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I had scarcely learned of the existence of couch surfing from Time Out Istanbul before it made it into the New York Times yesterday, and probably into European newspapers already.
I am glad to have the functions of the social networking websitge explained, as I'd been puzzled as to how one went about vetting the perfect strangers one let into one's living quarters. Part of the secret is that the best couch surfers have scarcely any permanent possessions to steal or vandalize; they live a nomad lifestyle themselves, as though they were a deconstructed version of Black Rock City of Burning Man fame, an ad hoc community of need forming small momentary nodes of encounter all over the planet.
I agree with Pico Iyer that this is a downscale version of the more affluent global culture he has reported on at such length in The Global Soul et seq., but even at minimum budget I am left pondering how these young people get the money for the airfare. The fabled rucksack revolution was sandbagged by the Arab oil embargo circa 1973 and those who had anticipated spending their youths crossing the oceans on a whim found themselves unable to swing the airfare to join friends in Barcelona, or South America, or wherever, for years and years. Then they grew up, and stayed poor.
Most of the people I know with the money to take off at a moment's notice still don't have the accumulated vacation time. I am reminded of how Kenneth Rexroth advised Allen Ginsberg to quit his underpaid advertising job and ship out as a merchant seaman to accumulate the capital needed to live the bohemian lifestyle in the 1950s. This was in the days of major unionization, of course.
I am glad to have the functions of the social networking websitge explained, as I'd been puzzled as to how one went about vetting the perfect strangers one let into one's living quarters. Part of the secret is that the best couch surfers have scarcely any permanent possessions to steal or vandalize; they live a nomad lifestyle themselves, as though they were a deconstructed version of Black Rock City of Burning Man fame, an ad hoc community of need forming small momentary nodes of encounter all over the planet.
I agree with Pico Iyer that this is a downscale version of the more affluent global culture he has reported on at such length in The Global Soul et seq., but even at minimum budget I am left pondering how these young people get the money for the airfare. The fabled rucksack revolution was sandbagged by the Arab oil embargo circa 1973 and those who had anticipated spending their youths crossing the oceans on a whim found themselves unable to swing the airfare to join friends in Barcelona, or South America, or wherever, for years and years. Then they grew up, and stayed poor.
Most of the people I know with the money to take off at a moment's notice still don't have the accumulated vacation time. I am reminded of how Kenneth Rexroth advised Allen Ginsberg to quit his underpaid advertising job and ship out as a merchant seaman to accumulate the capital needed to live the bohemian lifestyle in the 1950s. This was in the days of major unionization, of course.
