Wednesday, May 30, 2007

An insomniac's observation

Amazon's endless subcategories constitute a pretty special kind of chaos. Consider: I search for "rhetoric" and confine my search to "Books."

I am given another series of options, from "Cooking, Food and Wine" (one book in that category, and this is it) to "Professional and Technical" - which I select.

Ok, now this is pretty straightforward - I am dealing with categories like "Law," and "Business Management" and... "Education."

Within "Education," it gets a bit funny again - we have "Counselling," "Curricula," we have "Lesson Planning," "Pedagogy" and the very un-specific "Specific Skills" among others. And then "Theory," which ok, I know I am kind of biasing the sensibility of my sample by choosing, but... oh what blossoms once I choose! "Educational Reform" next to "Non-Formal Education," "Decision Making and Problem Solving" next to "Leadership," all alongside "Aims and Objectives."*

At this point, things start to rein themselves in again, but - this is SO internet, this imposition of the jumbled structure of our own minds on to the tools we create to aid them. SO FRIGGING INTERNET.

It's 3:30. The past few nights have found me insomniac for the first time in years. Does it show?

PS. For an informative intellectual experience, imagine how a conversation - analagous to this search, but with a real human librarian, might unfold. "Well, what KIND of book on rhetoric?..."

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