Tuesday, June 14, 2011

P.J.'s heterotopia

Space: PJ's

Formal entry procedure: reciept=authentification for "coffee shop" zone.

Rules of "Coffee Shop"
-Use internet.
-Private/public person, is one available for interaction? Or closed to social advances?
-Look tired, busy, and/or forlorn
-Find romantic interest

If I enter into the coffee shop heterotopia, and my purple sweater falls off the back of my backpack, is that within the theory of abjection? My sweater was once "of me"-- then fell off without my knowledge. When the man in line behind me got my attention to return it, I felt embarrassment, as if I had dropped my dung unawares, or left a slime trail. If I had shed my sweater conciously, I feel like that embarrassment would be absent. The sweater acting outside of my control, yet of me, is the source of the discomfort. Frankenstein a hightened form of this with his monster on the loose?

A coffee shop like PJ's holds many incongruities inside its boundries: CNN shows me footage from Iraq; the woman on the phone beside me is speaking Spanish; everyone's internet windows are open to images and illustrations from around the world.



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