Friday, March 31, 2006


Information, FUCK YEAH!

Had a conversation a couple nights ago in a bar with a few poets about the difference between information and knowledge. One of the poets, a professor at Georgetown, posits that his students don't have the training needed to correctly analyze poems. I believe it's got nothing to do with education: They have the Internet. All this knowledge. Ask me a question and I'll answer it with the stroke of a google query. So, what they think of as analysis pales in comparison to his experience of poring through a pile of musky texts. It's the old when-I-was-a-kid card.

But... beyond his whining, I will concede that all this information does not beget knowledge -- though I'd also posit that actual analysis does not necessarily beget knowledge either. Knowledge comes with years of trial and error. Keep the process going and eventually it will go from shallow to deep, deep, deep, deep, deeeeeeeeep. I can't wait to see Amazon in 50 years. I'll remember when customer-generated content was new and edgy. Aww, retroactive nostalgia, how I love thee.

Have a great weekend, and don't forget to go to a WIT show if you live in DC. Or, better yet, take a class.

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