Dracula and Louisville Sluggers: Making Connections in a Chaotic World (By way of James Burke's K-Web)

The theme of this post is connections, the way in which things interact and make up our universe. The universe is, after all, a huge and massive topic to tackle. And what is intelligence if not the ability to make connections? Random trivia, the type of stuff that Ken Jennings is so adept at, can get you only so far. Facts, by themselves, mean nothing: the trick is to be able to take these facts and form a complete and coherent picture of something bigger. The way in which the facts combine can show how everything in the world is connected, and it is at times when this becomes apparent that you can truly appreciate the depth and brevity of the world we live in. This is something which British historian James Burke has been keenly aware of for many years now, and, through his televison shows Connections and The Day the Universe Changed, has tried to make clear to the rest of the world. Two things, seemingly nonrelated, can each be essential to the other. A development in one area hundreds of years before can cause events to happen hundreds of years down the line. In one way, this is the study of history at its most basic. Things may not always progress or get more advanced, but things always build on what came before, even if the buildings sometimes tumble. Dracula, immortalized by Bela Lugosi in Universal's 1931 classic on the one hand, and the louisville slugger, that sturdy baseball bat that made major league history, on the other. A connection between the mythos of modern vampires and the popular American sport of baseball can't surely exist, and yet between these two things, which on the surface seem to be at complete opposite ends of the spectrum, a vital connection exists. The louisville slugger was, in fact, made in 1884 for professional baseball player Pete "The Old Gladiator" Browning, uncle of Tod Browning, director of the 1931 horror film classic Dracula. Just imagine, in one corner, pale faced goth punks listening to obscure heavy metal rock bands singing about vampire lust and, across the room, beer bellied middle aged men with baseball caps taking bets on the night's baseball defeats and losses. Between these two groups, a connection exists, and neither is aware of it. It is a small world after all, but is it one that can be analyzed and graphed, with the connections filled it? This is what Mr. Burke is attempting to do with his new internet project, the K-Web or Knowledge Web. The projected plan calls for a large, global like map, filled with encyclopedias full of information and browsable not alphabetically or by subject but by...connections. Starting with baseball, you can find yourself staring next at a biography of Tod Browning. As xenophobic and as much as we would all like to stick within out tightly defined groups and clics, the world is large, and we've all got undiscovered connections to make. Click on the link to go to James Burke's K-Web . I highly recommend you read the section "The Vision" and watch the introductory film under the section entitled "The Project".