Robert David Sullivan

10 "slow" movements you might eventually need to know

Have you heard about the Slow Photography Movement? Neither had I, until today. So to get everyone up to speed on all the slow movements sweeping oozing across the nation, below are 10 langourous definitions you might need to know. Someday. If you're ever invited to a Slow Cocktail party.

We are still waiting for the Slow Bowel Movement, the Slow Texting Movement, and the Slow Slide into Bankrupty Movement.

Slow Food (Eric Schlosser, The Nation):

The idea of slow food has its origins in the Northern Italian counterculture of the 1970s. While American hippies were forming communes and going back to the land, some of their socialist counterparts in Italy were embracing the traditional music, food and agriculture of life in the rural Piedmont region. Carlo Petrini, a brilliant and charismatic journalist, became the leading spokesman for the notion that there is nothing contradictory about championing pleasure and working for change....

At the heart of Petrini's Slow Food philosophy is a set of fundamental values that aim to distance its celebration of pleasure from mindless decadence. According to the Slow Food trinity, food must be "good, clean, and fair." The "good" refers to taste; the "clean," to local, organic, sustainable means of production; and "fair," to a system committed to social justice.

Slow Cities (interview with Orvieto, Italy mayor Stefano Cimicchi, Mother Jones)

A Slow City is committed to improving the quality of life of its residents. We support traditional local foods, we try to make Orvieto a hospitable place for visitors, and we work hard to make the city a seamless part of the urban fabric. For example, Orvieto recently closed the historical town center to all car traffic. Two large parking lots outside the city center host all the visitors' cars and save the town from traffic, pollution, and noise.

Slow Sex (Carl Honore, Huffington Post):

Make the bedroom a Slow haven: no phones, no orgasm quotas, no deadlines; just two people in the moment together, going with the flow. Slip into a relaxed, sensual rhythm with massage, stroking, eye contact, breathing in unison, maybe even blindfolds. That may sound a bit cheesy, but, as the Pointer Sisters observed, it's the lover with a slow hand who makes the earth move.

After Paul the Octopus: 7 more animal oracles

Paul the Octopus is gone, but we still have these other stupefying examples of zoologial prognostication.

1. Punxsutawney Phyllis: piddles on the shoes of any journalist covering Punxsutawney Phil who has fewer than six weeks left of a dignified career.
2. Melisma the Moose: goes into a homicidal rage upon hearing a future winner of American Idol.
3. Double Helix the Cat: deposits a hairball on the photo of the next winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine.
4. Mr. Fed: a horse that forecasts interest rates through the number of times he stomps on a mortgage application.
5. Ricky the Mexican Hairless Dog: fetches a ball once for each year a celebrity will stay in the closet.
6. Oscar the Rattlesnake: sheds its skin and scurries away before a bad box-office weekend.
7. Leona the Bedbug: predicts vacancy rates at New York hotels.