Within this same order of ideas of a coming ' post-intimacy', we might note how joint tenancy is gradually turning into a mode of coexistence these days. For often quite diferent reasons, then, we are seeing the revival of the Soviet utopia o f the 'communal household' and the shared apartment - these so-called SOCIAL CONDENSERS for which the futurist architect, Melnikov, provided the theory.
Through economic necessity, given the costs of renting, people now boast on the Internet of the concept of a ' unit of collective life', as the Partage-Senior (Sharing for Seniors) Association indicates: 'A mixed nest of four or five people and what you get i� quite a diferent ambiance where j oint tenants feel freer.'
A woman who runs a similar association goes as far as tel ling j o urnalists that: 'Joint tenancy is the world's best anti-depressant .
Other organizations go even further in this disorientation of the old way of life, ofering a 'life plan aboard a sailing ship' tailored to seniors who might fancy an open-ended trip around the world . . . Between container ships, where illegal immigrants stow away at the risk of their lives, and these l uxury cruises for tourists of desolation, who fritter away the inheritance so they can live permanently on an ocean liner since that turns out to be less expensive in the end than a decent retirement home, there is all the diference in the world - the diference between the headlong Hight of the desperate and sheer ambulatory madness.
THE GREAT ACCELERATOR
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