Mr. Plimpton's Revenge - Second Blog

"Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge" is a Google Maps essay that is very enticing for a first time reader. At the time, the author was an undergraduate writing major at the University of Pittsburgh Oakland who lived the typical college life. This meaning that he had a shitty car, was tight on cash, and mixed drugs with more drugs without any concern for the repercussions they would cause the next day. The author was given the task to pick up a big shot of a man when it came to the world of journalism. To the readers surprise, the undergrad was able to pick up the esteemed writer, Mr. Plimpton, from the airport after a long night of mixing drugs, which was the norm. He was thoroughly embarrassed with how much he babbled to Mr. Plimpton, but even more so when he was not able to treat his guest to Chinese food on Forbes Avenue. This was because he had used his last five dollars to put gas in his tank. The story takes a few unexpected twists when the two men run into each other throughout the years in different cities such as Harrisburg and on the streets of New York City. The author considers himself Mr. Plimpton’s stalker because they continued to ironically run into each other in the strangest places. 

This piece changes how a traditional story can be read. Not only is it telling a story of misfortunate and embarrassingly awkward encounters with Mr. Plimpton, but now we can physically navigate to where the strange encounters took place. The reader can physically view exactly where the author was standing when he yelled across the street at Mr. Plimpton. This viewing experience adds another dimension of understanding to the story. We can see how unlikely it was that the author and Mr. Plimpton just so happen to be at the same place at the same time at several different locations, all of which are not particularly close in relation nor connected to similar events. The layout of the piece also works as a metaphor for time, as the directions of the piece progress, so does the time in which the event happened. The viewer can get a sense that the layout of the piece was used to show how different occurances in our life act as a set of directions of where we end up next. This is a set of directions in which unexpectedly lead the author to Mr. Plimpton.The viewer cannot just click from direction to direction out of order and still understand the story, it must be viewed the same way a person would view real directions or that person will just end up lost and confused. Using Google Maps as a platform for composing a story is a very clever way to utilize an existing technology and twist it's purpose into a completely new thing.