“Kill Your Lawn with Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't,” September 25

Thursday, September 25, 7 p.m.

Rozz-Tox, 2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL

A botanist, artist, author, and ex-railroader who travels the world documenting plant life, Joey Santore is the host and producer of the YouTube channel Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, and on September 25, he'll be at Rock Island venue Rozz-Tox with his live presentation Kill Your Lawn, exploring the inadequacies of lawn culture for anything other than the purposes of picnics, sports fields, and dog feces.

Formerly the host of a small-scale TV show also titled Kill Your Lawn, Santore advocates for native plants, building a closer human relationship with Earth's plant life, and a re-thinking of modern American horticulture and landscaping due to its mundane disconnection from both ecological and biological reality. With his touring program, he discusses the benefits of native plants, why modern horticulture itself is disconnected from region and reality, and why the plants that evolved in a place are so fundamentally connected to the climate, soils, and other life forms that form the living skin of that region.

As Santore states at CrimePlaysButBotanyDoesnt.com, "The study and dedication to Earth’s plant life has provided my gruff, misanthropic ass a lens through which to view my own place in the world, along with a sense of peace and humility that can be hard to obtain through other means. Plants – when viewed through the 'bigger picture' of ecology and evolution rather than what they can 'do' for us (as if holding up the biosphere isn’t enough) – can provide us not only with an awareness and context for our part in the intricate web of life here on Planet Earth, but also with a philosophical underpinning that will enable us to weather and withstand some of the dark elements coming our way.

"My aim is to give people a context in which to place the living, non-human world that they see around them. Things that were formerly bland become these organisms with their own evolutionary lineages, life histories, and roles in an ecosystem. One single rock can tie a person back to the event in which that rock was created, whether it was a volcanic eruption 20 million years ago or the gradual deposition of sediments in an ocean 400 million years ago. So few of us have any awareness of or context for this, the true 'origin story.'

“At the same time, most 'science education' can be incredibly boring. In school we are taught to memorize things, rather than take the time to understand how they function and why understanding such is important. School kills the passion to learn for many of us, but learning is a process which, in reality, should be occurring until we die. Learning (and building relationships with people) is the way through which we make the best use of those qualities that make us human (talking shit and laughing are very important, too)."

Joey Santore brings his Kill Your Lawn with Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't presentation to Rock Island on September 25, a $20 donation is requested for the 7 to 9:30 p.m. event, and more information on the night is available by calling (309)200-0978 and visiting RozzTox.com.