“Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.”
What do you get when you mix an original, eclectic soundtrack, snippets of Victorian-style animation, documentary footage, tiny action figures, and organic vegetables? The answer might be: Truck Farm.
Truck Farm is Ian Cheney’s creation, and chronicles the creation of the smallest farm in New York City. The farm is in the bed of Cheney’s old Dodge Ram pick-up truck. His quest for his own good veggies leads him to many experts in urban farming; with him we visit water pod farmers, hydroponic farmers, rooftop farmers, community farmers, and even farmers on a barge.
Cheney composed the soundtrack to the film, and the lyrics are a whimsical running narrative–a bit reminiscent of Jim Page or David Roviks. While he’s making the farm bed in his truck, he sings: “But you can’t use good old fashioned Brooklyn dirt/‘cause it’s dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirt/It’s got lead and oil and neorotoxins/It’s got PCBs and DDT/ It’s got the KGB and the CIA/and that’s no place to plant a seed.”
Cheney shows us much more than how to build a portable farm. He shows us how we can use our intelligence, our creativity, and most importantly our whimsy to bring a little more life and guts and integrity to the world around us.
Curtis Ellis produced Truck Farm with Ian Cheney. Both Cheney and Ellis will be at the world premiere of their film this Saturday evening at Nevada City’s Wild and Scenic Film Festival.