Danah and I have these conversations all the time where we discover we're almost the same person. Like circulating petitions and starting demonstrations with other students -- in sixth grade -- to get our teachers fired. Or we discover we're 100% equally matched at Set (and fantastic must-have game for all of you out there whose brains like shapes and spaces.) Or working at Yahoo, for that matter.

She said on her blog someone asked her if she had a billion dollars what would she build. So she said she'd build a university. Me too! I've always wanted to build a university. I kind of envision a sort of college for regularly people, old, young -- non-student-age students. The people excluded from Facebook.

College -- boarding school for that matter -- was for me the perfect place. You fell in love five times a day, and made your brain do unexpected things. Sleeping late was assumed, not exceptional. People invited me to orgies, but my inner Puritan said I'm sorry, we'll stick to hand-holding and the erotics of self-denial. Everyone was the same age, but I think that was a flaw. One of the best things about Smith where I was for a year is that there were the Comstock scholars -- women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s (maybe even 70s?) who were going to college for the first time. They lived in the dorms with all the rest of the students, and while the rest of us were discovering keg parties, they were casually busy being the most interesting people there.

So my university would be a kind of salon, except with less backstabbing, professional jealousy and periodicals. Or like Foo Camp, all year round. Of all the places I've worked since college, Interval Research was most like that. I was only there a short while before it shut down, but it was a bit sad that nothing from Interval ever made it out in the world; I cringed for Laurie Anderson at her Moby Dick show using that embarrassing Interval-designed music stick. Ack! And remember those people who could never graduate from college, who had like 5 BAs or were taking 15 years to finish their first? Dating freshmen? Eek. Professional dilettantes make me insane. Cafeteria food, add/drop period, sadistic administration officials, tiresome know-it-alls.... Maybe this is a bad idea.

LINK | 1:12 AM | TB

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