The Depths of Nerdery

I want to talk about the word Nerdery. I love it, it does so much more than other words do, and better yet, it's a neologism. Some words are what you make of them (like a couple of my favorite things in life) and nerdery is certainly one of them.

Nerdery: (verb). to engage in activities deemed "nerdy" by the populace. Also to act in the manner of one who would be called a Nerd.

Nerdery: (noun). as in, "the nerdery". A place in which nerdy activities--usually those involving mathematics, literary, historical, and philosophical theoretical discussions, and the repeated neccessity to either a)continuously define and redefine words or b)roll a 20+ sided die to determine hit points--take place. Typically found within places called laboratories, libraries, your mom's basement, record stores.

Why do I talk about nerdery? Isn't it obvious. I love my nerdery. I love being in a nerdery. However, several things that have come to mind over the course of the past week that prompted me to attempt to post about how much of a nerd I am and about why. Now, of course there is the age old difference between geeks and nerds which is constantly up for debate in these, our postmodern times. However, I am certainly not an expert in this field and so I would commend to all interested parties the excellent analysis that John Hodgeman provides concerning this matter.

What prompted this inquiry is actually the limits of words. I've been toying around with writing some fiction and found that I was getting frustrated with the limitations of the english language. Specifically, I'm frustrated that we really only have one good word for feet. Feet. Sure you can say hoof, or trotters, but when you're not going for the whole "man is a beast" angle, it's really frustrating. We have all of these words that we use for other body parts (i.e. mouth: jaws, chompers, mandibles, etc.) and we've imported a great assortment of words from other languages to talk about something like ghosts. Ghost, spook (not in the Phillip Roth sense), spectre, poltergeist, spirit, etc. So many words for an etheral being and yet when it comes to our own feet, we've only got one good word. Tis a shame.
(courtesy of Marvel Comics website)


So there is the word nerdery but there is certainly more. If it's just a word that I'm complaining about then just call me Wendell Berry and point me to the farm. Let me tell you about the nerdery that I miss most up here in Boston. It is the kind of nerdery that was ever-present in Greenville and the kind that I've found myself subjecting my friends to because, well, I can't help myself sometimes. I'm talking about the kind of nerdery known as gear nerdery. I first realized that this was a unique kind of nerdiness for me to exhibit up here when I found myself combing the recently added gear page on Musicians' Friend on a whim. A frequent whim actually. It's the kind of nerdiness that sees a friend's question about fuzz pedals as a reason to start researching the different kinds of transistors that go into making a good fuzz sound (SF363 transistors for the original Arbiter Fuzz Face which are, with a few exceptions--namely the London Fuzz that Bender and I discovered--still the cream of the crop of fuzzes in my opinion) . Granted, there are guys who like gear and then there are gear nerds. I like to think of myself as somewhere in the middle but then two things happened. First, I was listening to Michael Jackson songs in my friend Jon's apartment and I then turned to my friend Emily, who was on the couch with me, and proceeded to talk for a good 15 minutes or more about compression debates between sound engineers. And then proceeded to theorize about the connections between the R&B guitar sound which uses a compressor pedal and the commercial country music with which that particular guitar sound has become synonymous. But what really made me light up was when Emily looked at me confused and I went, "Oh, I'm sorry, you're probably wondering what compression is, in itself". She wasn't, but I show no mercy.


Earlier today, when I was off getting a strap for my Jag and contemplated getting straplocks, I had this conversation with myself. "You know, I've had both the Schaller and the Dunlop ones. The Dunlop's are definitely cheaper, but only by a couple of bucks, and besides, the Schaller's are quality and my other strap has them so they would be interchangeable even though the blue of the other strap is aesthetically displeasing with the red of the guitar. Anyway, what's really bugging me is that, it seems like the more adult thing to get the Schallers. They're just more mature by way of strap-locks than the dunlop and that's pretty much all there is to it."

Indeed. More adult. Gear nerdery strikes when it is least expected. But it is still, not the weirdest form of nerdery that I love passionately and more or less without shame. Perhaps I should love it but shamefully. I am speaking, of course, about my book fetish. I still refer to it as my greatest vice. I go to Brookline Booksmith about twice a week just to look at the books. They don't change the books they receive very often. But I go to be amongst friends. I go to be with Flannery and Marilynn, with Paul and Soren, with Rainer and Homer. I also go because I am eagerly awaiting the day when Marilynne Robinson's book "Home" comes out in paperback. And here's the kicker, I'll be disappointed if it comes out in paperback and it was published by Picador. Now, I am such a book nerd that I have a favorite publishing house (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux) and Picador is an imprint of said publishing house. But I'm still disappointed. Can't really tell you why. Maybe its because Flannery O'Connor's stuff is FSG, and The Metaphysical Club too. These are books I love. I wish FSG published philosophy texts, for obvious reasons.

But I love being in the nerdery of Brookline Booksmith and Mr. Music and Cafe Fixe/Athan's. I love engaging in nerdery like discussing the limitations of dream-logic (i.e. what the correct cheat codes would be when you have to battle an army of vampires in your dream and all you have to defend yourself is a NES controller). Plumbing the depths of nerdery is nothing but rewarding. And it's all around us. Two of my favorite bloggers, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Bill Simmons are both huge nerds but in different fields that are not typical nerderies. And yet there they are, doing it right.