Aisle 27

Aisle 27: The Best Seller/Stationary Aisle

It's been a while since I've written something for this blog. I've been going through the ups and downs that comes with post graduate life and being smack dab in my mid-twenties. I've also been stuck in this horrible state of almost writer's block. Almost writer's block as I've had tons of ideas just I can't get myself to commit to any one of them. Such is the life I guess... but NO! No I will not sit here and wistfully pine away the better parts of my life hoping for something better to come along, or have something fall into my lap.

I've been thinking about how I have been writing this blog thing, which I've noticed I've done repeatedly in various posts. The tone is more or less how I talk in real life, well when I'm given a chance to talk and ramble on and on. The aisle system creates a spacial awareness, for the most part. For example anything in the aisle 34 range will no doubt be about music or movies or what ever else is there (comics I think will be discussed there soon enough), and aisle 15 is... well kind of odd. What I noticed today, actually with aisle 27 (the one we're in right now) is that I'm somewhat mimicking the aisles at three of the grocery stores I frequented as a child, the A&P in Taftville, the old Stop&Shop in the Norwichtown Mall (when the mall had an arcade and a Caldor's) and the Big Y on the west side of Norwich, near Bozrah. This aisle in fact is taken from the Big Y, as it all ways amazed me that they sold best sellers in the same aisle as the tools which one would traditionally use to write a best seller (pens, pencils, paper, tape and so forth, you know stationary). To me it seems like I am not just categorizing the blog's content but I'm also making a spacial map of this blog. I'm seeing this blog as somewhere you can wander about from here to there glancing at the crap on the shelves, and it is this idea (sort of) that's got me re-stirring some old writing pots.

My Master's thesis (for what it was) was about the political trespass over the borders in cyberspace. It was my first real tentative step into a political frame of mind, for I am one to normally run in terror when conversations turn to politics. It was also super geeky and has instilled upon me even more geekness.

Now before I get too ahead of things let me explain this use of the word geekness, or geekocity. Rather than look at the word "Geek" as a negative connotation (one who gets beat up in fifth grade for knowing the intimate construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza - that would have been me) and not looking at geek in its traditional meaning (one who, in the spirit of entertainment, bites the heads off of chickens and pretty much eats things no human should), I am using the term geek to mean one who is passionately interested into something and being so learns all the ins and outs of that topic. Pretty much I'm using Sarah Vowell's use of the word in her essay on going goth (can't cite it as I don't have the book with me, it's in her first collection of essays though). So I am a geek about this. When I talk about this (and a few other topics) I get really excited and can go on forever (or until some one slaps me).

The topic of which I geek out over is not political, at least not overtly for just about everything is political sadly. What I geek out over is the concept of spacial constructions in cyberspace. Yes, I said it, I like the space in cyberspace. Which I believe since you need computers in order to have cyberspace that makes me a computer geek (ack!). So there you have it, I'm a geek who likes to talk about how space performs and is performed in cyberspace and this is what I figure I should write about for a bit.

Ok so I'm actually at work and can't go too much into this, plus if I do write something serious on this topic (lord knows this blog is a far cry from serious) I would like to actually attempt getting it published. But that's a while off isn't it? First I would have to actually write something. As an aside let me just say that there is nothing more motivational than having some one successful in your life cheer you on to do something. That's all I'm saying about that.

Really quickly though there was this interesting essay I read way back during my first semester as a freshman undergrad about verisimilitude. It dealt with a map of a kingdom that as the map was destroyed so was the kingdom. Shows how the copy or imitation can directly effect the original or some such thing. To be honest I can't recall what the intent of the actual essay was, what I get from this now (having not read the article for over six years is the idea that a representation of an idea (the map is the representation of the idea of the kingdom) can hold sway over the idea. In connection to my geekout moment, the way we talk about the internet and the way we have created the outer facade of the internet is a representation of what the internet really is. As we have made this facade resemble our tangible world the internet as an idea has become structured in our heads as a spacial world unto itself as oppose to what it really is, a series of 1s and 0s and other computer type stuff. As our perception of the world around us changes so to does the way we construct the internet (this is where if I was actually writing this as an essay I would be backing up this claim with references and examples, I'm not so I ain't doin' that).

Now it is just a matter of deciding on what to actually write on. I'm also kind of interested in the performance of identity and that topic is made for the internet. Well we shall see in the next few months what I come up with. Until then, cheers!