Something
Emporium

The other day I was about to do a post where I'd go:

1. Labyrinth (1986)
2. David Bowie
3. Space Oddity
4. Moon Landings
5. "fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace"

But then, I considered:

1. Labyrinth (1986)
2. David Bowie
3. Iggy Pop
4. Coffee and Cigarettes (1986)

Then:

1. Space Oddity
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3. Richard Wagner
4. Der Ring des Nibelungen
5. MusicBrainz

Or perhaps:

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2. Lux Aeterna
3. ~ Kronos Quartet
4. The Fountain (2006)

And from there the whole exercise got crazy. I mean, by that stage I was covering things from bad contact juggling, to the Venture Brothers and Adult Swim, to Arthur C. Clarke and his relationship to Kubrick. Going backward there was Frank Oz and Henson.

It's not really the discussion of each that's the interesting bit - I only had a few sentences, perhaps a link to more detail for each. It's actually the way they all tie together that I found interesting. So, what I wanted to do was arrange all these ideas in something similar to one of those mind maps we were told to do in those damn study skills evenings. A sprawl of related ideas. Maybe one picture, one link and two sentences for each.

It's fine arranging these in little serial lines, but consider the fact that it's a small jump from the Moon Disaster scenario to Apollo 13. From there, it's a small jump to Apollo 13 (1995). And, holy crap, we've reached Kevin Bacon and goddamn if we aren't at the centre of a huge star of interesting places to go.

And then I thought, why the hell can't I do this? Where is the tool that lets me do this easily, and share it easily. Fuck, where is the tool that lets me tie my map of, say, "1986" directly into somebody else's? Of course, that adds a third dimension, really. It's becoming more of a mind meld than a mind map, see?

Do I have to build this myself, or is there someone doing it already?