We all know Google. Actually, it presents such an open and helpful face that we think we know it. But behind its simplicity and its high wall of media hype, it's a mysterious company, and when we try to imagine what's happening inside the Googleplex, the talk trails off into wild speculations and conspiracy theories. Thousands of the smartest people in the world work for Google, building services that fulfill sci-fi prophecies. Some of what they build makes it out into the world. Most of it we'll never see.

What can we tell from a website, a brand name, a building, a growing complex of unmarked buildings spread throughout the Valley and the world, all linked by private networks? How can we map Google's invisible overlay on top of the landscape we inhabit? Where does Google's secret world intersect ours? And what are they really building towards? And what does it mean to talk about "good" and "evil" when talking about the company whose corporate motto was "Don't Be Evil."

I'm going to make a little booklet to give people on the tour. In the book will be a few facts and figures, but mainly it'll be a kind of workbook with questions, speculations, blanks to fill in, exercises. The book will aim to get people thinking about Google in ways they haven't done before. When the bus gets to Google, I'll start and try to facilitate a discussion around the exercises, and we'll see how and what we can learn together so that Google's walls no longer just reflect our faces gazing in.

Commuter Cookout is a cookbook and stainless steel cooking set that enables the commuter to cook from the heat of their engine. The stainless steel cooking set wraps onto the engine block or muffler with a one-way valve so that the heat escapes and leaves the pollution out. As Americans have discovered and re-discovered since the advent of the Model T, harnessing the heat from any commute makes great conditions for preparing a long stew, spicy hot pot, a tasty flan, or slow-baked caserole. The accompanying cookbook suggests recipes tailored to the length of your commute and foods local to the region.

For the FreeSoil bus tour Shada/Jahn will use the Commuter Cookout set to prepare treats for pit stops and a recipe book that discusses the history of highways and agriculture around the San Jose region.

As part of a series that includes “Cooking With Magma” and “Thanksgiving Dinner in 5 seconds – How to Cook a Turkey (and Warm Your Stuffing) With a Single Bolt of Lightning”, Commuter Cookout finds inspiration in the American culinary fascination with speeding up food rituals (perhaps best expressed in the advent of fast food and the television celebrity Rachel Rae's best-selling book, “Lightning Fast Recipes.”) By turning around natural disasters and human-induced travesties (such as the 20th century phenomenon of urban renewal that involves restructuring of neighborhoods to make room for freeways), this series adopt an absurdist stance in order to explore larger issues.

Willing participants will be donating their body's soil and water excreted while on this bus
trip to produce a collective batch of fertility! The port-a-squatty tipi will be set up at each stop on the tour to be used as needed. The collected nutrient will be stored for a year until it is well digested by various organisms and when pathogen free, returned to the earth.

A short workshop and small booklet will nurture curiosity and soothe fears about how all this
happens. Using the port-a-squatty is a perfectly practical activity that will feed your feeling of joy and connect you to you nature!

www.futurefarmers.com

Earthenware plates and sporks will be distributed to each participant on the bus. The clay to make these plates was collected from Stevens Creek in Mountain View, California. This clay was collected from the creekbed in April 2008, tested, processed, hand thrown, and fired for dinnerware. Each plate is painted with data relative to the history and make up of the soil.

How many rotations per minute can we make the kick wheel turn? Each plate represents and attempt by a human to propel the wheel forward at the same rate of computer..., therefore each plate visualizes the imperfections and relative weakness of its maker. The body of plates(set)reveal the learning curve and muscular development of its maker, thus becoming a knowledge base we distribute as the foundation/support system of consumption. Plates of food.

The Talking Circle is historically and traditionally a form of communication among Native Americans. They say it is an art of communication. The “woni gasaqualv” is raised when a community member feels a need to come together around a concern. The Talking circle is credited to the Woodland tribes in the Midwest where it was used as a parliamentary procedure. The talking circle plays out according to certain rules about honesty, respect and listening. 

The envision is a “Stick” or “Feather” placed somewhere in the bus, available there and a possibility for the participants on the bus to use as they feel a need. The proposed Talking Circle here aims for opportunities of sincere and thoughtful community conversation. To make available a stage for the culture of carrying. The format is a suggestion for methods of carrying and loving human and social interaction. Being part of a community, or a citizen, there is a commitment to listen and to share honest feelings. It is also about empowering people to speach in public, women and men. I would like to introduce the Talking Circle by the beginning of tour, so that any one at anytime they feel a desire, can choose to interact.