UTNE’S ANNUAL

Eric Utne stopped by our office recently to hand us a copy of the 2006 edition of Cosmo Doogood’s Urban Almanac. Utne, who founded the Utne Reader (now run by his wife, Nina) devotes himself to creating yearly almanacs for city people. He wants to help urbanites “connect with nature,” he told us. A few years back, he had an epiphany in New York seeing a brilliant, “fiercely alive” full moon hovering above the Chrysler Building: Natural beauty exists in cities if you know where and how to look. His Urban Almanac tells you, with articles on the phases of the moon, the constellations and what the planets will be up to in 2006. This being an almanac, there’s also Doc Weather’s national forecast for the year, and articles on “Cyclic Exercise,” “Biodynamic Gardening,” nature’s rhythm and other eclectic matters, including the thoughts of the Founding Fathers on religion. The founding father of American almanacs, Benjamin Franklin, born 300 years ago next January 17, didn’t have much use for organized religion, saying it “serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another.”