Culture = Culture

When I was in the ninth grade, two buddies and I ran into our geometry teacher in the clubhouse of our local golf course one weekend, making him the fourth in our group quite by accident. He only played nine but his strategy was clear from the first tee: to distract from our budding games by appealing to our budding manhood, namely by quizzing us about our girlfriends.

I don't actually recall if we even had girlfriends but it was just as annoying by the third hole anyway. None of us had the nerve yet to remind him that it was the knocking up of his high school girlfriend that ultimately led to his teaching certificate and resulting authority over us, so we just put up with it-- until Monday morning.

When the second period bell rang, we began quizzing him on two subjects: any advice he could give us about golf and his fervent interest in the romantic lives of high school girls. Given the untoward nature of the latter, the former became our primary means of communication for the remainder of the year.

Angles became club choice discussions. Bisection was a way to read greens. You could just barely see the golf course from the classroom window, and only when the leaves were down and the train was moved, but it was enough to create a gathering spot away from the chalkboard, thus keeping us from at least a few proofs a week for a few weeks at a time.

Practical experience rather than purposeful teaching carved the transitive property into my consciousness. Avoidance of sex = Golf = Avoidance of geometry. Therefore Avoidance of sex = Avoidance of geometry. Anything else I knew about geometry at the time came from private self-study, which is another parallel with sex and my fourteen-year-old self that you should probably avoid yourself.

So when I ran across this this statement from Hugh McLeod at Gaping Void - Culture = Business = Marketing = Language = Communication = Art = Sex = Culture... - I couldn't help but find it somewhat semiotic, poetic, and strangely nostalgic, all of which leads to a question any self-interested teenage boy would ask:

Where does one go in New Albany to get laid?

And, of course, any revitalization-interested but very married 37-year-old man would ask:

What does the answer to that question mean in terms of attracting certain market segments?

If the chances for mating ritual are thin, what sort of young virile person would want to come here? If nobody's getting any, why would an older available person stay?

Do we have any bona fide pickup joints? Do we need one?

Discuss if you wish. I'm going to find my geometry book.