Noam Chomsky

A departing resident, Jess, just recently married and wonderfully matched to also departing Chris, made available some used books.  I requested a copy of The Chomsky Reader.  In it, I found one essay, the first of his writings I've ever read, so relevant to my personal reaction to recent circumstances, that I searched for a copy on line to post here.  It's thick reading, but great.  The fact that philosophers have been thinking for hundreds of years about the debilitating effects of capitalism, with it's attendant loss of freedom, and the exultation of the artist/craftsman's relation to his work, made me tear up.  It's writing that made me feel both profoundly validated and lonely.  Here is the link: http://www.chomsky.info/books/state02.pdf

A little more...

Refining

Living in Palo Alto...

I'm staying in a collective of some old time commune dwellers/ philosopher teachers at Stanford University, consisting of a family of three parents with three children, plus a couple of friends, and about a dozen Stanford students.  It's quite a pleasant, intelligent community, with a scientific bent, a penchant for doing good in the world, and no new ageyness.  There are 3 dwellings here, two quite old, one recently renovated.  The family unit is about to embark on a tear-down and rebuild of the next.  I am recommending improvements to their plans, mostly tweaking and finessing the spaces without changing topology.  I am being provided with food, shelter, good cheer.  I hope to network a bit as the project progresses.  Click the pics for blow ups.