reading for 3/7

poked with the question of anti-civ theory that considers the collapse and immediate aftermath, we’re reading the first two chapters of desert. that is, “no global future” and “it’s later than we thought.”
aside from desert, there are definitely pieces on parts of likely collapse scenarios, but not from anarchists (as far as i know).
it also came up last night that people are trying to post comments here and can’t so i’m checking on how to fix that, because it’s terrible! i hear this has been fixed; yay!

i read an article years ago that talked about how just the decomposition of a lot of bodies concentrated in one place would be a toxic disaster on its own. i am not finding that kind of information, and maybe that’s not the sort of thing we’re trying to think about here anyway. but i’m interested in it.

reading for 2/27

amazing historian and translator shawn wilbur sends the following email, which requires me to make a decision, so i’m somewhat arbitrarily going with the first two, the intro and the garlic one (’cause YOU KNOW), and if folks are into it, we can always read the rest–we could have a month of fourier, semi-curated by shawn!
The obvious intro piece by Fourier, from my perspective at least, is “Note A” from “The Theory of Four Movements.” It’s very short, but explains how individuals will organize according to the passions in Harmony. There is a translation in the Cambridge edition, but I’ve made one that can be used freely.

Charles Fourier on the Pear-Grower’s Series

You might also be amused by “Intermeshing of the Series by Cabalistic Gastronomy,” which includes the amusing episode of the girl who loved garlic, but not grammar:

Fourier, “Intermeshing of the Series by Cabalistic Gastronomy”

re: the first reading, here are some questions/thoughts i had:

what is brought out of people when they try to create utopias (or just, better systems)? A practical, practice-based way of thinking of what is truly human – so what is fourier saying about what is deeply human?

What does the penultimate paragraph say about our current system of capitalism?

relationship to bolo’bolo (limited size, based on some level of intentional/understanding of desire)

reading for 2/5/18

chapter one of prison memoirs of an anarchist, by Berkman.
the person i asked for suggestions about what to read loves the whole book, and so was less helpful than one might think. here are some of his comments “First, congratulations on making good reading choices. The reading group
should clap for each other for good choices, maybe eat cake.
As to the good bits, it is a long book, and there is a lot that can be left out if you aren’t trying to read the whole thing.
I would suggest that part 1 which focuses on the attentat is good context if there is none, but not necessary in entirety, chapters 4, 5 & 6 are pretty crucial to the narrative though.”
he emphasizes that there is a lot going on in this book, and no excerpt is going to get at the book in full, so… we shouldn’t think that we know what the book is about without reading the whole thing. so cute!