All blog posts have become for me exercises of imagination, and thus, invention. Is there a better space for trying out ideas? Even though I balance professional tasks (essay revisions due shortly, a book manuscript on Detroit being completed, another book idea brewing), I am draw to post little snippets of ideas here as well. The age of information is the age of writing. We are not in a literacy crisis; we are in literacy overflow.

And that is why I’ve noticed Plato coming to Columbia. The first idea came from Plato, Missouri, population 65. The second came from William S. Burroughs, St. Louis native and subject of many blog posts here. That Plato is in Texas County, that Burroughs shot his wife in Texas, that my wife is from Texas, that I hate the little Texas outfits my wife puts Vered in, these are layers I need to work from. That’s right. I am not from Texas. I find the blog most useful when I can build narratives out of layers. This narrative, so far, seems to be called “Plato Comes to Columbia.”

Indeed, this entire blog is but a series of layers. When Plato (not the city) argues against writing, his argument, as we all know by now, is that it destroys memory. The blog (layering away ideas, things, people, places) enables memory through its series of self-referential links, archives, and comments. This is why Google is not making us dumber. Google and its smaller cousin the blog keep everything layered. Ted Nelson missed out on the concept of layering when he made his focus only on the intertwingled link.

Then the project of writing about space/place, too, can follow the route of layering, allowing a place like Columbia, Missouri to be layered with Columbia Records, or allowing Plato, Missouri to layer onto Plato. There is no homonym obligation; choral gestures are simply workable prompts for invention.

So when did Plato come to Columbia?