21 Comments

It may be capitalism that equips your home with a bathtub; it's socialism (by whatever name you want to call it) that fills that tub with water. Capitalism may poison that water (see WR Grace in Woburn, MA, or the Mississippi GOP in Jackson, MS), but it seldom purifies it. Your earlier position is the sensible one, it seems to me. I flirted with a move toward comparable simplicity when, not quite able to afford Santa Fe, I looked at a rental in Vidal, a not quite village at the bottom of a gulch in the Sangre de Cristos, dotted with those dome-shaped clay ovens and traversed by mule-drawn carts with wheels modernized to rubber tires. The property turned out to be a one room shack with high pitched ceilings whose only source of light was the spaces between the boards here and adobe bricks there that made up the walls. To one side was a good sized mattress, one of those classic white and blue-stripe deals, that didn't look to be more than 75 or 80 years old. The really notable aspect of the bedding, though, was the 3'x5' bloodstain that covered most of it. The share situation in Santa Fe began to look more tenable.

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That is quite an excellent tale.

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Nice image of Gladys Horton. Thanks.

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You know your Marvelettes!

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At least in the Paris Commune they all had their own apartments.

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And all kinds of things! Healthcare. Women's rights. Free schooling. They were off to a rip-roaring start if you ignore all the savagery.

( I love you Lucy! )

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We are dying. You're killing us. Jimmy and I cracked up throughout. Interesting how one doesn't really know oneself until faced with certain situations.

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Oh COURTNEY! How I miss you!

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SAME! Instead of a house boat, how about a cute bungalow in LA??

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BA-KOO-NIN. Russian names have equal stress on each syllable.

I fucking hate zucchini too.

And love your work, you cute capitalist running water dog, you.

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Awwww thank you Mr. Schreiber. Yah, zucchini is a godless vegetable.

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Feel you on this—it’s like the test your egalitarian politics get put to when it comes to your kid’s education.

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I just want a 30-inch deep, Hinoki wood, Japanese soaking tub, IS THAT SO WRONG??!!

I know, I know, I will just wait here for my tumbril-to-the-guillotine driver.

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There's no inherent reason that a society which values equitable distribution of wealth has to set the bar at 'shared outdoor plumbing.' The issue seems to be the 'artists only' mindset. A community with a few engineers could be a lot more comfortable.

Also, you know, robots can do chores.

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loved this, felt it hard - and not only because I too did a part of my growing up on a Sausalito houseboat (gate 5, to be precise). Thank you!

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BTW: The art work is stunning.

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Forgive me for that screwed up Twitter share last night. I will delete my tweet and replies. I have shared it this post correctly just now." Bougie Bitch" has so many great lines, I didn't know which to quote.. I almost used this "As if on cue, a man walked toward us from the dock who looked as if he had been marinating in wet coffee grounds." Bud didn't/

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Question for all future zucchini: Was this group-realized?

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I hear you on the shared shower; that’s a deal-breaker.

As for zucchini, I disagree, but that’s probably because I was raised on my aunt’s delectable breaded and baked zucchini. Every restaurant, it seems, offers fried zucchini appetizers, and even the 4-star restaurants botch it ( never been to a 5-star). They bury it in tempura or some overloaded breading and deep-fry it to kingdom come. If that’s your zucchini experience I don’t blame you!

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