The Whole Earth Catalog Online
Well, I was an aspiring acolyte of All The WEC Things. Read ‘em cover to cover. The Supplements, The CoEvolution Quarterly, The WELL…
Have a somewhat different view of them now, recognizing that the Counter Culture didn’t counter as much as it thought, that DIY and communes have their limitations, and don’t scale well…
But the Vibe… Access To Tools was my mantra. In a lot of ways, still is. Just have a better understanding of what Tools are (and aren’t), and what you can do with (and without) them.
Not all of my legacy copies survived multiple moves and variations in living conditions unkind to paper products. Did find this remarkably clean copy without much trouble, but it might have been a copy I gave my mom to compare/contrast with her beloved Foxfire books, from about the same time period.
An interesting time and point of view, to be sure. Not all bad. Just not nearly as good as it could have been.
Have a decent collection of tools now, know how to use most of them to good effect, made a living more often than not. No doubt there will be quite a bit of head scratching and bewilderment when my time comes, and someone holds the Great Estate Sale of all my gear.