Thursday, June 12, 2008

Wikimulch

Sometimes I wish the wikipedia didn't exist. Blogs would be so much more interactive than what they are now if wikipedia did not exist. Let me give you an example. Mulch. I see mulch everywhere. Wherever I see flowers, I see mulch. Wherever I see ardently landscaped trees, I see mulch. Where grass is lacking, I see mulch. But what is mulch? From personal experience, I have this much to relate. Mulch is a soup of rotten tree parts, cut into bite sized pieces for convenient consumption. That is mulch. So now I know what mulch is. But what is mulch for? Where is the place of mulch in the soup of life? Is mulch the carrots? Is mulch the peas? The broth? Or is mulch those chunks of nicely tenderized human flesh floating ever so squeamishly?

It is not just because I see mulch every which way, wherever I ride, but also because mulch has a personal history with me. I found mulch here, underneath my deck. It was a stray orphanized bag of mulch, deliberately left by the previous owners of my house in order to torture me. They knew that I did not know what the heck mulch was. I was a real estate n00b. Mulch who? I do not know why they seeked to torture me though, since I paid them above-market price and did not haggle (sorry mother, it is true, fish is not real estate).

Now. About mulch. What is mulch is what I have to find out, let's say. Also, why mulch? Now here I have two options, okay. One is to log on to the wikipedia and ask the wikipedia, hello sir, good morning what is mulch, thank you please. The other option is to log on to my blog and after entering my shitty login and shitty password, ask the air, hello air, what is mulch, thank you please, and thank you for being so invigorating today after two days of 90s and 100s.

Wikipedia would have given me my answer in about 5 seconds, 2 of which would have been consumed in trying to find if my blog was referenced in that wikipedia article. And then what? I would know what mulch is, but where is the social interaction? Where is the personal bonding? Not here. Not here, it ain't.

But where is the bonding? It is here, in the blogs. For if wikipedia had not been born, if wikipedia had been aborted as a fetus, or if papa wikipedia had remembered to wear a condom while fucking mama wikipedia, the world would have been a different place. A better place. Oh, so different. For, if I had woken up this morning, wrought over the question of the mulch, I would have gone straight to my blog and asked of you, my twenty or so intentional readers, hello readers, pray, what is mulch? Are you in the USA? Are you of sane mind? Are you of ample vision? Are you ambulatory? Then, what is mulch? What, for God's sake, is mulch? And, what the heck is it for?

And you would have answered, mulch is ...... this, and mulch is....that, and mulch is.... you know, whatever. And I would have contemplated your answers, formulated my own follow-up question, maybe something like, hey, but why is it called mulch and so forth, and you would have replied, hi gawker, sorry, but this is all the time I have, it is summer and it is now time for me to go swimming with my girlfriend, and I would have said, sure, go, who the heck is stopping you, I have nineteen other intentional readers, who the fuck cares, and then I would have asked you, you there, in the corner, you, pretending to read CNN on the other Firefox tab. Yes, I would have asked you. Why mulch?

And you would have told me. You would have guessed, or you would have lied. Either way, there would have been an interaction, a bonding. There would have been a conversation, an exchange of ideas, a give and take of viewpoints. The foundation of society as we know it.

But now there is wikipedia. So I won't ask you. I already know what mulch is. It's a stupid answer in bulleted form and quite predictable. And I had kinda guessed it anyways. So no blogposts about mulch. No personal interaction. No enlightening conversations.

Which is why, fuck wikipedia. The next time I have a question, I will ask you. And you better be ready with an answer. It's okay if you make stuff up. After all, it's all about the interaction. And the comments. And the follow up replies. Mulch? Mulch could be a Seattle-based grunge band. It could be an ice-cream flavor. Or it could be a pornographic position.

Mulch is whatever you tell me it is.

10 comments:

Vivek Kumar said...

You really should have asked your readers about mulch.

I could have told you that mulch is a protective cover placed over the soil, primarily to modify the effects of the local climate. And also that a wide variety of natural and synthetic materials are used.

Saikorian's mumble... said...

Have been reading your posts for quite some time now, great read, good to know that you belong to the old school of interaction ...

Jeet said...

I thought you would start the interaction by writing a question in this post itself.. but I guess it will take you time in getting out of the wikipedia mould.

Partho said...

Mulch is what you tell me it is...wow! Almost surreal!

ggop said...

I thought mulch was necessary only in dry climate to protect moisture.

gawker said...

vivek : Your comment clearly shows that you did not consult wikipedia and did not copy the first sentence on the website and paste it here. It clearly shows that.

somelikeithot : Thank you. Yes, the old school is a good school to be a student of.

jeet : No, this was just a post clearly spelling out my future policy regarding the acquisition of knowledge. I will begin the actual acquisition process in some other post.

partho : Mulch itself is quite surreal. Basically it is fake dirt. We from India know that we have enough dirt in India not to require the fake kind.

ggop : Well, if you only learnt one thing this year, let it be this thing and from this blog.

Vivek Kumar said...

Of course! But those wikipedians are crazy. Someone has probably already copied from my comment. I wouldn't know. I never use wikipedia.

Anonymous said...

So did u find out from your readers what mulch is? If not, I could tell you that it is "munch" spelt wrongly ;)

Anonymous said...

hahahahahaha...i just stumbled on your blog while i was mulching and squlching...liked your mulch man, nice mulch i say...although general american mulch is quite schmaltzy..but nice mulch i say...
much mulch...

n meanwhile,while i mulch, can you help me figure what it feels like to trugulate in this dethrombonated wasteland without fremilicious indian food and qwelsoteric bollywood? mulch mulch.

Aquatic Static said...

Mulch is awesome. Much like your blog is awesome. Even when one is stoned. But especially when one is not.