in dialogue: thirsty thirsty
Episode 03: Thirsty Thirsty → about how Web3, crypto and DAOs are fertile ground for regeneration and remembrance with Thirsty Thirsty founder, Alexis Schwartz.
Salonnière continues to explore our need for a reciprocal relationship with nature (and each other) and the role beauty plays in sustaining hope and connection, this time with a focus on the intersection of IRL + URL, in conversation with Thirsty Thirsty.
Thirsty Thirsty is an ancestral remembrance project disguised as the coolest food and wine club on Earth. Through celebrating ancestral agricultural lineages, they regenerate the planet and our interconnectedness – deliciously. With web3 infrastructure, Thirsty Thirsty’s first membership NFT transforms you into an XP (extraordinary patron) at top restaurants, wineries, and lands around the world. Each location becomes your TT club house. A percentage of all NFT proceeds support their Indigenous partner Yanawi, in unceded Amazonas.
Founder Bruxa utilizes the URL ecosystem of Web3 to transform IRL economies of regenerative farmers, wine producers and land protectors by unlocking resources and access that current structures overlook. Rooted in ancestral wisdom and the reciprocal relationship modeled by nature, Thirsty Thirsty dives deeply into intersectional environmentalism and seeks to reconnect all types of Earth people who tend the land.
Transcript
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01 What is Thirsty Thirsty? / @00:00
Alexis Schwartz: We (@thirstythirsty) celebrate ancestral agriculture through food, wine, and Earth adventures. So our mission is to regenerate Mother Earth deliciously. And we do this by using Web3 tooling to support a really beautiful and dynamic membership community. And being a member gives you access to this whole slew of top top delicious, really high level sourcing, restaurants, wineries and sacred places that I believe carry so much wisdom, so much soul nourishment and are really exemplifying top culinary creativity.
So beyond this really dope membership network that we're creating that is also allowing us to release fine wine NFTs and make events as NFTs, and take people to these incredible travel and food experiences around the world as NFT. And then eventually we really want to tokenize and become a real DAO. But basically what we're really doing behind the scenes is we're onboarding hospitality farmers and land protectors. So, like indigenous community or black community, they're just inherently often the ones on the front line of climate crisis and who are carrying these incredible potent ancestral knowledge.
So, yeah, we're really trying to be this nurturing space for not only the food and wine lover or folks who have supported us thus far, but also for hospitality and farmers in these communities to at least learn. We really believe in enthusiastic consent, but we're building cohorts and we just started our first one with six incredible partners. And so we're educating them and then each of them is offering something back to our community in reciprocity. And then if they're really inspired, we can keep building together from there.
02 IRL < > URL / @02:40
Liz Gardner: I think that IRL to URL thing is very interesting. It's something that we've been exploring in Salonnière for awhile.
AS: The thing for me is that the power is here. The power is Earth. The power is people. The power is folks who are already and have been doing work. I'm seeing Web3 wanting to build the metaverse and build these other worlds. That's all good and fun, but I never want to see that - also logistically - just cannot replace the potency. We are nature. We can't exist without our feet on the ground, like legitimately, no matter the hubris that we walk with.
So what I have envisioned, which is also kind of new, there's not many projects kind of bridging that URL IRL, is just using these tools to connect us all. Using these tools to take all of these communities that often have no bandwidth beyond their own individual space, right? Like, these are all people who are working nonstop. If you're a farmer, there's no such thing as rest. If you're a sommelier in a New York City restaurant, if you're a dishwasher, there's no such thing as rest. How do we use Web3 tools to create more connections again and to access information and share information beyond this Eurocentric understanding? I see Web3 as just a tool to facilitate and to scale these ideas at a speed - even though I'm not like, a fan of fast paced - just more efficiently than we've been able to do.
The top tier of our NFT - we’re only doing 270 because it corresponds to one barrel of Pinot Noir, collector Pinot Noir from Rajat Parr in Central Coast, California. That top tier will come with that in-real-life bottle. And so we're working with this awesome artist named Marleigh Culver, to do a bespoke wine label that will both serve as the digital NFT art. So it's almost like your digital seller. So if you collect them over time, you've got this digital cellar of really cool art that is also tethered to these really fantastic wine makers. And in many ways, there's an investment back in their businesses and the Thirsty Thirsty treasury. But then the actual wine will come with the wine label that she made, that she painted. So I'm really excited to just be playing with different artists, different aesthetics. And every moment that we can bring other people in, we will.
“I’ve been saying that Web3 is a technological remembrance of ancestral philosophies. Indigenous philosophies. ”
03 Generative Nature / @05:35
LG: The idea of thinking about how to be in a reciprocal relationship with nature versus the extractive one that we have been living in for so long - that's like a broad stroke conversation that can happen all the time - but what that really looks like, I think, is what you're talking about. It looks like tapping into that generative nature.
AS: Totally. And it's just so much this stepping into the divine feminine. And we're afraid because we're all embodied in these femme experiences, but then, obviously, beyond that, we are genuinely afraid of that power. Like as a collective, as individuals, everybody may be on different levels, everybody's on their own journey. But as I learned that that mystery is one critical element of the divine feminine. Like that womb mystery, that dark mystery. That's the place where creativity comes from. That's where we regenerate. That is the moon. That is the darkness. That is the dark goddess. That's the space where we sit and cry and we channel. That is our moon time. That is our menstrual cycle. That is the place where we rebirth. So it is one of the most powerful places we can sit in. And patriarchal, white supremacist capitalism doesn't want us to know that or sit there. It wants us to push output, extract, move, control, put things in categories and linear and binaries and all of this stuff in order to make sense of it all, rather than waiting, receiving for the clarity that is already within all of us as a birthright.
I would just love to offer an invitation to anyone who really loves food, wine and Earth. And I think the really cool thing about Web3 is that for one of the first times, we're really able to reward IP, which is one of the major forms of labor that femme identifying, queer, Black and Indigenous and communities of color are often disproportionately, offering all the time. And Web3 is a really interesting place where we can actually reward that output. It's very exciting to me because it's also very self-selecting. It's like, who wants to step up? Who wants to offer? Who wants to create something? Let's talk about it. Let's be in community about it. Great, do it. I trust you. This sounds awesome. And then you get paid for it, which is cool.
“There can be real equity, which is the real goal. It’s properly decentralized that way and properly reciprocal that way. But yeah, we want to be this nurturing space for you to ask your questions and to demystify a little and hopefully empower you to potentially innovate. We want to be able to just keep redistributing. And back to the gifting culture, which is a major piece of Indigenous experience, indigenous philosophy. It’s about that circle. Always. ”
04 Web3 and Reciprocity / @09:02
I've been saying that Web3 is a technological remembrance of ancestral philosophies. Indigenous philosophies. We're saying it's a remembrance project disguised as the coolest food and wine club on Earth. The major tenant of Indigenous philosophy is the interconnectedness of all things. Humans aren't in the middle of the circle. They're in the circle with the winged ones, those that swim, the four-leggeds. Our little sisters are the sacred herbs, the tree people, the tree spirits. We are a part of this circle.
We are all interconnected in so many complex, intelligent ways, as you referenced. It's mind blowing. It's really mind blowing. But it's something that we have always known. We've always danced in harmony with, we've always honored with sacred ritual, with ceremony, with reverence. And as we've become more isolated, as we've become more territorial, we have forgotten this deeply. And I think it's led to a lot of sadness in so many ways. And so it's exciting to finally have some science and some data that can kind of reassert these phenomena. But this intelligence is every piece of who we are and exists in every aspect of nature and in all these really complex ways.
Who knows what's going to happen with Web3! But I really do believe that it's coming, whether we really like it or not. And so why not get in, set the tone and bring people in? Because it really is a true opportunity to create wealth, create agency for so many people who have been excluded.
LG: And not at a cost to the Earth. Which is also such a huge differentiator from current structures. It's always at a price.
AS: There can be real equity, which is the real goal. It's properly decentralized that way and properly reciprocal that way. But yeah, we want to be this nurturing space for you to ask your questions and to demystify a little and hopefully empower you to potentially innovate. We want to be able to just keep redistributing. And back to the gifting culture, which is a major piece of Indigenous experience, indigenous philosophy. It's about that circle. Always. And that's what money is. Yeah. It used to be equated with respect and with reverence, and over time, as things have become commodities rather than imbued with sentimentality, we've lost that understanding.
05 Language and Web3 / @12:34
Mad Lenaburg: So much of what you're speaking of relates to storytelling too, and just ancestral stories and the ways in which they can utilize metaphor and figurative language. It can be so moving. And I think there's storytelling in many aspects of life, and I wonder if you think that Web3 offers anything to the story, or if it is only a structure. Is it a means to communicate or can it be content itself? I guess, is it going to elevate the story or is it only going to serve as a technological scaffold?
AS: You know, it's both-and, right? Like now, since it is so new and it is a place that's like constantly evolving, folks even call it like Web2.5 because we're not even really there yet. I think so much of where we are now is about onboarding. In order to continue to set the tone to support this kind of abundance mentality, this very social justice oriented, generative permissionless, inclusive space, it is really critical that we continue to really provide context for why we are innovating here and why there's value and how it kind of is disruptive. Obviously, disruption can be chaotic or it can be impactful and generative. So we're constantly trying to examine, how do we keep this nurturing? And I think a major part of that is continuing to talk about how does this help relieve the oppressive qualities of our currently very disproportionate world and really using that as a way to examine where we're at and reveal that there's a place that we can go to innovate, to create something that works for more people and that also has a lower barrier to entry.
And so actually, just to tie it up with storytelling, this is something from Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics. Something I gleaned from reading was that storytelling actually can return integrity to items that have since become commodified, to exchange that's been commodified, to experiences that have become commodified. Storytelling is the way to remind us of its interconnectedness.
LG: And I feel like, again, the things that you're referenced throughout, these are things we know intuitively. We know that there haven’t been clear avenues or channels to do it. I've been thinking about the work that we do every day in efforts of that - connecting small businesses with an aesthetic language that then gives them a vehicle to then bring something into the world - that's like the beginnings of that. But it's not the full circle of what you're talking about. It's not that complete return to integrity. It's scratching the surface of it.
AS: Well, because to do it right, we have to actually be in community again, and we have to actually trust that we are supportive of everyone. And I think we've lost a lot of that trust. It's become inconvenient, it's become inefficient. And you don't have the intimacy that also supports that genuine understanding of what reciprocity is really. And so it's just become, you're just forgotten, right? But like you said, it's something we know and that feels right. And I also think that folks who are connected to the feminine experience in myriad of ways all the time and just the more that we can recenter that, and honor that, and uphold that, and practice it, I think the more radical change. Because we can literally show the success and we can create replicable models that actually are baked in with abundance.
“...storytelling can return integrity to items that have since become commodified, to exchange that’s been commodified, to experiences that have become commodified. Storytelling is the way to remind us of its interconnectedness.”
SOURCES
Salonnière in Conversation with Thirsty Thirsty / Visual Podcast / Sources
01The Four Seasons Cookbook photos Charlotte Adams
02Foods of Italy photos Giuliano Bugialli
03The Two-Eighty Projectshort film Citizen Film
04Cohort 1 diagram Thirsty Thirsty
05Indigenous territories map Native Land Digital
06Tenochtitlán, 1521 map Library of Congress
07The Sigüenza map Library of Congress
08Zinfandel Grapes photographs by Howard Marshall Library of Congress
08Thirsty Thirsty NFT art Marleigh Culver
09Kali: The Feminine Force illustrations Ajit Mookerjee
10In Search of Nautilus photos Peter Ward
11Minoans and Mycenaeans article National Geographic
12Cempoala, Mexico map Library of Congress
13Delighting in the Feminine Divine Bridget Mary Meehan
14Kinaaldá : A Navajo Girl Grows Up photos Monty Roessel
15Membership webpage Thirsty Thirsty
16Codex Azcatitlan map Library of Congress
17Earth Renewal photographs by Shan Goshorn National Museum of the American Indian
18The Ecological Relations of Roots diagram John Ernest Weaver
19The Lure of Fractal Images video The Open University
20Entangled Life Merlin Sheldrake
21Constellation Map Kornelius Reissig
22Sacred Economics Charles Eisenstein
23Lilith NYC case study Bodega Ltd.
24Grotto under a Terrace, 1817 drawings Jean-Baptiste-Cicéron Lesueur