Crossing the Desert

It’s now called “House Magic: Bureau of Foreign Correspondence.” And I’ve been working on the show this week at Tribes office. Steve Cannon is great, an irascible hipster saint. The response from my European friends and comrades to the call for materials has been – well, silence! Last night I asked my friend who lives in a commune in New York and runs a café for them if he would speak at the show about collective living. Earlier, another member of the same group had declined, saying they didn’t want to be identified with squatters. My friend more or less repeated the line, critiquing the show plan in its parts and in concept. He said it would be a “fuck you!” in the face of any general audience. This made me sad. I believe this group has a great method and lots of experience which they could share with progressive people. But it is not getting out. (In general, for more information on the network of this group, see the website run by the Federation for Intentional Communities.) Well, they have their reasons, which I respect. But there is such profound fear of other ways, even among those who are living alternatives! We are really now sadly ungathered tribes.
“House Magic” and “Monster Institutions.” Magic and monsters, the realm of fantasy that is not reality. Reality is regulated. We are regulated first by our poverty, our lack of wealth. That is lack of the means to accomplish big things, to be enterprising, to make changes in our world. Then we are regulated by laws, by customs and usages – all of which run in the interests of wealth. So then, if the light never turns green for us, how are we to cross the street? We must just go, go across. Sooner or later the officer comes to write us a ticket, which we must answer. But we are over there. We are on our way…