Most 1960s communes collapsed within a few years.

Evidence

Some of the communes Houriet visited on his tour became viable for a few years or more; others he heard about were gone by the time he arrived. At an old resort hotel in the Catskills, Houriet found just two people left, and they were on their way out. Left over in one of the bedrooms were a mattress, a crate, the stub of a candle, and some roaches in an ashtray. “They had burned all their furniture and smoked the last of their grass. On the wall, writ in Magic Marker, was the self-epitaph of a community that never was: FOREVER CHANGE.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 160

Categorization

• CANDY: “FOREVER CHANGE” as a communard self-epitaph is a compact, image-rich anecdote.