...providing there is someone here to read it.

I'm Baslow, an *alter kacker * residing in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan -- in the same neighborhood, believe it or not, as my father grew up in. So, whether or not I'm a typical New Yorker, I will claim to be a real New Yorker.

Is this thing on?

I make note of my residence because, lately, I have been concerned with the various ways we tend to use the word community . I believe that we've been socialized to use the word in so many ways that are watered-down that we have almost lost sight of what primordial human communities -- the communities in which most of the traits we think of as human evolved -- must have been like.

This collective amnesia has, I believe, a bearing on the kinds of online communities we attempt to build and leads us -- even when we are attempting to combat them -- to reinforce forms of hyper-individualism, fragmentation and alienation which prevent us from sustaining broad solidarity and effective collective action in opposition to the forces which constrain and exploit us.

I am working on a projet I call **Communitarium **(mostly in my head, but there is an uninhabited model site) in which interested people could research and attempt to put into practice new, richer forms of online community.

I can't say I yet have a coherent account of everything I believe and what I think needs to be done but I'm happy to answer questions if anyone is even vaguely interested.