But on to your post: I really like your descriptive term, “collaboration mall.” As a city person (and yeah, Victoria is a smaller city, but it’s pretty dense and urban and walkable), I’m of course loathe to admit that the suburbs might be places that produce appropriate symbols (”mall”) for civitas / civic life. But I can remind myself that in the 1920s Walter Benjamin wrote about 19th century Parisian arcades as localities of social meaning (and manufacture of meaning) — and what were the arcades but urban forerunners of suburban malls?

I’d say that the urban street is still more democratic/ porous/ open, if only because it really is public space, vs. private or semi-private. But the mall can bring together all sorts of different (including “regular”) people, and it’s a great term (compared to “street”) because it acknowledges the reality of markets, fees for services, settings for enterprise, and consumer platforms.

I’m at the very beginning of trying to create a community aggregator type service here, and your suggestion of a “collaboration mall” is intriguing. Just as with Doc’s entry on infrastructure, I find it helps my thinking when one (physical) thing typically seen in one context is transposed into another (more abstract) context. Till now, I was thinking for example of “public space” (physical) and how that manifests online (abstract). But narrowing that space to a mall brings things into better focus.

You’re a lucky man, Britt!

Dave

And perhaps they have not always dispensed the super dramamine they give you. We couldn’t be on any medications while flying. There was an exception, though, and that was the Lomotil that was mission-critical in Vietnam. Without that, Ho Chi Minh would have had his revenge a lot sooner.

The main problem for me was watching my camera float away and not being able to retrieve it from the back of the plane until after the flight. That and crawling out from under other people’s bodies when positive G-forces returned.

The biggest surprise was the nearly complete lack of control. if you’re not holding on to something, you’re actually kind of helpless, just floating there among a bunch of other bodies, mostly helpless too.

But helpless in a fun way.

You’d enjoy it. Trust me.

I have been doing research on fighter pilot songs for the past twenty years and I would like very much to quote from “Pilot Pilot Porn” in a paper I am writing. Unfortunately, I can’t identify the writer. If he would be kind enough to get in touch with me I would be very grateful.

Lydia Fish