture and biodiversity. In the words of agronomist Madieng Seck of Senegal, "Slow Food made me realize how important it is for farmers, producers, cooks and consumers to work together in order to defend our agricultural heritage."
(Unfortunately, not every chapter is as true to these original "good, clean and fair" philosophies, sometimes abandoning ecogastronomical principles for the purely gastronomical and becoming more devoted to "foodie" projects like sampling different coffees and olive oils at high tasting costs.)
Although half of all Slow Cities are in Italy, it is now an international movement of 141 towns in 23 countries. The network has recently spread to Korea, China and Turkey. Adopting the motto, "We make haste slowly," Africa's first Slow City, Sedgefield, earned its accreditation in 2010.
"Abiding by a list of values aimed at improving quality of life, registered Cittaslow towns celebrate diversity of cultures and promote the specialties of their own people and surroundings," founding member André Gauché said in a statement. "Slow Towns look after their people, their visitors and the environment. Slow Town residents make a commitment to continually strive towards the kind of improvement that benefits its community and environment.
Some of the qualities that secured Sedgefield's Slow Town accreditation include its successful farmers' and craft markets, strong adventure and outdoor tourism identity, and several community upliftment programmes, he said. Sedgefield's population was expected to settle at about 15, 000, Gauché said.
Slow London and more
But what are proud Slow urbanites to do if their city's population exceeds the limit to earn that Cittaslow snail? Fortunately, nothing prevents official Slow City ideals and activities from informing and influencing people. Adaptation is one of the benefits of living Slow. Organizations like the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, which upholds Slow ideas like "buying local," support regional economies by offering workshops, webinars and conferences that form networks to share information about promoting new business models.
Although monitors inspect the continuity of Cittaslow organization members, the Slow movement itself has no requirements at all. Following this logic, Slow London has built itself into a thriving organization that can also serve as a model for inhabitants of larger cities wanting to be Slower. The association has partnered with cultural agencies such as museums, which can set an example for other cities with similar opportunities for enrichment.
Slow London does rather well for itself, even though the city's population of 7.75 million, give or take, would vex a Cittaslow assessor. With a smiley face on a yellow hand as a symbol, Slow London happily presented a festival in spring 2009 designed to give Londoners a space to try such activities as meditation and yoga, to experience Slow music and crafts, as well as to consider new ways to think and even to walk. Asked to answer questions like "Are you rushing? Do you need to?" and to consider mindful practices such as taking time to look around and live in the moment. The event's brochure is chock-full of Slow living ideas for cities and towns of any size.
It's all very heady and sometimes confusing stuff for Londoners accustomed to rushing everywhere without a second thought. To ease "speedaholics" into making a change, a five-week Slow Club course introduces Londoners into the Slow world with special emphasis on:
- Finding your own pace
- Switching it off (Don't worry, you won't be deprived of your favourite TV shows or iPhone unless you choose to do so!)
- Being here now
- Creating space
Personal, group and social-networking help is available for people who ask for a little assistance while "de-speeding" with the Club. Patrons such as Slow luminary and author of the groundbreaking In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honoré, are also part of the staff of this movement adapted for a busier way of life on a larger area of land.
Slow Food has indeed built up an impressive network across the world. Although there are only three official Slow Cities in the United States, all in California: Sebastopol, Fairfax and Sonoma, CittaslowUSA headquarters) there are 200 Slow Food chapters from sea to shining sea, each planting its own dialect of Slow within the nation.
In 2006 Virginia Tech professors Heike Mayer and Paul L. Knox were adamant that the United States can benefit from Cittaslow. Of course, they wrote their article before California had its own Slow Cities. But doesn't change sweep across the country, eastward? Remember what it was like before the Californian way of smoke-free living took root just about everywhere else?
Slow Space and rethinking architecture
As this Slow writer knows, a disability can force anyone at any time to become slower. Deepa Patel, a director of Slow London, discovered the wonders of Slow after an asthma attack brought her close to death. Slow Space proponent David Watson, who had a series of strokes at age 21 and needed to alter his way of living accordingly, has said, "I was going slow before I even knew there was a movement." (And yes, my fascination with all things Slow arose from being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at about the same age.)
But Slow Space isn't an ordinary approach to disability issues or even about disability at all. This philosophy re-thinks approaches to architecture and disability, expanding their intersection far beyond adding ramps and grab bars to an original structure. Here the human body can't be defined as either completely healthy and well or deficient in some way by being different. In any case, most people aren't perennially young/ish adults brimming with energy: many are older, have permanent or one-time disabilities, are pregnant, are children, are just plain tired or choose not to live their lives in frenetic motion.
Slow Space explores possibilities by reworking and reconsidering existing and future spaces. Through the teamwork of Slow thinking, where innovation arises through leaving enough time to reconsider options, considerable innovation can arise by moving Slow. Fast thinking, being exclusively linear and goal oriented, tends to eliminate some of the freedom in which Slow thinking, when combined with the discipline of Fast, can produce brilliance through collaboration.
Slow fun
Representing a more relaxed type of California attitude is the famous Banana Slug, now the official mascot for the University of California at Santa Cruz because the students love it. Described in the school's own words as "a bright yellow, slimy, shell-less mollusk commonly found on the redwood forest floor," this unconventional creature had been the unofficial mascot for UC Santa Cruz coed teams since the university's early years. (The chancellor at the time disapproved and wanted a sea lion to represent the school; slug partisans painted his car yellow in response. Those wacky kids!) Sid the Slug represents a university culture where the experience of merely participating in sporting events outweighs the usually expected rivalry.
Last month hundreds of UC Santa Cruz students protested against program cuts by spelling out "Free Education" on the East Field in formation, ending their visual demonstration with a rally and march. Speaking of people sending silent messages using their bodies in groups, last fall 329 citizens of the first Cittaslow in Austria formed a Slow Cities Snail measuring 220 square meters for ten minutes, creating a new category in the Guinness Book of World Records: "Largest Human Animal Image." Slow-minded Enns residents got the idea to create the snail after learning about a group of teachers and students planning to form an immense circle with the positions of their bodies. (Oh, that I were studying abroad in Germany now, instead of in 1993! I'd be on a train in two shakes of a sloth's stubby tail.)
Apparently no one's updated snail-world.com, "the main stop for snail information" for a while, given this ironic suggestion from the website: "If you can come up with some creative ideas though you may be the one that is able to help change some of the mindsets that people have relating to snails in culture. This is a great way for them to get some positive attention for a change."
It's appropriately playful that three symbols of Slow philosophies are all animals whose names begin with the same letter: the Slow Food and Cities snail, the (banana) slug representing a beloved tradition that rejects conventional competition, and the gentle sloth that inspired a club which promotes its peaceful, environmentally sound qualities. Slow is about creating places in one's life to better enjoy it, and what better way to do that but by taking oneself a little less seriously?
An old joke unintentionally involves two of these preceding especially poky animals in a much different context: A gang of snails approaches a sloth and beats him up. He is left at the bottom of a tree with several cuts and bruises. Several hours later he gathers up enough strength to go to a local police station. "Some snails attacked me," the sloth tells a police officer, who asks the animal to tell him what his assailants looked like. "I don't know," the sloth says. "It all happened so fast."
I wish everyone a gorgeous June 19th, or World Sauntering Day!
