One of the most common concerns we hear about people considering cohousing and other forms of intentional community is: "I won't have any privacy!" Of course, the reality is that cohousing offers a mix of community and privacy, adding choices to lives that normally have nothing but privacy and isolation. We live in our own privagte homes in an intentional neighborhood but gain so much more by emerging from our shells, gathering for meals and listening to each other, giving the gift of attention.

We're doing a field trip to The Roxie in The Mission district in SF for a premiere Northern California-exclusive showing of a documentary about a different sort of intentional community: "Quiet," a millennial bunker in New York City running for a month in which 100 artists voluntary choose to live continuously on television - with no doors or refuge, recording and visible to each other all the time, and deprived of the choice of privacy, psychologically challenged in mock interrogations, and pushed to explore their limits. The new movie "We Live In Public" follows Josh Harris, an early internet TV entrepreneur who presaged the advent of Reality TV, the surveillance state, and the emerging trend of publishing our own lives online, exploring the ways in which we all make our own 1984. After his community experiment, he turned his cameras inwards, broadcasting his own life on the internet, 24x7.

The world's only two-time Sundance award winner Ondi Timoner (DIG!) chronicled Harris for a decade, culling through thousands of hours of Harris’s own footage and adding her own; she will be at the showing for a discussion that follows.

Here's the Roxie's listing for the event

Betsy and Raines saw the movie at the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh this Summer and found it really thought-provoking about the nature of our always-on public presences on the internet and how we relate to our neighbors in community. Warning: contains nudity, sexual acts, strong language, and depictions of psychological abuse. No children, please. Film is not rated.

Note: The movie shows at 7, and we'll gather beforehand for a bite at a cheap Mexican place around the corner (let us know if you've got a favorite). The theater is a short walk from 16th St. BART, for those coming from the East Bay. We are buying tickets in advance (the price here includes the service fee we're paying) and so will only accept RSVPs that are paid in advance - and you must arrive by 6:45 to pick up your ticket, or it may be given away.

There is another showing at 8:50 for those who can't make this one, and weekend matinees as well.