, , Then I know that there are still pleasures amidst the ANNA LOWENHAUPT TSING

terrors of indeterminancy (1 ).
The
, , Patterns of unintentional coordination develop in
assemblages. To notice such patterns means watching the 1
_ushroom
••

interplay of temporal rhythms and scales in the divergent af ·{ihe

End
lifeways that gather. Surprisingly, this turns out to be a method
that might revitalize political economy as well as at·· 'theWonu .1J
environmental studies (23). , ,~ ON THE
4
POSSIBILITY

, , We are contaminated by our encounters; they change who we ~

CAPITALIST

~
are as we make way for others[ ...] Everyone carries a history of
contamination; purity is not an option. One value of keeping "Yet progress stories
precarity in mind is that it makes us remember that changing have blinded us. To
with circumstances is the stuff of survival (27). know the world without
them, this book sketch-
, , The concept of assemblage-an open-ended entanglement of es open-ended assem
ways of being-is more useful. In an assemblage, varied -blages of entangled
trajectories gain a hold on each other, but indeterminacy ways of life, as these
matters. To learn about an assemblage, one unravels its knots coalesce in coor-
(83). dination across many
kinds of temporal
, , Being in the forest this way , , To find a good mushroom, I rhythms" (viii).
might be considered dance: need all my senses (241).
lines of life are pursued "Whether or not other
through senses, movements, , , Following the traces of
organisms 'tell stories,'
and orientations (241 ). animals lives, we entangle they contribute to the
and align our movements, overlapping tracks
, , This combination of inti- searching with them (247). and traces that we
mate knowledge and feel- grasp as history.
ing through the duff focuses , , The mushrooms remind us of History, then, is a record
our dependence on more- of many trajectories of
my attention back on the
than-human natural pro- world making, human
there and now, the middle of and non human" (168).
things (277). cesses: we can't fix anything,
even what we have broken,
, , Radical curiosity beckons by ourselves (257).
(144).

, , To live well with others, we need to use all our senses,

even if it means feeling around in the duff (279).
THINK-ER/JHOUG
Nathaniel A Rivers, 2020