What is The Other Almanac?
The Other Almanac is a reimagining of The Old Farmer's Almanac, updated for our current world.
In case you don't know it, the Old Farmer's Almanac is the oldest continuously printed publication in the US, it's a mix of old wisdom, garden advice, little poems, jokes, how to's, recipes, calendars, and much more. Although it advertised as for everyone, it's limited culturally, does not take stances on anything political, ecological, or social and has historically catered to rural white american farmers.
Now is the time for a new almanac - one that is deep, meaningful, and bridges across the urban and rural divide here in the US.
The Other Almanac still has all the parts of the traditional almanac, but our pages are filled with art, recipes, historical critique, words from professors, climate organizers, indigenous activists, migrant farmworkers, scientists, medicine makers, incarcerated painters, astrologers, lawyers, borderland midwives and more.
Our 2022 edition was the first of many Other Almanacs to come. The Other Almanac is a yearly publication that can be carried in gas stations, bookstores, deli's, museums, community centers, gardening stores, supermarkets and more.
Our pages are filled with useful and interesting information in many forms, but what we are really excited to share with you is the work of our many contributors.
Our 2025 contributors include: Adriana Ayales, Anne Kadet, Baseera Khan, The Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, Cy X, Day Brièrre, Debarati Sarkar Hirad Sab, Indigo Goodson-Fields, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Jeffrey Gibson, Jia Sung, Jordan Nassar, Jose Sanabria Aka Who Tattoo, Julie Rossman, Kay Kasparhauser, Meredith Celeste Lawder, Merry, Michael Pollan, Morgan Lett, Naomi Klein, Nora N. Khan, Or Zubalsky, Pascal Baudar, Paula Querido, Qais Assali, Roberto Lugo, Sally DeWind, Sky Hopinka, Sonya Renee Taylor, Spencer Tilger, Tauba Auerbach, Vivien Sansour, Willa Köerner, Winona LaDuke, Yasaman Sheri, Yemi Amu/Oko Farms
Photo by Daniel Arnold
What is an almanac?
The Other Almanac is new addition to the long history of USian almanacs. There have been many different almanacs throughout the last couple hundred years with the Old Farmer’s Almanac being the most widely read.
If The Other Almanac is your introduction to the incredible history of almanacs here in the US and the world, then welcome to a very deep new study. By receiving a copy, you are now taking part in one of the oldest cultural and scientific traditions of humanity.
The first printed almanac was created in Europe in 1457, but almanacs have existed across the globe for much longer, since the discipline of astronomy came into being. They were carved into stones, painted on animal hides, and formed into manuscripts. The oldest surviving almanac was found in Babylonia and like the Tung Shing (Chinese almanac) it lists each day of the year with corresponding favorable and unfavorable activities.
Yearly updated almanacs are still being printed In many countries around the world.
The Other Almanac is calculated and written for New York City. We will hopefully be expanding geographically in coming years!
Knowledge Acknowledgment
The Other Almanac would like to call out and acknowledge conventional American almanacs’ history of theft of the knowledge, research, and philosophies developed and refined by the people of many distinct Native nations. Much of the information contained in these almanacs would not exist without Native peoples’ ongoing collaboration with the ecosystems, flora, and fauna of this land over thousands of years.
Often in land acknowledgements gratitude for stewardship and knowledge is given. As a settler on stolen land, I question the appropriateness of giving thanks for land and knowledge forcibly taken and misused, rather than given with trust. The Other Almanac aspires to navigate contradictions with care and to embody solidarity with colonized and oppressed peoples everywhere, from New York to Palestine, between and beyond.
I am grateful that most of humanity’s years on earth were lived before European colonialism and the invention of capitalism. I am thankful that this planet and everything it supports has been stewarded and respected for much longer than it has been wounded and depleted.
If you are reading this publication in the so-called United States of America, you are standing, sitting, or lying down on stolen land, violently transformed by systematic strategies of erasure, including genocide, ecocide, and intentional transmission of disease.
The Other Almanac strives to be a platform for the work of many people(s), including artists and writers of Indigenous descent from around the world. As future editions are published, we look forward to expanding the depth of our commitment to sharing the work of people who themselves—or whose ancestors—were displaced or wounded through colonization.
The Other Almanac contributes funds monthly to the Indigenous Environmental Network. All non-Native readers are encouraged to find out which nation’s land they are currently occupying and to pay a monthly land tax to organizations in their area.
Whose land are you on?
Below is a list of a few organizations to look into.
Who are these incredible contributors?
Adriana Ayales was born and raised in Costa Rica and has extensively studied several healing traditions, alongside master herbalists and shamans for 13+ years. She started Anima Mundi in Brooklyn NY as a means to bridging ancient remedies to the modern world, sourcing materials from honest farmers, wildcrafters, and from indigenous peoples when possible, to alchemize and create truly high vibrational medicines for the mind, body and soul. Ayales believes that by preserving ancient forms of indigenous botany, we keep alive a very sacred aspect to our source.
Anne Kadet is the creator of CAFÉ ANNE, a weekly newsletter with a focus on New York City that takes a fresh look at the everyday, delights in the absurd, and profiles unusual folks who do things their way.
Baseera Khan is a multi-disciplinary installation artist born in Texas of Indo-Muslim heritage. Khan is interested in the play of color, but only with the knowledge that color exists through the use of language, not solely affect. Placing focus on the relationship between what is created and what is experienced, Khan uses soft and hard organic materials, textiles, upholstery, and the transformation of utilitarian objects into larger statements about the self. Khan exposes how resources and technologies are not apolitical, but catalysts of global migration, power, and empire. Baseera Khan’s work was recently exhibited in their solo show at Brooklyn Museum of Art as well as Art Basel Statements 2023 and at Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati.
The Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo celebrates and honors Black Cowboys and Cowgirls and their contributions to building the west. They highlight the irrefutable global appeal of Black Cowboys and Cowgirls and the stories behind a subculture that is still strong today. BPIR also serves as a cultural event and opportunity for families to enjoy and embrace cowboy culture, while being educated and entertained with reenactments, history highlights, and western adventure.
Cy X is an erotic writer, performance artist, and somatic practitioner sometimes based in Brooklyn, NY. They are the founder of Pleasure Ceremony, an apothecary and eco-erotic care practice.
Day Brièrre is a Haitian-born illustrator and ceramics artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her visual palette derives inspiration from Afro-indigenous myths and folklore. She earned a BA in ceramics from Florida International University in 2018. Day has participated in residencies at BKLYN CLAY and Clayworks in New York City. She was awarded a Leroy Neiman fellowship at Oxbow School of Art. Her illustrations have been featured in publications such as the New York Times and Elle magazine.
Debarati Sarkar is an artist and art historian making and thinking about things in Brooklyn. She is currently making ceramics and small-scale tapestries.
Hirad Sab is an Iranian-American artist exploring the margins of digital aesthetics, internet culture, and technology. His amalgams occupy a precarious intersection of culture and the democratic nature of image circulation, an aesthetic trend that expands and mutates rapidly.
Indigo Goodson-Fields is a writer, poet, and birder from Hayward, California, and based in Brooklyn. She received her BA in Black/Africana studies from San Francisco State University and her MA in International/African Studies from Ohio University.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was born in 1940 at the St. Ignatius Indian Mission on her reservation, and is an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana. Smith received an MA in Visual Arts from the University of New Mexico in 1980. Smith has been creating complex abstract paintings and prints since the 1970s. Combining appropriated imagery from commercial slogans and signage, art history and personal narratives, she forges an intimate visual language to convey her insistent socio-political commentary with astounding clout.
Jeffrey Gibson (American, born 1972) is the United States Representative to the 60th International Art Exhibition in Venice. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, Gibson’s artistic practice combines Native art traditions with the visual languages of modernism to explore the confluence of personal identity, popular culture, queer theory, and international social narratives. Across sculpture, painting, and collage, Gibson’s multi-disciplinary work embraces ideas of hybridity and reveals intersections between contemporary issues and past histories.
Jia Sung is an artist, educator, and author born in Minnesota, bred in Singapore, and now based in Brooklyn. Her practice spans painting, artist books, textiles, printmaking, murals, writing, and translation. She draws on motifs from Chinese mythology, Buddhist iconography, and the familiar visual language of folklore to examine and subvert the archive through a queer feminist lens. She is the author of Trickster’s Journey, a Chinese mythological tarot deck and guidebook, published with Running Press in 2023.
Jordan Nassar’s (b.1985, New York, NY) art practice engages the material variety of craft to execute ideas centered on heritage and homeland. He examines identity and diaspora through traditional Palestinian hand-embroidery, wood inlay, mosaics, glasswork, and expansive installations. His work has been featured at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among many others.
Jose Sanabria Aka Who Tattoo is a Puertorrican queer tattoo artist working in California, specializing in illustration and bold colorful tattoos.
Julie Rossman is the Data Visualizations Designer at the National Audubon Society, where she is passionate about crafting infographics and data visuals that explain the science of the natural world. Her work has been published by Time, Slate, NASA, Science Friday, How Stuff Works, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Scholastic, and The Week, among others. She lives in Brooklyn with her cats, Tomato and Ethel.
Kay Kasparhauser is a New York City based research-artist.
Meredith Celeste Lawder is a writer, editor, and filmmaker from New York.
Merry lives in New York City. Her dream is to have her own garden. In the meantime, she helps others weed, plant, and maintain their gardens. From time to time, she'll plant seeds or flowers along the West Side Highway. She is always anxious to bring some beauty to the concrete jungle..
Michael Pollan is a writer, teacher, and activist. His most recent book, This is Your Mind on Plants, was published in 2021. He is the author of eight previous books, all of which were New York Times Bestsellers. Pollan teaches writing in the English department at Harvard and for many years served as the Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Several of his books have been adapted for television. In 2010 Time Magazine named Pollan one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2022-23, Pollan was a Guggenheim Fellow. Pollan lives in Berkeley with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer.
Morgan Lett is an Atlanta-based writer, business manager, and astrologer. Her work has been published by PS, The Every Girl, Refinery29, and Popular Astrology. Find more of her work on social media @morganlettinsights or morganlettinsights.com.
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and the international bestselling author of nine books published in over 35 languages including Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. She is an Associate Professor in Geography at University of British Columbia and is the founding co-director of UBC's Centre for Climate Justice
Nora N. Khan is an independent critic, essayist, curator, editor, and educator. She is internationally recognized for her essays and short books, marked by a hybrid, genre-defiant prose style. Formally, this work attempts to both theorize the limits of algorithmic knowledge and outline the future of creative production in a technocratic age. For 15 years, her writing has focused on artists’ most trenchant ideas, models of experimentation across creative fields, and critique of technological design. In particular, her work on philosophy of AI/ML, with a focus on ‘incomputable’ knowledge and the relationship of language to computation, is referenced heavily by writers, theorists, artists, and practitioners across fields.
Or Zubalsky is an artist, educator, and parent based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn).
Orfeo Tagiuri (b. 1991, Brookline, MA, USA) lives and works in London. Orfeo's practice spans from painting and drawing to performance, film, woodcarving, animation, and music. Orfeo has both exhibited and performed internationally, including at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018), at Fiorucci Art Trust's Volcano Extravaganza (2016) and the ICA, London (2015). Orfeo is a graduate (MFA Painting, 2019) of the Slade School of Fine Art, and previously attended Stanford University
Pascal Baudar is a wild food expert, forager, and author who has influenced the way we think about natural foods and culinary innovation. Known for his deep connection to the landscape and a creative approach to using wild plants and ingredients, Baudar has authored several books where he explores the fusion of traditional foraging techniques with modern culinary practices. Through his work, Baudar invites us to look at the natural world not just as a place to explore, but as a bountiful source of food and inspiration.
Paula Querido is a painter from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, currently based in New York.
Qais Assali (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist/designer born in Palestine in 1987 and raised in the UAE before returning to Palestine in 2000. Assali taught in Visual Communication at Al-Ummah University College, Jerusalem, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts' at Tufts University, MA, Michigan State University, MI, and Vanderbilt University, TN.
Roberto Lugo is an American potter, social activist, spoken word poet, and educator. Lugo's work as a social activist is represented in his artworks, where he draws together hip-hop, history, politics and his cultural background into formal ceramics and 2D works
Sally DeWind is a teacher and writer from Brooklyn, New York. She is a graduate of the Brooklyn College MFA program where she received the Lainoff Prize for fiction. Her work has been published in Bennington Review.
Sky Hopinka is a filmmaker and artist living in Brooklyn, New York.
Sonya Renee Taylor is one of many hands currently called to midwife the new world. She is a guide, poet, storyteller, vision holder, intuitive astrologer, and evangelist of radical love. She is the author of seven books including the New York Times bestseller The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love (2021) and her most recent offering for young readers The Book of Radical Answers (2023).
Spencer Tilger lives in Brooklyn, which is part of an island with many names (Paumanok, Sewanhacky, Lenapehoking, Long Island, home). He works at a refugee rights nonprofit and writes when inspired.
Tauba Auerbach’s work (b. 1981, San Francisco, CA) contemplates structure and connectivity on the microscopic to the universal scale. Building on crafts in many disciplines, Auerbach often invents tools and techniques for inducing material behaviors. In 2013, Auerbach founded Diagonal Press to formalize their ongoing typography and book-design practice. Auerbach’s work is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, and the Centre Pompidou, among others. In 2021, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presented S v Z — a 17 year survey of Auerbach’s work.
Vivien Sansour is an artist, researcher, and writer. Vivien is the current Executive Director and founder (2014) of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, where she works with farmers in Palestine and around the world to preserve ancestral seeds and biocultural knowledge. Her work as an artist, scholar, and writer has been showcased internationally. Vivien was most recently the Distinguished Artistic Fellow in Experimental Humanities at Bard College.
Tony Caridea is an airbrush artist specializing in pet and animal memorial art. He is well known for his ability to depict the complex emotions and inner worlds of the creatures he paints. He pulls inspiration from compiling and blending the art of the many images he sees and analyzes across the internet.
Willa Köerner writes Dark Properties, a newsletter connecting personal and planetary ecologies. She is a co-editor of two books, and has worked with an array of technology-and-culture-focused organizations including the New York Times R&D, Are.na, NEW INC, Feral File, and SFMOMA.
Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe White Earth reservation) is a farmer and writer who works for Anishinaabe Agriculture, a nonprofit focused on Indigenous seeds, foods, and hemp.
Yasaman Sheri is a professor, designer and writer and investigates contemporary critical inquiry into life sciences. She is Principal Investigator of Serpentine Galleries Synthetic Ecologies Lab.
Yemi Amu is the Founder and Director of Oko Urban Farms, Inc. and one of NYC's leading aquaponics experts. In 2013, she established NYC’s first and only publicly accessible outdoor aquaponics farm - The Oko Farms Aquaponics Farm and Education Center. She directs all of Oko Farms' programs including education, design/build projects, and community related activities. Yemi has a M.A. in Health and Nutrition Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.
