Word: communalism
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...some extent, to find a way out of their own minds. Lighting a bong or hitting the bottle, these students use conscious-altering substances to lubricate the transition from thought to work, a process possible when sober but sometimes easier while not. Some use the activity as a communal starting point, gathering around campus to drink or smoke before setting off to work. At other times, they sit alone with a bottle of wine or a well-rolled joint, pondering words and paint...
...lives, yet it soon becomes clear that their three paths intersect through the events of a mysterious unsolved robbery and an elusive woman named Joan Rosen Klein. Each protagonist is searching for something related to both Ms. Klein and the crime, a search that carries them all down a communal path of violence, hatred, and destruction. Ellroy’s is a well-crafted foray into the dark-side of America, but the author’s attempt at absolute historic totality hinders the novels complete success. Ellroy’s desire to account for almost every...
...Ph.D. in literature from Stanford, pulls off his quest with good cheer. He is invited into the homes and churches of what he calls "Whitopias": melanin-deficient exurbs and towns that have grown at least 6% since 2000, as whites have fled more ethnically diverse areas. "They are creating communal pods that cannily preserve a white-bread world," he observes, "a throwback to an imagined past with 'authentic' 1950s values." Like Sacha Baron Cohen, Benjamin can lull people into saying the most appalling things, as with a new friend who tells him, "I never know what to call...
...thing, the practice of most religions is a communal experience. Whether it involves singing, chanting, or just reading religious literature with others, most people’s experience of religion involves not only solitary study but also spiritual experience in a group setting. Trying to understand a religion without experiencing its mode of worship is like reading about the rules of baseball in a book without ever attending a game and being a spectator yourself—you might get a basic idea of how the players move around the field, but you probably won’t understand...
...fraternal pleasure in noticing that the folks around you are preparing or pretending to be scared. And you should be heartened to realize that - in an age of YouTube, iPod and DVR, where people get their visual media one by one - watching a fictional narrative can still be a communal activity. A thousand people sit as one in the dark, as fretful and enthralled as a child hearing a bedtime story and wondering, What happens next? No, I can't bear it! No, I have...