Meeting Folks And Learning Things Through Blogging - Do You Know What Psychogeography Is?

In most cases, notes from blog visitors is a good thing.  In other cases, well, it's still interesting.  

I've had several people contact me regarding the blog in the last week or so.  

John Hussey, of Liverpool, read my post on Hitler's 1942 visit to Paris and wanted to share his post on the same topic.  Mine was based a passage from on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt:  The Home Front in World War II and the account of that day by Albert Speer.  I have a picture up of Speer and Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower.  Hussey's account comes from the third person in that picture - sculptor Arno Breker.  

I finally got around to adding a link to John's post at the bottom of my original post.  But lest you think I'm trying to force you to go back to my post, here's a link to John's post on Hitler's visit to Paris. 

I also got a post from someone saying they had a rolled up canvas painting and did I know anything about it.  There was a picture of the artist's signature.  The name sounded familiar so I searched my blog - assuming the writer had seen something  on the blog that made her think I might be able to help - and found the post with the painter's first name and last name.  I googled that and quickly found an obituary of someone with the same (unusual) last name as the writer that also included the full name of the artist.  I also found out where the artist works through a LinkenIn account.  

Those two are the kind of emails I enjoy getting.  

Then there are the ones that I categorize as 'interesting.'  I learn something about internet promotion.  

A guy named Brian said he liked my post on hiking Doi Suthep in Chiangmai, Thailand and asked if I would put up a link to his website on boots.  He specifically gave me a link to long distance hiking trails in the US, but it seems like the site is really about boots.  I'm guessing he might write reviews that get him either free boots or other consideration from bookmakers, but I don't know that.  I'd emailed back to him for clarification - if I link to your site, where are you going to link back to mine.  His response:

"Thanks for your reply. I think you were misunderstood my proposal.
I will not give you a link from my site because Google hate 2 ways link
But I will share your article to thousands of my social followers after you add my link to your article."

The original email was in good grammatical English, but my questions got him off script.  So not only did he want a link from me, but he also wanted to repost my original post on his site.  Or maybe on his FB page.  I decided not to follow up on this second email.   I do get lots of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) spam, usually in the form of comments which I try to delete immediately.  This one was a little more personalized.  

And here's another, less subtle, but still more personalized request:

Hi,
I was look at your blog recently and noticed this article: whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2012/06/packaging-good-bad-ugly-tofu-bagels.html 
I noticed it's now a little outdated and thought it might be worth updating for your readers and consumers.
I just wondered if you'd consider a newer up to date article from ourselves - Direct Packaging Solutions - I'm happy to update the article and work to make it better for your readers as well as making sure everything is up to date and relevant. I'd also be open to working on anything you might have in the works yourself, that perhaps you feel would be better written from a expert point of view; We've been in the packaging industry for just over 15 years.
Let me know.
Thanks. 

Obviously another SEO guy who googles for things on packaging and then sends emails like this.  Again, more personalized and sophisticated than the spam comments with links to their sites, but still an attempt to get more hits for his client's website.  

But what about Psychogeography, your ask?

A followup email from John Hussey caused me to look up a book called Paris: the Secret History, and I found this snippet on psychogeography in a review of the book.

"The Situationists practised what they called "psychogeography", described by Debord as "the study of specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals". Hussey makes it sound far more exciting. ''Psychogeography' was a game, or series of games," he explains, "in which the participants set out to create an atmosphere that had the power to disrupt the routine and functions of everyday life. Drink, drugs, music, boredom, despair, fear and awe all had a role to play.'"

While I didn't have that word - psychogeography - like many Alaskans, I have been very aware of the impact of our geography on our emotions and behavior.  In geographically extreme areas, it's much more pronounced.  But the geography of cities also have their impacts on the people living in them.