Category: Essays

Two rainbow colored disco balls hanging from a tree with other trees in the background, photographed from below

Queer Camping, Then and Now

A cultural anthropologist explores how queer camping subverts masculine camping culture and supports new queer identities and communities in the outdoors.

A pile of eight emerald green laundry detergent Tide Pods against a white background.

When Laundry Detergent Was Edible

Long before Tide Pods, laundry soap was made from organic ingredients with familiar names and smells. When corporations started selling detergents made from synthetic chemicals, they had to redefine what clean smelled like.

One of the residences made hospitable by the eucalyptus grove. The eucalyptus is visible in the background on the right side of the photo.

The Avant-Garde Meets Ecology in the Open City

Communal living and artistic experimentation have thrived at the Open City for over forty years. In the face of pollution and environmental degradation, the collective of poets, artists, and a lone ecologist are reimagining green design.