boils it down to a time and a place. but that’s still vague in terms then eventually it becomes about a handful of people. so that’s the thing of memory. so the whole exercise becomes one of collective, not personal, memory - like i told john -

“dude. i need to wrack your brain for a sec about a show in 1991 - yeah, yeah, that’s the one - remember when the sky turned red during slayer? or lollapalooza, when angelo moore sold us a poetry book in the chillout tent? or the show when chris cornell was hanging from the rafters and i got the heel of a doc martin implanted into my forehead? I didn’t shower for a week after that, and you better believe i showed that lump off like a badge at school.”

if you’ve known me any length of time, you most likely have been rewarded with your own name scrawled on a bag with a few shards of paper. a little god warrior iron-on, or a postcard saying “ik mis je” or a picture of an idaho spud. even if you never sent a thing, i can still divine out of a worn ticket stub an image of you. you and me and our dated, unfortunate haircuts. so then you give each person their own ziploc bag. seals in the freshness, or in the case of rock shows of the 90’s, the ripeness - so you can break the seal and smell the glove over and over again.

the physical world is confining. but on the magic of the internets (thank you TBL, the good folks in champaign, etc etc) you can put things in several places at once and knit them all separately together. it’s remarkable.

so i can sit here, tapping away - and my own personal vinnie delpino (like a personal jesus, but shorter and with pizza-breath) is gonna pop thru the IM window shortly. “doog.” and I can tap back on the screen “vin - you remember that show back when” and he’ll say “hell yeah. that fuckhole stranded my sweaty ass on the garden state parkway?” and i’ll reply “omg - i totally forgot that happened” and two days letter i get an email attachment, the pixels, the proofs, the mental image of a monte carlo smelling of vulcanized rubber. thrown up on the web, then printed on acid-free sheets and into the ziplocs they go. and despite all the wonders of replication, it still boils down to one time. one place. and of course, one person (or posse, as the case may be). and i get sad, cause I’ll never see that same person at that same place at that time ever again.