<i>Yet I want to shout "No! Willie Mo! No!"</i>

I may have to try that at work today. Glad to hear you're feeling better.

"Is it fair to say that when the investors move in, the shark has already been jumped?"

This may be so but your MySpace example does not illustrate the point. MySpace is a better latter day example of the problem with late '90s bubble thinking in so far as MySpace, unlike eBay, is dependent more or less exclusively on ad revenue. Their overheads are also a much bigger factor than eBay's due to the unthinkable bandwidth/hosting space they must have to contend with. Frankly, given the number of servers they must be bringing on line I am astonished they are showing profits at this point. US$200m is not a bad start. Remember, eBay was not making money off the top either. Nor, for that matter, do most "bricks and mortar" businesses. It seems to me the bubble-think and counter-bubble-think of internet business ignores the obvious: it may be internet based but it is still just business.

"...there actually is money to be made by working the internet over a decade or so. That, I understand, is also The Busiess Model of the FleaTM."

This is certainly how I am looking at direct Flea-revenue (though there are always those "break out" sites that make a killing more quickly). But the central focus of my business model is a brand-building process. The Flea does not have to generate much money for me to make money off the Flea.

"That was almost serendipity except you were following a path someone else had already laid out for you."

Also true in libraries. It is called the Dewey Decimal System. And whatever the shrews in acquisitions decided was appropriate for community tastes and could be justified by whatever budget/shelf space as available. Those libraries are still there, btw.

Excellent observations though I am still not in line with Flea-based reality on serendipity in so far as I do not stumble upon the unknown through the card catalogue but more through stumbling, the walk down unknown aisles in a bookstore or a library or an index. Juxtapositions and adjacencies create connections in themselves.

Is no one interested in the title of this post? I would have though that in itself would have triggered wild speculation hitting 50 or 60 comments easily. I am losing my touch clearly.

I just assumed it was "Friday Chit Chat" in an eastern European language.

I'd buy a Flea t-shirt or ball cap.

Yeah, cm is right, it was either Slobovian language or lawyer speak for awhile there.
Actually, I bravely tried to access Gen x today, four times, and it was weirdly blocked somehow. No access. Maybe true for others as well?
Did someone say 'beware the forces of the Flea'? Mysterious powers. I think Flea wanted Alan to himself for awhile.

What evil messages would we discover if we played Flea's comments backwards?

I've had no trouble accessing, thank goodness, but I did miss that last bullet until just now. I like that analogy, neato v. the dough-re-mi.

Do we dare test that, gr?

Playing Flea's comments backwards, I mean, not neato v. the dough-re-mi.

I admit, cm, to being somewhat lost here today. I think that Force Flea has infected my brain with pre-weekend lethargy. So, do I have some coffee and do something OR give in to it and slouch toward quitting time?

"Excellent observations though I am still not in line with Flea-based reality on serendipity in so far as I do not stumble upon the unknown through the card catalogue but more through stumbling, the walk down unknown aisles in a bookstore or a library or an index. Juxtapositions and adjacencies create connections in themselves."

Yes, and those stacks are organized by the same logic as the card catalogue. More so, in fact, because of limitations of floor space. So as you stumble through the library you are also stumbling through the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal logic.*

*Please refer to my 1992 piece: "Browsing the Apparatus: Homosexuality, Classification, Power/Knowelge" (Border/Lines). If you have a library that carries it. There is a copy at the Metro Reference Library here in Toronto but - not being in the stacks - your stumbling strategy would never come across it.

When does a potter declare quitting time?

Doesn't my chaotic stumbling whether in the aisle or the keyword index defeat the systemic system of ordering created by Mr. Dewey? Or has he anticipated it in his clever system to guide me back from the brink?

Hmm. Baseball caps and T-shirts, eh? I have been meaning to get organized with the CafePress thing though I was thinking more along the lines of a Flea-thong.

"Doesn't my chaotic stumbling whether in the aisle or the keyword index defeat the systemic system of ordering created by Mr. Dewey?"

My 1992 piece argues something along these lines. "Browsing" can be thought of as what Michel Foucault called a "tactic of resistance" to the order imposed by the classification system. There are limits to such a tactic, however, imposed in large part by the aforementioned acquisition committee.

For example, I once had a devil of a time at charades because my partner was a delightful woman from South Africa. Despite a university degree and progressive politics she had never heard of George Orwell's "1984" due to its being banned under the former regime (for obvious reasons). She could have browsed to her hearts content at a South African university library or bookstore and never defeated a systemic order which, in this case, included a national censor.

Ahem, like cm and I were saying. Friday chat in Slobovian. What did a wise man once say? 'Blame it on the Flea'

Alan, you got me there, this particular self-employed potter does what he damn well pleases. My boss, (myself), cannot fire me, therefore time to slack.

When I said stumbling, though, I didn't mean browsing. I meant the walking around thinking to oneself how the hell is it that I have to write that paper, the daydreaming of not wanting to find and then you find yourself nonetheless having found. I know I said otherwise up front but I am changing the rules to expand my understanding. But that would require I have a point which I am not sure I have. If I did have one it would be that the serendipity being described is not as possible on the internet as a more random system than a library and its Deweyification.

Ahh, well if it is something structured you want within which to improvise the internet has that too. Huge gated communities like AOL, the often brilliant Wikipedia or my new MySpace stomping grounds. Yes, there are plenty of apparent chaos and non-library analogous space on the internet. But then I imagine you have to walk by a few non-library related buildings on the way to the library as well.

Uncle.

Five pm out in the Atlantic somewhere, perhaps it is time for cocktail hour. I am outta here.

I'm enjoying a pre-evening cocktail here. I'll buy Flea merchandise... http://www.cafepress.com/

See, gr, they need us to bring them back to earth.

Alas, I to have to wait at least another hour for my post-work cocktail. :-(

And I'd buy Flea merchandise, too. But not a thong. Sorry.

Back in grad school I spent many a happy hour avoiding actual work by reading "around" a topic. The Library of Congress and the Dewey system have the great advantage that they place books rather more interesting than the books you should be reading within easy reach. If you are really determined on displacement activity, you could take a couple of weeks gently sneaking up on your topic decimal place by decimal place.

Tragically, the world of law libraries is less susceptible to serendipidy. Case reports being what they are there is a remarkable degree of randomness in the general Reports themselves - tort cases tucked up with tax - but the library shelf sense of "sort of related to" is entirely lost because of this randomness.

The online experience is much closer to the legal research, topic focused, world. This is a pity.

However, for delightful juxtaposition there is still nothing to match a used bookstore run by an old guy who loves books more than order.

I've had a shop for years - up there under "shop" - and no one has ever bought from it. I like the hoodie particularly. And I am sick still. I'd sure like a hoodie...

I'd sure like a GenX40 journal...

Huh. They don't take PayPal. That seems odd to me.

Little Gen X at 40 undies? Flea mittens and woolen hats?

Perhaps our friend David Janes is also self-employed, and able to cocktail early and often. If DJ and I are slacking, hanging out, pouring a healthful drink in the afternoon and wasting time at Gen X at 40 we are doing it on our own nickel. Not our employers at, say, Big Corp. I wonder about those of you with real jobs, such as cm and Alan, loafing about posting witty remarks here while supposedly at the office. Do the BIG BOSSES at Big Corp. know? Do they care? Could you be fired for using company time to shop for Gen X at 40 undies?

The trolling bots are now sending me Polish spam:<blockquote class="smalltext"><i>Mam nowy adres elektroniczny!!!</i></blockquote>