Communism

For the Jun/Jul/Aug issue of Bookforum magazine, Paul La Farge published a sketch of the utopian ideal, and the conceptions of utopia today. This is a quick response I shared with the editors of BF.

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Mr. La Farge’s sketch of a utopian ideal as analogous to a game is intriguing, but the claim is misleading. The underlying premise for his game concept is distinctly Western (and especially American?), thus leaving the experiences of much of the rest of the world out of the conceptualization.

Sometimes PEN World Voices Festival offers sporting opportunities. After the critics finished being critical at the Austrian Cultural Forum, I had thirty minutes to complete a mad dash from 53^rd and Fifth Avenue to 37^th and Fifth Avenue, a.k.a. CUNY’s Graduate Center, for the Orwellian-sounding panel, “Utopia and Dystopia: Geographies of the Possible.” Along the way I had to suck down supplements: an iced coffee and granola bar. Aside the race against time (and hunger), PEN WVF also includes the Olympic feat of having to switch mental gears suddenly.

Another stunningly beautiful day in New York City. The NYC half-marathon is being run, and you would think Left Forum attendees are participants: with the café closed until 10am there’s nonstop sprinting back and forth to Starbucks for that morning jolt. With my giant iced coffee and crumb cake in hand, I head to the morning heavyweight panel, Critical Theory and Social Movements. Breakfast for my stomach and my mind.

Verso hosts this panel. Boris Groys and Todd May hold court. Simon Critchley, expected to be on the panel, is decidedly absent(!). Perhaps he’s still waiting in line for his coffee…