You could say that writing about such nuances is not very important in the scope of things — y’know, bolting clouds to street signs or paying bands to perform in your beer-can-littered firetrap of a basement isn’t stopping Greenland from melting. But there’s an opportunity here to work through things like, say, mortality. Take MySpace: specifically, how people who’d lost loved ones used their still-extant MySpace profiles to mourn their deaths. Or exploring what a vague concept like anarchy looks like when a group of anti-authoritarians calling themselves the Bl(A)ck Tea Society gathered in 2004 to facilitate protests against the Democratic National Convention. Answer: a crapload of organization.

Sometimes I think it’s important to delineate worlds most people don’t realize exist — and if they do, they’re surprised anyone has else has noticed. Like the Glass Slipper, Boston’s oldest strip club, where each performer historically sanitizes the stripper’s pole right before she starts her nudie routine. Or Second Life , a now-exploding virtual 3-D environment where fake people make real money by selling fake objects. Or a proud asshole’s baby:  Lollipop magazine, a feisty little rock rag that’s managed to survive more than a decade despite the fact that its bitter, gutter-mouthed, proudly smelly editor-publisher has made a point of pissing off everybody he’s ever met. Or Blaine the School, an urban cosmetology training camp formerly in Kenmore Square where many of the sassy students would’ve rather pulled each others’ weaves out than braided them back in.

I like to think about throwing a huge party and putting everyone I’ve ever written about on the guest list. I imagine the anarchists debating unions with the manager of the Glass Slipper. The Assman trying to slap one of his stickers on the Jesus Guy’s sandwich board. The cosmetology-school girls screaming at each other and playing Guitar Hero in Second Life. Darkclouds stickering the fridge. The ex-con sneakerhead trying to get some play from Boston’s first SuicideGirl. The Best Thing Ever covering “Big Poppa” in the bathtub. Perhaps that’s how I know when I’ve found somebody worth writing about: I immediately want them there.

If this party ever happens, I can’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be a fight. But the Flickr party pix would be awesome.

Camille Dodero is a staff writer at the Boston Phoenix.

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