Classtegorification

Classtegorification is a tenant of collage. It is pivotal to classify things, categorize them and then, to cross-categorize them. It is through the surprising connections that come about in this cross categorization process that create the juxtapositions in collage that make it interesting and true to life. This is a fluid, and continuous process. It is like a surrealist math problem: the connection and juxtaposition can be completely impossible but will be essentially and crucially true if the justification is valid. Show your work, people! 

The tenant laid bare: Classtegorification, being a perpetual process, creates the necessary conditions for connections to be made that surprise and reveal glimpses of the absolute, spiritual truth. Through continual cross-classification, categorization and recategorization processes these surprising and insightful truths come about via juxtaposition. This is how the mind works, through associations it enlarges and enriches itself. Art is thus continuing in its long tradition of imitating life. 

It is the expressed goal of collage as literature to recreate the truths not as they are or as they appear, but as they manifest themselves in the human experience. All three of these are different and it would take too much time to explore them all properly. Through intensive, hyper-focused portrayals of the human experience the successful literary collage creates juxtaposing realities that are so true that they cannot not exist - thus, reflecting the essential fractured nature of alienation in this unprecedentedly connected age. Ha! How's that for arrogant?

I will never use the term, Classtegorification anywhere else or ever again. The common tongue is sufficient for my purposes. I will use classification and categorization interchangeably. It would be cleaner if I didn't; but, I am a realist. Just remember that within collage as literature, classifying, classification and classified, category, categorized and catogorizing are all the same tense. It is perpetual and constant. 

This story appears elsewhere. At the risk of going to the well one too many times I will endeavor to share it here in bare bones fashion. Whether or not I tear it out from this blogpost to put into some other form of writing is my right. It does not diminish its value; it only proves my aesthetic idea. That's a bit of a logical error, but I will show my work throughout to give it the necessary grounding in truth. Besides, the story seems to have had a fundamental impact on my life, creating and fostering an obsessive need to classify and sort the collected things in my life. This in turn has become a foundational piece of the type of literature I'm trying to write. Ha! How's that for arrogant?

The year, 1988. The place, Friendly's Restaurant & Ice Cream. Crofton, MD. Given that I haven't lived in Maryland for a quarter of a century I wanted to check that I spelled, "Crofton" correctly. I did. In the process of unnecessarily spell-checking myself Google informed me that the Friendly's Restaurant & Ice Cream in Crofton, MD is permanently closed. The last Foursquare review (that should tell you something already) was from 2015. My heart is broken. Still I crave a Fishamajig Sandwich and a Banana Split. 

I received my first baseball cards with a kid's meal at the now closed Friendly's in Crofton, MD. My God! Is Red, Hot and Blue in Laurel still open? Thank God! It is. I live 1,287 miles from this restaurant. Why do I feel such a relief? Baseball cards were my everything for a few years. From 1987 (the cards I got in 1988 were 1987 Topps) to 1994 Series One, I couldn't get enough of them. Quantity over quality at times, verging on the insane. I would sort them all by team. Then, I would sort them all by last name. Then, I would put them back into teams, but by name. Then, I would keep them sorted by team, but then subsort them by year. Every categorization was glorious to me. The act of classification was fulfilling, enriching and enlarging. I found connections I wouldn't have ever known. There were an astonishing number of baseball players born in 1961 when I was in the middle of my collecting. 

I have stopped collecting baseball cards. The first time because of the strike. I switched to basketball cards for a bit. It helped that Joe Smith had just been drafted number one overall out of Maryland. Then, I outgrew them. They stopped being important. The obsessive categorization and recategorization, the perpetual classification continued to this day. I have a vinyl collection - occasionally quantity over quality, but I'm working on that. It keeps me sane. Without it, this perpetual habit would invade all kinds of inconvenient areas in my life. It is safe with the records and will keep me occupied when I have nothing to write about.