This postcard below came to my office a week ago (discipline) advertising Richard Florida's talk for Create Detroit downtown. The idea behind Florida's appeal is to bring creativity to the city as the focus of urban renewal. He is aligned with Gov. Granholm's "Cool Cities" plan. Cool is found in my discipline (my textbook and manuscript in progress). And one figure in the card mentions "corporate cool" a term which reminds me of a recent article I have written called "Cooltown: The Place of Intellectual Work," a critique of HP's Cooltown project, WebCT, and managed software.
But note the language of this card: "Groove." "We're starting a new groove" echoes Funkadelic's "One Nation Under a Groove." Florida accidently names funk as central to his plan, not cool. And, the obvious signifier here, Florida is the place I grew up (I am reversing the trend - Michiganers go South; I went North. In the words of Funkadelic, am I creating "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis"?). I see myself, then, within this card (Florida, cool), and I see a reference to another article, "Funkcomp," I have been working on for my edited collection.
I want to use this postcard along with the back cover of Motor Booty Affair in order to map out my mystory more completely.
