In the 1970s and '80s, British brothers Lorne and Lawrence Blair chronicled their journeys in Borneo and the Spice Islands in the dazzling and memorable documentary, "Ring of Fire." The…
I didn’t really know Jaime Barajas, brother of environmental transformer/activist Babak Tondre. I met him briefly when Nik Bertulis and I visited Babak’s home in 2003 to view his back-yard micro-eden, with its chickens, gardens, and fruit trees. (Photos from that day are in my two later books.) Jaime, who was living in an art-filled loft over a utility shed, seemed to me a shy, lighter version of Babak. Babak worried a bit about his brother; after all, he was a Pisces.
Last week, just 10 days after spending an afternoon with Babak and his daughter visiting an eco-wastewater system and musing about the “public lore vs. reality” of the eco-activist scene in the Bay area, Babak told me by email his brother was hit by a car and killed in San Jose. Here is his obituary. On Sunday, he buried his brother in this Marin County cemetery providing “natural burial” options: Forever Fernwood.
Fernwood, according to its Web site, “uses no toxic embalming fluids, no vault, and only a biodegradable casket or a (more…)