fuzzy on safari
bad browser...
I made a GIF out of it so people in the Apple environment can see what it looks like. Here's the original...
This is a tribute to jimpunk, who bailed out of the empyre email list after a week. Maybe he got tired of all the potshots at blogs ("I blog therefore I am," "constant referral to self," "look at me mummy").
outrageous quotes! thats so paleo. good for jimpunk.
I think Linkoln may be gone too. I was waiting for someone to respond to my first post, where I talked about blogs as a new net art. I was being polite and didn't say, "blogs as the new net art," which I think they are, or at least are an ideal disseminator for it. The empyre posters emailers keep talking about self, they're very hung up on that. I felt like I was back in fifth grade and being asked "are you conceited?" when someone saw me drawing a self portrait.
Here's the image saved as a PNG, just checking to see how the three compare:
I think the PNG is truer, so I substituted it for the GIF, which is now here:
I'm still a little nervous about PNGs 'cause I'm not sure how universal they are. Even a fuzzy graphic is better than a little red x.
posted from screenfull.net/stadium/2005/06/c0ents.html
The png/gif difference looks like a gamut thing.
Nice work. I like the Napolean.
So June is a short month! What was that at empyre? Eggshells?
anyway I'll put my two cents here. I'm sorry i can't be bothered with that list:
I think the whole idea of location is a bit skewed (here). These blogs make no claim to de-invest location instead seem to be build up from them (two mailers to the list pointed this clear whether consciously demonstrating it or not). Jim Punk I doubt would look the same coming out of Orlando. Chris Ashley might look different if his web log was uploaded from the middle of the east coast mayhem each and every time. I think web-logs draw attention to not only the author but to the authors' location. Then this way both author and location can be transported through the internet 'ether' pretty much intact so someone/anyone who has access the the internet can poke into, enjoy, or click on once in a lifetime. This way a web-log shares properties with, something akin to, an atom. It's self-sufficient but has the ability to attract and repulse[[and that it, too, has neutrinos. It may not be the academic way to do things, but it might be the personal and the empowering---to quote greg.org rough shoddily "It's all about me everything is".
Anon wrote:
" I think web-logs draw attention to not only the author but to the authors' location."
Can you say more about how you think a weblog author's actual geographical location (and thus, I'd think, nationality, race, marital status, bank balance, etc.) makes its way into the weblog?
It's as much information as the author wants to give--and the reader needs by way of grounding. You know I'm in NY because there's pictures of big buildings and stuff (and everything's so cool). For all I know jimpunk is in Orlando--he tells us very little about where he is, but I don't really care, cause he delivers the goods.
I know I invited some metablogging-type speculation on the list, but I'm really more interested in people's work. And the sidebar discussions among the four panelists ("Are they attacking blogs?" "I think so." "What is this, 2000?") are definitely keepers. I made that dialogue up but that's what was running through my head upon realizing we were at Square One.
And if anyone from the list ventured over here into evil blogland, I don't mean to be disrespectful. I haven't officially stopped posting to the list, but I wish the moderators had kept the tone at the level of "maybe, just maybe this is already an established deal and not some newfangled dadburn consarned thing where people just talk about themselves all the damn time and therefore we should keep a lid on these 'look at me mummy' trolls on the list because they're embarrassing the shit out of all of us."
I may delete this in the AM, but I need to vent.
Nah, don't delete it in the morning.
As you say, "but I'm really more interested in people's work." I don't really care about some of the larger theoretical questions- well, yeah, sure, I do, in the long run, but the way to get there is to talk about the work, what individuals are doing with the tools, not to jump to meaning without having paid attention to what the individuals are doing. Isn't that why we were (are?) linking to our weblogs from empyre?
I want to hear my fellow panelists talk about their work, but for all I know jimpunk doesn't even speak English. Or Abe and jimpunk are the same person- a woman, mother of three kids, who stuffs envelopes for a living, in Orlando, with broadband, and stays up really late, smoking American Spirits, with the TV on all the time, mucking up Quicktime files. Her kids are always late to school. Never leaves the house. Only shops at the convenience store. Only uses bit torrented bootleg software. On and on.
Frankly, I still don't know what Anonymous was saying about how the author's location makes it into the weblog. It's not like I'm writing about the Governator, and hippies, and recycling, and gay marriage, and surfing, and crumbling highway infrastructures, and failing schools, and Hollywood gossip, and mountain biking, and... can you guess which state I'm from?
sure !
surely.
empyre is usually boring with a bunch of academics wanking off on whatever floats their ivory tower boat....
but at the same time.......you guys didn't post your thoughts in the list.......it is read by people all over the world.........you made links to your blogs..........that was like being there and not............I have to admit (and I have 2 blogs) it got really annoying..........like a diss...........or a duck....................
Hmmm... I posted this twice to the list (once to correct some formatting) and got no response. (Unless you count the disses of blogging, or ruminations about "the self".) Maybe it's boring, but it is "posting my thoughts on the list": Hi, thanks for inviting me to post to this list. For those of you in Australia,
I am not the retired cricket player turned coach--but I have learned a bit
about him since we share each other's google hits.
Linkoln has posted already on the topic of whether blogging is a (mere)
artist's journal or an (ideal) vehicle for online improvisation. For him and jimpunk
it is certainly the latter. I have written about how their work differs from
traditional "net art" practice and would like to put that series of posts
before the group.
The instigating event was a wishy washy New York Times article declaring
that Net Art was dead, except to the extent it wasn't. My series of posts in
response is here:
http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/comment/26709/
http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/?26735
http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/comment/26771/
http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/?26806
The following excerpted paragraph addresses Linkoln's and jimpunk's
practice:
"There has been a sea change that the [Times] writer completely missed--an
influx of artists redefining the medium, not so much through
browser-dismantling code a la Jodi.org, but testing the limits of how much a
window can hold, like turning an amplifier up to 11. These largely basement
producers handle Net graphics in a painterly or expressionistic way, cocking a
half-appreciative, half-horrified eye on all the weird content out there on the Internet.
The phenomenon isn't about marketing (yet) but rather thrives within the Net's
potlatch or "gift economy" of upload exchange. Artists put up simple
animations made with .GIFs or Flash, with sound or without, as well as appropriate,
resize and mutate found .GIFs and jpegs, attacking visual phenomena the way a
junglist attacks sound (to make an electronic music analogy). Rebellious defacement
and smartass humor trump the tedious academic-cum-Sol LeWittoid pallette of
earlier net practice. In the Times thread [
http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/comment/26709/ ]
Sally [McKay] sums up the first generation of self-defined Net Art as 'long-loading,
find-the-place-to-click-me narratives packed with theoretically correct
reference to the body or lack thereof.'" [I then go on to discuss the more
immediate browser to browser model that I think SCREENFULL and its precessor
WebTV represent]
These issues also relate to my work, but SCREENFULL and Chris Ashley have
been out front from the beginning about the blog as a means of pure content
delivery, perhaps the vanguard of a "new net art." (And yes I value art for art's
sake as a subversive or problematizing force over overt, self-declared political
work, although my blog is strongly political.)
I started my weblog to document my studio practice but increasingly look to
it to deliver the goods themselves. I am doing more animation and music these
days and find they are well suited to the blog environment.
Anon wrote, "you guys didn't post your thoughts in the list.......it is read by people all over the world.........you made links to your blogs"
Hey Anonymous, who are you, anyway?
Actually, that's not true; not to take anything from my fellow panelists, but it's particularly untrue in my case. We didn't all four join this with any common goals in mind, as far as I'm aware.
We all made opening statements of some type; mine was long, used real words, asked questions. Yes, because our weblog work is ongoing and essential to understanding what we do we linked to our own places.
But that has not been the extent of my participation. I haven't merely linked to my weblog. I've posted comments to the list and I've made drawings in response to the list- which is what I do, make drawings- but the list won't accept HTML.
One lister posted the modified HTML from one of my drawings to the list and the post was rejected by a moderator. So if someone wants to see my work-- which is as important (and actually more important) as the fact that it takes place in a weblog- then they have to go to the weblog.
I'm thinking I probably don't want to spend any more of my time discussing this experience. Talk about an annoying.
... sorry... just, for once, felt the questions chris posed we're interesting and was compelled to respond. did not realise this was some kind of club.
(managed not to say I... shit!)
What club?
Anyway, there's the catch... You go out of your way not to use the first person on your blog. You take an interest in other artists' work and try to promote it objectively. You are invited to talk about your work and the first time you say "I" people start talking about how self-centered your medium is. It reminds one of the Monty Python sketch:
"Tell us about your latest film, Sir Edward. I'm sorry I called you Eddy baby."
"In my latest film..."
"Ah, shaddup."
I'm confused- Rich, are you Anon.
I'm not out of empyre yet- there are things I want to respond to.
Also wanted to clarify- Tom's participation on the empyre list wasn't all about linking to himself, either.
I feel like I'm passing notes in class.
Or IM-ing.
Just copied this off the eyebeam reBlog; it's from a website about corporate branding strategies: As a publishing phenomenon, blogs may strike some observers as reminiscent of a development first observed in the early 60s, when niche magazines began to supplant mass-circulation titles like Life and the Saturday Evening Post. But bloggers are not simply imitating the successful marketing strategies of yesterdays editors. Rather, their work is indicative of a sea change in American culture, one that has been accelerated in recent years by the web-based information technologies and new media that are now an integral part of the lives of most middle-class Americans.
The simplest description of this change is also the starkest one: the common culture of widely shared values and knowledge that once helped to unite Americans of all creeds, colors, and classes no longer exists. In its place, we now have a balkanized group of subcultures whose members pursue their separate, unshared interests in an unprecedented variety of ways. Maybe we're butting up against some of this balkanization (on a global scale) in the blogs vs lists dynamic that quickly took shape at empyre...
this is mor innerestin'
Here's a joke!
What's the area of a redundant circle?
I don't know, anon., what is the area of a redundant circle?
there are several of us that are listed as anon..........
I am also a blogger and have posted many times on empyre//
the problem is that the dialogue didn't get any spark ..........I was a guest on empyre myself in the past......and it was a start stop affair..................I found my self posting stuff to get people talking....sometimes it worked.....sometimes it didn't.......
the emphasis on links to blogs didn't allow anything really to fully challenge the non-guests..............and then folks tuned out.......
empyre also is mostly academics.........who love to find a thread so they can go off on their pet tangents..........
so it appears to be a lose lose deal............
"I found my self posting stuff to get people talking"
That sounds like a dead group. Chris is working away over there right now trying to generate some heat. They're still just sitting there, or throwing insults at him, like:
apart from your obvious tablecodingart skills, which you have developed
and seem to be endlessly satisfied with this development, what technical
skills does a person need to get involved in the blog art world? Even allowing for some language difficulties, "you seem to be endlessly satisfied with your own skills" is a dig, right?
a little bit.
A couple of emails to the empyre list from jonCates lament the "estranged/strained" tone between the empyre thread and this one. He says my smartass email inviting empyre-rs to post here ("it's easy and fun!") "implied a critique of or an opposition to empyre." The blogs vs lists dynamic took shape before the discussion even began, when I asked one of the moderators what were the advantages of using emails to post messages as opposed to just uploading them directly to a central node. It wasn't a critique but a question, and I now think--heck yes this is easier, more direct, more fun, and your mailbox doesn't fill up with redundant emails. (It would be nice to sort posts by date and author, though.) But immediately after the panel started questions came up about blogs, that clearly set them in opposition to lists. As for "my" "opposition to empyre" jC doesn't allow there was anything particularly rancorous, cold, unengaged, or dismissive about the list's response to the panelists' first posts, rather, he's accusing the panelists of being rude invited guests. And to top it off, he's critiquing my RSS feed! (I assume that's what he means when he mentions SCREENFULL's "which btw, has a better snd trax.")
Yes, a little bit. It's a little bit of a dig.
The mime thing is about the most interesting aspect of the topic that has come up so far, though it was lavishly overtyped. The ex mic-rosoft guy has a good book on it perhaps worth a look.
The way I read greg.org's "everything is" is rather clever. It suggests that while everything is, as in the inclusive and exclusive, what greg.org 'is' is a conduit for the development of a wider expression of the self by way of managing the exclusive and the inclusive as mutable. So the idea of a weblog as self-serving/centering on; a human, grounded in location, production, is not such a bad thing either, after-all when all said and done communicating is an extension of self that reshapes the self.
hi tom
i haven't been lamenting. i have been attempting to converse on empyre about what is going on w/the discussions. i'm not mournful about the striking harmonics [+/or] discordant differences in tone but i do find these oppositions odd. why not try to address empyre (in whatever form is the most fitting from your perspective) on empyre rather than offList?
i'm not being sarcastic, i'm being serious.
// jonCates
tom
what makes the web-based blog interface more fun for you? i don't understand how this interface is necessarily easier, or more direct...
// jonCates
i understand how it's faster, but is that the key?
RE: "And to top it off, he's critiquing my RSS feed! (I assume that's what he means when he mentions SCREENFULL's "which btw, has a better snd trax.")"
i stated a personal pref for the web-based SCREENFULL's port of this thread in relation to the other embedded media, i.e. audio + video. it's a small point perhaps, but important in terms of SCREENFULL as a project that samples from various sources + re:presents these sources as staggered, simultaneous + overlapping. the experience of SCREENFULL in the web-browser differs from the experience of SCREENFULL in a feedreader as well as differing from this blog in a web-browser or in a feedreader.
the statement is not a critique of your personal RSS feed, but a statement of personal pref about sum of the elements of the interfaces.
// jonCates
OK. As for your question about why I like this format better than emails:
Speed, for sure--threads here on the Tree can be as immediate as chatrooms sometimes--and fun (see the ridiculously huge--for us--Christo thread) and I don't have a recordkeeping headache in the form of 100 emails I have to decide whether to keep or delete. I'm finding not all the empyre emails in my inbox made it into the archive, and the panelists had some interesting sidebar conversation, so I have to slog through that before deleting the empyre stuff I know was archived.
Plus if things get too weird I can post a heartwarming picture of a baby-saving dog.
Seriously, though, being able to post pictures and sound when you're talking about pictures and sound is an amazing thing, almost as incredible as that victrola thing I hear they have that stores music and allows you to play it back whenever you want to hear it. I'm being sarcastic, but I don't see how this is subject to debate. You invite artists to talk about their work, in a format everyone understands from the outset doesn't allow pictures or sound, then when the artists post links to same you say "Wah, you're not amusing me--I don't want to click links--I want you to justify your work in an arena where you can't completely explain yourself!"
Sure, we panelists knew what the ground rules were, but who would have anticipated comment on blogging artists linking to their respective pages like it was weird or something?
And yes, one has to have image-posting privileges to post on the Tree, but if you gave me a URL I'd upload the image and post it so we could talk about it right here on the page.
no chris, i'm not Anon. there might be several of them posting here! i thought it best not to post anonymously as that would be a bit chicken of me (there are times when anon works, but thought this required identification).
tom, i was just trying to add a little levity in what was feeling like quite a tense situation. i guess we just have to find the balance between using our own and other peoples works as examples of what we are tying to say.
i prefere to see this more like the argument sketch:
'what do you want?'
'well i was told outside...'
'don't give me that you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!'
'what?'
'shut your festering gob you tit! your type really makes me puke! you vacuous toffee-nosed malodorous pervert!!'
'look! i came here for an argument.'
'oh! i'm sorry, this is abuse.'
'oh i see, that explains it.'
'no, you want room 12a next door.'
'i see - sorry.'
'not at all...... stupid git.'
i've been on the empyre list for a long time, and in fact never quite felt myself able to step over the invisible line and post to the list. while at times i find it informative and it has made me think about some interesting things, i also find it incredibly alienating for some reason, so instead i make my first 'empyre' comment in here. i guess that's something too. tom i am really enjoying your visual-blog posts.. just find them very serene and i am quite fond of the projects of the invited guests of this month's empyre, but it seems the guests are gone.
i just slogged through the whole "we-blog" empyre list read. way to squander a nice opportunity empyre list members. was that a list group or an oil painting? old concerns of authorship/ownership and commodity in art!? these issues have been well hashed out by warhol and lewitt in the 60's and again by koons, levine and prince et all in the 80's. im lost to the relevance of location in art blogging. linkoln, jim punk and the others really dont need to be dragged back down into those tired out non-issues. the list seems to desire calling tunes for dancing monkeys. perhaps they shouldnt bore the guest panelists with their mundane concerns and format defence damage. on the whole, they just dont appear well informed in art or the ways of the internet.
tom
RE: "Sure, we panelists knew what the ground rules were, but who would have anticipated comment on blogging artists linking to their respective pages like it was weird or something?"
i thin maybe it's important to be specific here. so you are referring to Melinda Rackham's post:
From: melinda AT subtle.net
Subject: [-empyre-] point of reference
Date: June 3, 2005 7:21:08 PM CDT
when you write "who would have anticipated comment on blogging artists linking to their respective pages like it was weird or something?"? is that correct? i don't thin Rackham's 2005.01.03 post is a dis or a dig @ all. but i do thin that you are being very defensive when it comes to the empyre discussion. ppl are going to post all sorts of stuff, ranging from what you will determine is relevant to irrelevant, supportive to dismissive, engaging to detached. ppl are going to post opinions + positions + that is the entire point of having a lively discussion. why wouldn't you want everyOne to engage + contribute in whatever ways they feel are the most appropriate to the conversation?
i thin Rackham's 2005.01.03 post is observational + factual ++ has a kind of request for focus embedded in it that is completely appropriate for her as an admin of the list where the discussion is supposed to be happening. i can say, from my experience as a guest on empyre, that the admins work tirelessly to facilitate the conversations + to encourage lively discussion. i seriously don't understand why you would begin w/the assumption that you (as a guest) are in opposition to the admins or the list members who have posted so far. like i wrote in reply to Chris Ashley in my 2005.01.08 post "Subject: [-empyre-] clarifying: a reply..." the "us vs. them" binary is almost totally nonfunctional + very destructive. why would you want to mobilize that position? or more importantly, why assume an oppositional position from the beginning?
which makes me wonder, as does Mathieu O'Neil in his post:
From: oneil AT homemail.com.au
Subject: Re: G0|\|3 was Re: [-empyre-] F:reW4LL
Date: June 9, 2005 12:12:45 AM CDT
if you personally are opposed to the {mechanics|culture} of lists in general or empyre in specific why join as a guest in the 1rst place?
tulpje, thanks a lot. I'm sorry things aren't going better with the list this month.
jonCates and Mathieu, asking why the panelists agreed to do the list if they were so opposed to lists has a prosecutorial "when did you stop beating your wife" ring to it. I wish you'd listen cause we've been tryin' to 'splain over here what went wrong.
jonCates, it isn't just Melinda who noted the practice of the panelists linking to their pages--why, right here on this very thread there is a comment that reads but at the same time.......you guys didn't post your thoughts in the list.......it is read by people all over the world.........you made links to your blogs..........that was like being there and not............I have to admit (and I have 2 blogs) it got really annoying..........like a diss...........or a duck....................
Mathieu mentions it again today, and there were others, please don't make me hunt for them. As for Melinda's comment, I disagree that her phrase "constant referral to self" is observational and factual, it sounds like a dig (possibly an unconsciously hostile choice of words? And where is Melinda, by the way--some moderator, disappearing when her list starts to fall apart--why do you defend her so avidly?)
Just to clarify a comment of bill's "what is this, an audience or an oil painting?" is a line from comedian Henny Youngman, who probably saw a few oil paintings in the Catskills in his day. Mathieu describes the silent treatment the list gave the last invited speaker for being "supercilious"--a good moderator would have found a diplomatic way to keep the list conversation active and fair, and in the case of the unfortunate June list, kept the talented jimpunk and Linkoln in the fold. Just a stroke or two would have done it, some critical feedback about the work they were trying to show you...
bill
my concerns were not with 'authorship/ownership and commodity in art.' they were with the perception of value - and i don't just mean capital value. i was interested to know how the guests felt about this issue. yes, authorship/ownership is an aspect of this and yes, this has been covered lots. but answered? do you know the answer bill? illuminate us.
some people just cant accept a gift gracefully. still looking for the catch?
Rich--quite a bit has been written about the gift or potlatch economy of the Net. I mentioned it in my first post on empyre.
there's always a catch
Sure. The work Chris Ashley generously gave you will be repo'd at the end of the month. After he gets it back, he will track you down and demand a deficiency payment. All because you let your guard down and clicked on his page.
I'll do what?
now that's how it should work!!!
seriously. ill bet you cant eat just one
Now look who's being elitist!
Bill I'm sure you are ably informed but perhaps you are talking an old history upon which 'things get played out '......... ' confluence' of course allows for many possible histories to unfold, but. .... you know that.
Humans are creative by nature. Just put a kid in an empty room and watch them go to town--they'll create imaginary objects out of nothing and turn whatever is there--floors, walls, so on--into something quite different.
I admit the llist you guys are (almost not participating in) playing with is very stogy and not particularly art informed but somewhat I feel Chris is the one doing all the legwork while the others cash in. Sorry Tom that's my feeling.
Last word Bill, a question really -- in the age of the internet is it not feasible to re-dice commodity and ownership along with desire and the lot.?
Keep open :)
Cash in how?
Tom, if none of the guests for june added to the list for say a week ...
brent
im sorry, i dont follow your use of re dicing. if you mean reshuffling, every thing reshuffles. in speaking of chris we should be way past dwelling on the 80s commodity critique but examining his meals-on-wheels soup kitchen delivery system. even the truck/loading dock model doesnt take it far enough down the information highway (to use a thoroughly played out term)
Brent, Chris Ashley is posting away over there and they're mostly showing him their backs. Is it immoral (isn't that what you're implying?) for the other guests not to submit to that? It's been days since a moderator commented. Your defense of this, and Chris, is touching. Meanwhile, we're having a lively discussion over here, in case you haven't noticed, and guests are treated with respect (if occasional mild sarcasm).
When I said "cash in how" I was referring to the fact that guests were unpaid, and therefore submitting to the hazing voluntarily.
chris recently posted that he's going away for a week. that leaves zero guests.
i'm conscious of the fact that i may have been one of those responsible for the heinous crime of posting links to his own stuff and discussing things that are considered 'old' and 'mundane concerns' and for this i apologise. so i'm reluctant to continue posting to the list just in case i incur the wrath of any other cutting-edge cut-and-pasters.
however, i am enjoying the lively discussion here (and the occasional mild sarcasm) and i've finally got around (after all the distractions of the first ten days) to actually emmersing myself in the guests work and commenting on it a bit.
Chris Ashley, Cinematic Dataculture (-empyre- 1), 2005, HTML, 505 x 475 pixels
Rich, your question on the empyre forum was a good one--one of the few that showed real support and enthusiasm for the topic and the invited guests. I don't think the issues are old or mundane, though I'm less interested in the "stealing"' issue than I am issues of context and originality. This work is a new animal in the history of art and deserves careful consideration. I copied your question a few days ago, intending to answer it, and will say more soon I hope. With your permission I reproduce it here, and will eventually reproduce it on my main page with some kind of answer:
I must admit that I had a look at
the source code of [Chris Ashley's] pages, just to see the almost endless table
tags. however, I can also copy that code and paste it on my own page.
the image that this would display would be exactly the same as yours. is
this a copy? or is it your work, but moved? if I copied and pasted the
code into another html file and posted it on my own site would that be
the equivalent of stealing a picture and hanging it in my front room?
I'm thinking a lot lately about the perception of computer generated
images as a medium. I've started making a series of drawings just using
programs like photoshop - drawing from scratch and seeing what happens.
they're not ready to show yet, they're a bit derivative! and I'm unsure
about the validity of such marks, what value do they have? these are
questions I'm trying to address through the work.
cheers tom, i was getting a bit paranoid.
All right, I'm really on my way out of town for four days, and I really need to stop, but Tom's posting of my image reminds me- what many people seem to have the hardest time talking about is the art itself. And in my case (Tom, your's too, I think [yeah, in the other panelists's, too]), besides all the talk about coding and orginality and distribution and location of the body and so on, the thing that is ulimately what this all about, what interests me the most, is the image. What is that image about? What's the connection to the title, "Cinematic Dataculture?" Why those colors, those shapes, those effects? It seems like one of the more fundamental and obvious places to begin.
I make these images with something in mind, in response to something. The image "Cinematic Dataculture" isn't arbitrary. But I'm not going to explain it all. That's not a refusal- most artists, especially those dealing with some level of intentional abstraction, aren't going to do that for you, either.
Man, I need a break.
You definitely need a break! Let some other people talk about your work for a while! When I said I'm more interested in issues of context and originality than issues of stealing, that's not to say I'm not interested in issues that might be more interesting than issues of context and originality, as I think should be clear from my previous posts on you. (I'll be honest, titles don't rank so high in my estimation either.) Just give me a chance to write this--this is not the empyre list, where you're doing all the *!!@) work for the list members.
bill and tom zero guests@# chris has gone for a leak. I've been entertained via my own in-head commentary and skewed narrative strangely quiet despite the noise as it scrolls--lingo from screenful, watching turds worm through each other--mesmerized; lost in a non-space a place between the mantric and medieval luminousantly quiet, gridded, wondering....
it's true it would be nice if some good questions came up? Come to think of it what was the topic--originally!
Bill re-dice verbing the noun, movement contained within the thing (potential), morphing it, upping the numeric stakes, changing the stakes--in a sense commanding the cause and affect (which is what happens anyway). you guys don't say re-dice?
it's eight hours so my mac says--weekend. thanks both for the generously sparkled cynical reply.
BTW screenful had a grey grid just below broadway spinning. it's identical to a c.d. sleeve I have, sent to me by Italian minimalist composer mugen some years ago. Source anyone? Chris?
oh, username disremembered.
I'm going to be really lazy and just link to the things I wrote on Chris here and here.
empyre won't let me post this?
after chris ashley's Shake Things Up (-empyre- 9)
oh no, it's appeared now. several hours later? (and after i moved the file!) other posts didn't take this long to clear?
Cool--I like the way it fades to white, that's especially effective when you drag it up to the largest scale. It's posted to the archive, but the URL in your email to empyre is different from the one you have here--takes me to a "page not found."
Since we're talking about things that didn't make it into the archive, Liza Sabater cc'd this to the panelists because, she said, it seemed to be in the "empyre holding bin." That was over a week ago and I haven't seen it in the archive: On Jun 03 2005, at 08:21 PM, Melinda Rackham wrote:
hello all..
have enjoyed the posts so far but im noticing that the tendency this month to
carry on the discussion or post in the guests own domains rather than within
the empyre area.. or maybe ist talking the empyre arena into your domains - im
not sure.. it s interesting
however i'm wondering if the blogging paradigm is consequential of, or perhaps
creates, this constant referral to self as a the central point of connection in
a wider network.
does this mark a shift to distributing the self from a node so to speak rather
than free ranging..
On Jun 03 2005, at 10:21 PM, Liza Sabater wrote:
Hi Melinda,
Are you inferring an e-list is free-ranging but blogging is not?
Free-ranging needs an wide, open spaces. Let's not confuse nomads with monads.
Even nomads living in the wide open have to stop to setup camps.
For rest, for fun, for food, for trading.
The camp is the activity (or rest) of the nomads; much in the same way as the network is the inter-activity of nodes.
Blogs with their infrastructure : META, trackbacks, comments, RSS, tags & categories, search engine ranks, blogrolls, referrers, stylesheets, databases. They are networks, maps, communities, publications, personas.
They're records of being as non-essential.
Liza Sabater
www.culturekitchen.com
This is frustrating to read because the phrase "does this mark a shift to distributing the self from a node so to speak rather than free ranging.." makes no sense whatsoever, and instead of asking for a clarification, Liza says "are you inferring that...?" and launches into whatever she wanted to say based on what she thinks Rackham meant. Maybe this is why it didn't appear in the archive, but that's not a reason to censor it (especially since Rackham is one of the moderators). It's always possible something went wrong with the email and then Liza didn't press it...
both links should work now. it took so long for the empyre post to appear i'd taken the page down and posted a different one on here!
I missed this hoopla, but I've been slugging through it all (thanks bill) here and over on empyre. As I said to my friend, "this is a long thread where people who use different modes of online communication are arguing passionately about which is better." Sounds dumb, but it's not, for one reason: the what's-better-a-list-or-a-blog-debate is a stand-in for the more fundamental difference between writing for a broad audience, and writing for an expert elite. Blogs are more like magazines, and lists are more like, well, like lists. Lists are older and full of that cunning punning cryptic technical language that both programmers and academics thrive on. Blogs (at least the blogs I like), perhaps partly because of the individualistic ego of the blogger, tend to be written plainly, with explanations and context given when jargon is required. Is this attention to an invisible potential mass readership a bastardization of the once-refined online community? Probably. Can it be reversed? No way.
Chris Ashley and Tom Moody, with their plain talk and accessible, transparent propositions were speaking a fundamentally different language from the empyre list members. I suspect the lack of meta-level hyper referentiality was genuinely disorienting to the list. What do you do when someone asks you a direct question?
Why does the thread work here and not there? I think its mainly because Tom is actively moderating. Eventhough he is a fully engaged participant, who gets his shirt in as big of a knot as anyone else, at the same time he is stepping back, making jokes, taking up queries with honest answers, showing the odd bit of humility, always with the unseen, unknown reader in mind. I feel like I can chime in here, when I'd never in a billion years post this to empyre. But is that my fault or theirs?--who cares!
Thanks, Sally, you were a trooper to wade into this after a vacation.
That's a good point about the two different languages being spoken. Not all academics use a language of obfuscatory mystification--for example, Daniel Albright makes complex arguments in clear sentences--and I would have welcomed an opportunity to have friendly conversation, as opposed to having to parse the standard twaddle about "dependence on fossil fuels,
resource extraction, geography as a class 'formant,'" and "integration of
technology as a social object," which a glance at the panelists' pages would show was inapplicable to the subject matter at hand except as the purest condescension. Ugh, this is getting angry again, I'd rather to try to deal with this humorously.
>6/14/05
>
>the bloggers seem to be very good at filling their own void.
>i'll stick to lists
>komninos
>
>komninos zervos
>lecturer, convenor of CyberStudies major
>School of Arts
>Griffith University
>Room 3.25 Multimedia Building G23
>Gold Coast Campus
>Parkwood
>PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre
>Queensland 9726
>Australia
>Phone 07 5552 8872 Fax 07 5552 8141
>http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/k_zervos
>http://users.bigpond.net.au/mangolegs
> http://spokenword.blog-city.com
>"Our Workplace Rights are NOT for sale."
there is a reason that there are blog artists and that list artists do not exist. its because of the differences in facility. the panelists intuitively seek the limits of available media. examination of limits brought these artists to blogging. a lack of intellectual curiosity may be what keeps the list members resentful academics and not artists. curiosity or it may just be a bandwidth issue.
any one aware that the ubu project has been completed and preserved online as an archive?
After four days off, Chris Ashley is working away over there on the list (seventeen emails today so far), answering all lingering questions (even the mean ones) with the utmost patience and tact. He is a one-man good will squad for weblogs in the face of a hostile and/or uncomprehending audience. Jesus said, turn the other cheek to him who smiteth you and Chris says "Now, if I really wanted to engage in a long range, fully archived, multi-view, searchable discussion with
a bunch of colleagues, sure, I'd probably go with the list."
Again, we have all that here at Digital Media Tree (except for the multiview, but only because no one asked for it) and we don't have to sort through, save or delete emails every time someone posts. Oh, should I stop saying that, so as not to hurt the list subscribers' feelings?
In the interest of completeness, here is the "final straw" email and the email I sent asking to be unsubscribed from the empyre list.
It was that dude Henry Warwick again, the one I made fun of my page, and a more pompous condescending spew I simply cannot imagine. As Kyle McLachlan says in Blue Velvet, "Why are there people like Frank Booth in the world?" I found myself helpless before this tripe--I could only ask for mercy to be spared having to read any more of it. The italicized comments are Warwick's:
On Jun 15, 2005, at 3:57 PM, Chris Ashley wrote:
>
> I think this is a really good point, and one worth
> acknowledging and repeating. Don't confuse the tool's
> current application with its potential. There was the
> early dream by some of the web's democratizing
> capability- that citizens will be more involved and
> empowered. If that was the case George W. would not
> be president.
Indeed. I was working at Macromedia from 1995 - 1998 doing tech support
for FreeHand, fontographer, and then Dreamweaver. When they first
acquired the engineers for Dreamweaver and I was trained on how to
support it, I thought it was amazing - kind of like "Quark Xpress" for
the web. Then at a company-wide shindig at Pajaro Dunes Resort, (those
were the days....) in between massive all night drinking binges, we
actually got together in groups and discussed the products etc. I'll
never forget my supervisor's look when we were talking about
Dreamweaver - he had a great smile, as he thought "A great
democratisation - everyone will be able to make a web page - oh the
beauty..."
then his eyes widened, and he said
"oh, the horror...EVERYONE will make a webpage..."
and sure enough: within months a million pictures of pets were scanned,
record collections listed, etc. Oh. The Horror.
But then, I was on a list that shut down not long ago because the topic
of conversation for a week was "List all the crap on your desk". The
List Owner threw a fit and killed the list. I thought it was kind of
cool, myself...
> The web has leveled the playing field
> for easy entry, but the discipline of practice and the
> place of the author filter out the good from the bad.
I dunno. I tend to think people find an audience or vice versa. Good or
bad - I dunno - depends on the audience I suppose. Discipline is a
means to an end and not an end in itself - but practice is a good thing
as it creates consistency. I think the author gains more from a
practice than the audience.
SVM wrote:
>> blogs m.body a perspective of elementary content
>> alteration in a melange of
>> communication dynamics driven/governed by economic
>> rationalism + blanket
>> perspectivism.....
I would like some elaboration on that, myself. It sounds intriguing,
but has a scent of philological obscurantism + blanket reductionism...
> And Nietzsche's idea that truth depends on our
> prespective? Yes.
Hmmm- so then solipsism is the only verifiable truth structure?
Somehow, I don't think you'd agree with that, but it's a risk of
relativist arguments going back to - oh jeeepers - a long way.
Besides - Nietzsche was crazy.
;-)
HW
And my unsubscribe request (a scream for help--emailed to the empyre list earlier tonight)
Michael, Melinda, anybody...
Will you please unsubscribe me from the list? This is getting really
painful, getting these horrible emails...
Chris is doing his best to answer questions and gets these "I dunno... I
dunno" answers from this blowhard.
Such condescension, and the moderators don't do anything to stop it.
So many emails that are rude and condescending to the (remaining) guest.
I can't stand reading these emails anymore! Nothing substantive is being
said, it's a nightmare! Release me from this prison!
Best, Tom Moody
spoiler: if youve been surprised by the lack of professionalism by the members of the empyre group and have tuned the whole thing out, read no further. i submit an excerpt from a response to yesterdays posts by the remaining two guest list participants (toms post was the above refd resignation letter) :
>Perhaps it is an American trait to respond with swift and overwhelming force when
>dealing with any perceived threat, but it would benefit us all if we attempt to understand
>those who "threatened" us, encourage them to further explain their opinions and
>engage them in active, healthy and civil discussion. Shock & Awe clearly doesn't work.
>One of the beautiful things about this discussion group is the rigorous critical discourse
>generated by the diversity of its participants. If the guests choose to respond by
>dropping out or engaging in pissing contests or calling participants "cunts"...well, there's
>always next month. It would be terrible if people felt unable to express sincere opinions
>here, for fear of offending or whatever. Artists censor themselves too often
>anyway, and that's the most dangerous censorship of all.
i dont know the exact number of members of this list. i may have heard the number 500? but based on the lack of moderator and fellow list participant counter argument to statements of this sort we can only assume that they all concur. its far from a shock and awe response to walk away from what has steadily revealed to be a group driven by an extant undercurrent of chicken shit american artist baiting. withdrawal seams the only dignification this group deserves.
it is unfortunate that many list members are not countering remarks of such generalisation against specific people. i fear the same factors that caused the initial fracture of this months discussion are responsible for this kind of remark i.e. splitting people into groups - 'you are blog users, you are list users - you are americans, you are.. not americans' (i suppose, in this case?)
this kind of lumping into generic group types never works, people are far more diverse than this.
living and working in england i am not fully aware of what the rest of the world feels 'english' people are like. sure there are stereotypes but my stiff upper lip forbids me to acknowledge them.
joking aside, it's the expected perception of a type of person that seems to have marred what should have been a very good discussion about a genuinely interesting, creative, and prolific medium/platform.
bill, have you posted something to the list regarding that anti-american remark? i think withdrawing is not the best way. i'm not saying you have to fight back with cutting remarks and insults, but stand your ground. you have the opportunity to voice your opinion as much as they have.
i also think the lack of response to the comment might be due to people not actually reading it? the list seems to be turning people off?
tom, don't unsubscribe, we could still save the list. people are joining in now who actually want to talk about the work.
oh, and as i always say... i hate the way everyone generalises!
rich - i failed to include in my posts the exceptions, you are a hell of a nice guy. re walking, im just saying that no one should feel obligated to put up with that kind of crap. responding only in terms framed, offered or deemed acceptable by the group, seams needy and ill-deserved at this point.
Rich, sorry to you and the other cool people on the list things didn't work out. Thanks, Bill, for re-posting that parting shot from the list about "American traits"--it gave me a good laugh this morning. I got a note from Melinda, one the moderators, and the apology was appreciated, but I wish she could have avoided the self-backpatting and "blaming the victim" language: Chris tom jimpunk and Abe
thank you for being guests this month, and i regret that your experience has
been unpleasant.
empyre is known as a very articulate discussion environment where the invited
guests talk about their work and the issues involved in depth . .. sometimes it
gets heated when people express different opinions... but in the name of good
dialogue that is often intensely interesting..
i think perhaps there has been a some misunderstandings this month on several
fronts..i know myself i posted what i thought were very unremarkable comments
which seemed to upset you quiet a bit, so my apologies if you took this as an
attack.. it was mean as a comment to start conversations around blogging. [still thinks her phrase "constant referral to self" has no pejorative meaning]
the comments and questions at empyre are often the same sorts of ones you
would encounter at conferences .. and often the people who ask questions are
the ones who don't necessarily agree with your position. this is common and to
be expected in most art/academic dialogues. ["art/academic"? which is it? and how patronizing is this?]
If you as guests were having difficulties with the direction of the
conversations, etc the protocol would have been to post privately to the
facilitators, rather than publicly to the list itself, to deal with any issues.
again my apologies if this was not clear to you when you agreed to be guests.[Now she tells us!]
Once again thank you for your generosity in being guests, and we wish you well
in your admirable practices..
I have closed this comment thread (the spammers found it and wanted to chime in). If anyone has any follow-up to this please email me and we'll start a new topic.
|
- tom moody 6-07-2005 12:20 pm
fuzzy on safari
- bill 6-07-2005 3:18 pm
bad browser...
- tom moody 6-07-2005 5:40 pm
I made a GIF out of it so people in the Apple environment can see what it looks like. Here's the original...
- tom moody 6-07-2005 6:30 pm
This is a tribute to jimpunk, who bailed out of the empyre email list after a week. Maybe he got tired of all the potshots at blogs ("I blog therefore I am," "constant referral to self," "look at me mummy").
- tom moody 6-07-2005 6:35 pm
outrageous quotes! thats so paleo. good for jimpunk.
- bill 6-07-2005 6:49 pm
I think Linkoln may be gone too. I was waiting for someone to respond to my first post, where I talked about blogs as a new net art. I was being polite and didn't say, "blogs as the new net art," which I think they are, or at least are an ideal disseminator for it. The empyre
postersemailers keep talking about self, they're very hung up on that. I felt like I was back in fifth grade and being asked "are you conceited?" when someone saw me drawing a self portrait.Here's the image saved as a PNG, just checking to see how the three compare:
- tom moody 6-07-2005 6:56 pm
I think the PNG is truer, so I substituted it for the GIF, which is now here:
I'm still a little nervous about PNGs 'cause I'm not sure how universal they are. Even a fuzzy graphic is better than a little red x.
- tom moody 6-07-2005 7:01 pm
posted from screenfull.net/stadium/2005/06/c0ents.html
- ): (guest) 6-07-2005 7:52 pm
The png/gif difference looks like a gamut thing.
Nice work. I like the Napolean.
- mark 6-07-2005 9:21 pm
So June is a short month! What was that at empyre? Eggshells?
- Brent Hallard (guest) 6-08-2005 2:28 am
anyway I'll put my two cents here. I'm sorry i can't be bothered with that list:
I think the whole idea of location is a bit skewed (here). These blogs make no claim to de-invest location instead seem to be build up from them (two mailers to the list pointed this clear whether consciously demonstrating it or not). Jim Punk I doubt would look the same coming out of Orlando. Chris Ashley might look different if his web log was uploaded from the middle of the east coast mayhem each and every time. I think web-logs draw attention to not only the author but to the authors' location. Then this way both author and location can be transported through the internet 'ether' pretty much intact so someone/anyone who has access the the internet can poke into, enjoy, or click on once in a lifetime. This way a web-log shares properties with, something akin to, an atom. It's self-sufficient but has the ability to attract and repulse[[and that it, too, has neutrinos. It may not be the academic way to do things, but it might be the personal and the empowering---to quote greg.org rough shoddily "It's all about me everything is".
- anonymous (guest) 6-08-2005 6:46 am
Anon wrote:
" I think web-logs draw attention to not only the author but to the authors' location."
Can you say more about how you think a weblog author's actual geographical location (and thus, I'd think, nationality, race, marital status, bank balance, etc.) makes its way into the weblog?
- chrisashley (guest) 6-08-2005 7:29 am
It's as much information as the author wants to give--and the reader needs by way of grounding. You know I'm in NY because there's pictures of big buildings and stuff (and everything's so cool). For all I know jimpunk is in Orlando--he tells us very little about where he is, but I don't really care, cause he delivers the goods.
I know I invited some metablogging-type speculation on the list, but I'm really more interested in people's work. And the sidebar discussions among the four panelists ("Are they attacking blogs?" "I think so." "What is this, 2000?") are definitely keepers. I made that dialogue up but that's what was running through my head upon realizing we were at Square One.
And if anyone from the list ventured over here into evil blogland, I don't mean to be disrespectful. I haven't officially stopped posting to the list, but I wish the moderators had kept the tone at the level of "maybe, just maybe this is already an established deal and not some newfangled dadburn consarned thing where people just talk about themselves all the damn time and therefore we should keep a lid on these 'look at me mummy' trolls on the list because they're embarrassing the shit out of all of us."
I may delete this in the AM, but I need to vent.
- tom moody 6-08-2005 7:59 am
Nah, don't delete it in the morning.
As you say, "but I'm really more interested in people's work." I don't really care about some of the larger theoretical questions- well, yeah, sure, I do, in the long run, but the way to get there is to talk about the work, what individuals are doing with the tools, not to jump to meaning without having paid attention to what the individuals are doing. Isn't that why we were (are?) linking to our weblogs from empyre?
I want to hear my fellow panelists talk about their work, but for all I know jimpunk doesn't even speak English. Or Abe and jimpunk are the same person- a woman, mother of three kids, who stuffs envelopes for a living, in Orlando, with broadband, and stays up really late, smoking American Spirits, with the TV on all the time, mucking up Quicktime files. Her kids are always late to school. Never leaves the house. Only shops at the convenience store. Only uses bit torrented bootleg software. On and on.
Frankly, I still don't know what Anonymous was saying about how the author's location makes it into the weblog. It's not like I'm writing about the Governator, and hippies, and recycling, and gay marriage, and surfing, and crumbling highway infrastructures, and failing schools, and Hollywood gossip, and mountain biking, and... can you guess which state I'm from?
- chrisashley (guest) 6-08-2005 9:28 am
sure !
- ):Mµn< (guest) 6-08-2005 6:03 pm
surely.
- linkoln (guest) 6-08-2005 9:00 pm
empyre is usually boring with a bunch of academics wanking off on whatever floats their ivory tower boat....
but at the same time.......you guys didn't post your thoughts in the list.......it is read by people all over the world.........you made links to your blogs..........that was like being there and not............I have to admit (and I have 2 blogs) it got really annoying..........like a diss...........or a duck....................
- anonymous (guest) 6-08-2005 9:59 pm
Hmmm... I posted this twice to the list (once to correct some formatting) and got no response. (Unless you count the disses of blogging, or ruminations about "the self".) Maybe it's boring, but it is "posting my thoughts on the list":
- tom moody 6-08-2005 10:13 pm
Anon wrote, "you guys didn't post your thoughts in the list.......it is read by people all over the world.........you made links to your blogs"
Hey Anonymous, who are you, anyway?
Actually, that's not true; not to take anything from my fellow panelists, but it's particularly untrue in my case. We didn't all four join this with any common goals in mind, as far as I'm aware.
We all made opening statements of some type; mine was long, used real words, asked questions. Yes, because our weblog work is ongoing and essential to understanding what we do we linked to our own places.
But that has not been the extent of my participation. I haven't merely linked to my weblog. I've posted comments to the list and I've made drawings in response to the list- which is what I do, make drawings- but the list won't accept HTML.
One lister posted the modified HTML from one of my drawings to the list and the post was rejected by a moderator. So if someone wants to see my work-- which is as important (and actually more important) as the fact that it takes place in a weblog- then they have to go to the weblog.
I'm thinking I probably don't want to spend any more of my time discussing this experience. Talk about an annoying.
- chrisashley (guest) 6-08-2005 10:24 pm
... sorry... just, for once, felt the questions chris posed we're interesting and was compelled to respond. did not realise this was some kind of club.
(managed not to say I... shit!)
- rich (guest) 6-08-2005 11:03 pm
What club?
Anyway, there's the catch... You go out of your way not to use the first person on your blog. You take an interest in other artists' work and try to promote it objectively. You are invited to talk about your work and the first time you say "I" people start talking about how self-centered your medium is. It reminds one of the Monty Python sketch:
"Tell us about your latest film, Sir Edward. I'm sorry I called you Eddy baby."
"In my latest film..."
"Ah, shaddup."
- tom moody 6-08-2005 11:44 pm
I'm confused- Rich, are you Anon.
I'm not out of empyre yet- there are things I want to respond to.
Also wanted to clarify- Tom's participation on the empyre list wasn't all about linking to himself, either.
I feel like I'm passing notes in class.
- chrisashley (guest) 6-09-2005 12:13 am
Or IM-ing.
- tom moody 6-09-2005 12:39 am
Just copied this off the eyebeam reBlog; it's from a website about corporate branding strategies:
Maybe we're butting up against some of this balkanization (on a global scale) in the blogs vs lists dynamic that quickly took shape at empyre...- tom moody 6-09-2005 12:43 am
this is mor innerestin'
- mes (guest) 6-09-2005 3:32 am
Here's a joke!
What's the area of a redundant circle?
- anonymous (guest) 6-09-2005 3:42 am
I don't know, anon., what is the area of a redundant circle?
- tom moody 6-09-2005 3:46 am
there are several of us that are listed as anon..........
I am also a blogger and have posted many times on empyre//
the problem is that the dialogue didn't get any spark ..........I was a guest on empyre myself in the past......and it was a start stop affair..................I found my self posting stuff to get people talking....sometimes it worked.....sometimes it didn't.......
the emphasis on links to blogs didn't allow anything really to fully challenge the non-guests..............and then folks tuned out.......
empyre also is mostly academics.........who love to find a thread so they can go off on their pet tangents..........
so it appears to be a lose lose deal............
- anonymous (guest) 6-09-2005 4:37 am
"I found my self posting stuff to get people talking"
Even allowing for some language difficulties, "you seem to be endlessly satisfied with your own skills" is a dig, right?That sounds like a dead group. Chris is working away over there right now trying to generate some heat. They're still just sitting there, or throwing insults at him, like:
- tom moody 6-09-2005 5:00 am
a little bit.
- bill 6-09-2005 5:26 am
A couple of emails to the empyre list from jonCates lament the "estranged/strained" tone between the empyre thread and this one. He says my smartass email inviting empyre-rs to post here ("it's easy and fun!") "implied a critique of or an opposition to empyre." The blogs vs lists dynamic took shape before the discussion even began, when I asked one of the moderators what were the advantages of using emails to post messages as opposed to just uploading them directly to a central node. It wasn't a critique but a question, and I now think--heck yes this is easier, more direct, more fun, and your mailbox doesn't fill up with redundant emails. (It would be nice to sort posts by date and author, though.) But immediately after the panel started questions came up about blogs, that clearly set them in opposition to lists. As for "my" "opposition to empyre" jC doesn't allow there was anything particularly rancorous, cold, unengaged, or dismissive about the list's response to the panelists' first posts, rather, he's accusing the panelists of being rude invited guests. And to top it off, he's critiquing my RSS feed! (I assume that's what he means when he mentions SCREENFULL's "which btw, has a better snd trax.")
- tom moody 6-09-2005 6:20 am
Yes, a little bit. It's a little bit of a dig.
The mime thing is about the most interesting aspect of the topic that has come up so far, though it was lavishly overtyped. The ex mic-rosoft guy has a good book on it perhaps worth a look.
The way I read greg.org's "everything is" is rather clever. It suggests that while everything is, as in the inclusive and exclusive, what greg.org 'is' is a conduit for the development of a wider expression of the self by way of managing the exclusive and the inclusive as mutable. So the idea of a weblog as self-serving/centering on; a human, grounded in location, production, is not such a bad thing either, after-all when all said and done communicating is an extension of self that reshapes the self.
- anonymous (guest) 6-09-2005 6:22 am
hi tom i haven't been lamenting. i have been attempting to converse on empyre about what is going on w/the discussions. i'm not mournful about the striking harmonics [+/or] discordant differences in tone but i do find these oppositions odd. why not try to address empyre (in whatever form is the most fitting from your perspective) on empyre rather than offList? i'm not being sarcastic, i'm being serious. // jonCates
- jonCates 6-09-2005 11:02 am
tom
what makes the web-based blog interface more fun for you? i don't understand how this interface is necessarily easier, or more direct...
// jonCates
- jonCates 6-09-2005 11:06 am
i understand how it's faster, but is that the key?
- jonCates 6-09-2005 11:06 am
RE: "And to top it off, he's critiquing my RSS feed! (I assume that's what he means when he mentions SCREENFULL's "which btw, has a better snd trax.")"
i stated a personal pref for the web-based SCREENFULL's port of this thread in relation to the other embedded media, i.e. audio + video. it's a small point perhaps, but important in terms of SCREENFULL as a project that samples from various sources + re:presents these sources as staggered, simultaneous + overlapping. the experience of SCREENFULL in the web-browser differs from the experience of SCREENFULL in a feedreader as well as differing from this blog in a web-browser or in a feedreader.
the statement is not a critique of your personal RSS feed, but a statement of personal pref about sum of the elements of the interfaces.
// jonCates
- jonCates 6-09-2005 11:20 am
OK. As for your question about why I like this format better than emails: Speed, for sure--threads here on the Tree can be as immediate as chatrooms sometimes--and fun (see the ridiculously huge--for us--Christo thread) and I don't have a recordkeeping headache in the form of 100 emails I have to decide whether to keep or delete. I'm finding not all the empyre emails in my inbox made it into the archive, and the panelists had some interesting sidebar conversation, so I have to slog through that before deleting the empyre stuff I know was archived.
Plus if things get too weird I can post a heartwarming picture of a baby-saving dog.
Seriously, though, being able to post pictures and sound when you're talking about pictures and sound is an amazing thing, almost as incredible as that victrola thing I hear they have that stores music and allows you to play it back whenever you want to hear it. I'm being sarcastic, but I don't see how this is subject to debate. You invite artists to talk about their work, in a format everyone understands from the outset doesn't allow pictures or sound, then when the artists post links to same you say "Wah, you're not amusing me--I don't want to click links--I want you to justify your work in an arena where you can't completely explain yourself!"
Sure, we panelists knew what the ground rules were, but who would have anticipated comment on blogging artists linking to their respective pages like it was weird or something?
And yes, one has to have image-posting privileges to post on the Tree, but if you gave me a URL I'd upload the image and post it so we could talk about it right here on the page.
- tom moody 6-09-2005 11:45 am
no chris, i'm not Anon. there might be several of them posting here! i thought it best not to post anonymously as that would be a bit chicken of me (there are times when anon works, but thought this required identification).
tom, i was just trying to add a little levity in what was feeling like quite a tense situation. i guess we just have to find the balance between using our own and other peoples works as examples of what we are tying to say.
i prefere to see this more like the argument sketch:
'what do you want?'
'well i was told outside...'
'don't give me that you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!'
'what?'
'shut your festering gob you tit! your type really makes me puke! you vacuous toffee-nosed malodorous pervert!!'
'look! i came here for an argument.'
'oh! i'm sorry, this is abuse.'
'oh i see, that explains it.'
'no, you want room 12a next door.'
'i see - sorry.'
'not at all...... stupid git.'
- rich (guest) 6-09-2005 11:52 am
i've been on the empyre list for a long time, and in fact never quite felt myself able to step over the invisible line and post to the list. while at times i find it informative and it has made me think about some interesting things, i also find it incredibly alienating for some reason, so instead i make my first 'empyre' comment in here. i guess that's something too. tom i am really enjoying your visual-blog posts.. just find them very serene and i am quite fond of the projects of the invited guests of this month's empyre, but it seems the guests are gone.
- tulpje (guest) 6-09-2005 3:42 pm
i just slogged through the whole "we-blog" empyre list read. way to squander a nice opportunity empyre list members. was that a list group or an oil painting? old concerns of authorship/ownership and commodity in art!? these issues have been well hashed out by warhol and lewitt in the 60's and again by koons, levine and prince et all in the 80's. im lost to the relevance of location in art blogging. linkoln, jim punk and the others really dont need to be dragged back down into those tired out non-issues. the list seems to desire calling tunes for dancing monkeys. perhaps they shouldnt bore the guest panelists with their mundane concerns and format defence damage. on the whole, they just dont appear well informed in art or the ways of the internet.
- bill 6-09-2005 5:59 pm
tom
RE: "Sure, we panelists knew what the ground rules were, but who would have anticipated comment on blogging artists linking to their respective pages like it was weird or something?"
i thin maybe it's important to be specific here. so you are referring to Melinda Rackham's post:
From: melinda AT subtle.net
Subject: [-empyre-] point of reference
Date: June 3, 2005 7:21:08 PM CDT
when you write "who would have anticipated comment on blogging artists linking to their respective pages like it was weird or something?"? is that correct? i don't thin Rackham's 2005.01.03 post is a dis or a dig @ all. but i do thin that you are being very defensive when it comes to the empyre discussion. ppl are going to post all sorts of stuff, ranging from what you will determine is relevant to irrelevant, supportive to dismissive, engaging to detached. ppl are going to post opinions + positions + that is the entire point of having a lively discussion. why wouldn't you want everyOne to engage + contribute in whatever ways they feel are the most appropriate to the conversation?
i thin Rackham's 2005.01.03 post is observational + factual ++ has a kind of request for focus embedded in it that is completely appropriate for her as an admin of the list where the discussion is supposed to be happening. i can say, from my experience as a guest on empyre, that the admins work tirelessly to facilitate the conversations + to encourage lively discussion. i seriously don't understand why you would begin w/the assumption that you (as a guest) are in opposition to the admins or the list members who have posted so far. like i wrote in reply to Chris Ashley in my 2005.01.08 post "Subject: [-empyre-] clarifying: a reply..." the "us vs. them" binary is almost totally nonfunctional + very destructive. why would you want to mobilize that position? or more importantly, why assume an oppositional position from the beginning?
which makes me wonder, as does Mathieu O'Neil in his post:
From: oneil AT homemail.com.au
Subject: Re: G0|\|3 was Re: [-empyre-] F:reW4LL
Date: June 9, 2005 12:12:45 AM CDT
if you personally are opposed to the {mechanics|culture} of lists in general or empyre in specific why join as a guest in the 1rst place?
- jonCates 6-09-2005 7:18 pm
tulpje, thanks a lot. I'm sorry things aren't going better with the list this month.
Mathieu mentions it again today, and there were others, please don't make me hunt for them. As for Melinda's comment, I disagree that her phrase "constant referral to self" is observational and factual, it sounds like a dig (possibly an unconsciously hostile choice of words? And where is Melinda, by the way--some moderator, disappearing when her list starts to fall apart--why do you defend her so avidly?)jonCates and Mathieu, asking why the panelists agreed to do the list if they were so opposed to lists has a prosecutorial "when did you stop beating your wife" ring to it. I wish you'd listen cause we've been tryin' to 'splain over here what went wrong.
jonCates, it isn't just Melinda who noted the practice of the panelists linking to their pages--why, right here on this very thread there is a comment that reads
Just to clarify a comment of bill's "what is this, an audience or an oil painting?" is a line from comedian Henny Youngman, who probably saw a few oil paintings in the Catskills in his day. Mathieu describes the silent treatment the list gave the last invited speaker for being "supercilious"--a good moderator would have found a diplomatic way to keep the list conversation active and fair, and in the case of the unfortunate June list, kept the talented jimpunk and Linkoln in the fold. Just a stroke or two would have done it, some critical feedback about the work they were trying to show you...
- tom moody 6-09-2005 8:05 pm
bill
my concerns were not with 'authorship/ownership and commodity in art.' they were with the perception of value - and i don't just mean capital value. i was interested to know how the guests felt about this issue. yes, authorship/ownership is an aspect of this and yes, this has been covered lots. but answered? do you know the answer bill? illuminate us.
- rich (guest) 6-09-2005 8:43 pm
some people just cant accept a gift gracefully. still looking for the catch?
- bill 6-09-2005 8:50 pm
Rich--quite a bit has been written about the gift or potlatch economy of the Net. I mentioned it in my first post on empyre.
- tom moody 6-09-2005 9:48 pm
there's always a catch
- rich (guest) 6-09-2005 10:07 pm
Sure. The work Chris Ashley generously gave you will be repo'd at the end of the month. After he gets it back, he will track you down and demand a deficiency payment. All because you let your guard down and clicked on his page.
- tom moody 6-09-2005 10:19 pm
I'll do what?
- chrisashley (guest) 6-09-2005 11:12 pm
now that's how it should work!!!
- rich (guest) 6-09-2005 11:58 pm
seriously. ill bet you cant eat just one
- bill 6-10-2005 12:53 am
Now look who's being elitist!
Bill I'm sure you are ably informed but perhaps you are talking an old history upon which 'things get played out '......... ' confluence' of course allows for many possible histories to unfold, but. .... you know that.
Humans are creative by nature. Just put a kid in an empty room and watch them go to town--they'll create imaginary objects out of nothing and turn whatever is there--floors, walls, so on--into something quite different.
I admit the llist you guys are (almost not participating in) playing with is very stogy and not particularly art informed but somewhat I feel Chris is the one doing all the legwork while the others cash in. Sorry Tom that's my feeling.
Last word Bill, a question really -- in the age of the internet is it not feasible to re-dice commodity and ownership along with desire and the lot.?
Keep open :)
- brent hallard (guest) 6-10-2005 3:06 am
Cash in how?
- tom moody 6-10-2005 8:08 am
Tom, if none of the guests for june added to the list for say a week ...
- brent hallard (guest) 6-10-2005 12:56 pm
brent
im sorry, i dont follow your use of re dicing. if you mean reshuffling, every thing reshuffles. in speaking of chris we should be way past dwelling on the 80s commodity critique but examining his meals-on-wheels soup kitchen delivery system. even the truck/loading dock model doesnt take it far enough down the information highway (to use a thoroughly played out term)
- bill 6-10-2005 5:04 pm
Brent, Chris Ashley is posting away over there and they're mostly showing him their backs. Is it immoral (isn't that what you're implying?) for the other guests not to submit to that? It's been days since a moderator commented. Your defense of this, and Chris, is touching. Meanwhile, we're having a lively discussion over here, in case you haven't noticed, and guests are treated with respect (if occasional mild sarcasm).
When I said "cash in how" I was referring to the fact that guests were unpaid, and therefore submitting to the hazing voluntarily.
- tom moody 6-10-2005 6:45 pm
chris recently posted that he's going away for a week. that leaves zero guests.
i'm conscious of the fact that i may have been one of those responsible for the heinous crime of posting links to his own stuff and discussing things that are considered 'old' and 'mundane concerns' and for this i apologise. so i'm reluctant to continue posting to the list just in case i incur the wrath of any other cutting-edge cut-and-pasters.
however, i am enjoying the lively discussion here (and the occasional mild sarcasm) and i've finally got around (after all the distractions of the first ten days) to actually emmersing myself in the guests work and commenting on it a bit.
- rich (guest) 6-10-2005 7:31 pm
Chris Ashley, Cinematic Dataculture (-empyre- 1), 2005, HTML, 505 x 475 pixels
Rich, your question on the empyre forum was a good one--one of the few that showed real support and enthusiasm for the topic and the invited guests. I don't think the issues are old or mundane, though I'm less interested in the "stealing"' issue than I am issues of context and originality. This work is a new animal in the history of art and deserves careful consideration. I copied your question a few days ago, intending to answer it, and will say more soon I hope. With your permission I reproduce it here, and will eventually reproduce it on my main page with some kind of answer:- tom moody 6-10-2005 8:36 pm
cheers tom, i was getting a bit paranoid.
- rich (guest) 6-10-2005 8:46 pm
All right, I'm really on my way out of town for four days, and I really need to stop, but Tom's posting of my image reminds me- what many people seem to have the hardest time talking about is the art itself. And in my case (Tom, your's too, I think [yeah, in the other panelists's, too]), besides all the talk about coding and orginality and distribution and location of the body and so on, the thing that is ulimately what this all about, what interests me the most, is the image. What is that image about? What's the connection to the title, "Cinematic Dataculture?" Why those colors, those shapes, those effects? It seems like one of the more fundamental and obvious places to begin.
I make these images with something in mind, in response to something. The image "Cinematic Dataculture" isn't arbitrary. But I'm not going to explain it all. That's not a refusal- most artists, especially those dealing with some level of intentional abstraction, aren't going to do that for you, either.
Man, I need a break.
- chrisashley (guest) 6-10-2005 9:29 pm
You definitely need a break! Let some other people talk about your work for a while! When I said I'm more interested in issues of context and originality than issues of stealing, that's not to say I'm not interested in issues that might be more interesting than issues of context and originality, as I think should be clear from my previous posts on you. (I'll be honest, titles don't rank so high in my estimation either.) Just give me a chance to write this--this is not the empyre list, where you're doing all the *!!@) work for the list members.
- tom moody 6-10-2005 9:53 pm
bill and tom zero guests@# chris has gone for a leak. I've been entertained via my own in-head commentary and skewed narrative strangely quiet despite the noise as it scrolls--lingo from screenful, watching turds worm through each other--mesmerized; lost in a non-space a place between the mantric and medieval luminousantly quiet, gridded, wondering....
it's true it would be nice if some good questions came up? Come to think of it what was the topic--originally!
Bill re-dice verbing the noun, movement contained within the thing (potential), morphing it, upping the numeric stakes, changing the stakes--in a sense commanding the cause and affect (which is what happens anyway). you guys don't say re-dice?
it's eight hours so my mac says--weekend. thanks both for the generously sparkled cynical reply.
BTW screenful had a grey grid just below broadway spinning. it's identical to a c.d. sleeve I have, sent to me by Italian minimalist composer mugen some years ago. Source anyone? Chris?
- anonymous (guest) 6-11-2005 3:01 am
oh, username disremembered.
- brent hallard (guest) 6-11-2005 3:09 am
I'm going to be really lazy and just link to the things I wrote on Chris here and here.
- tom moody 6-11-2005 10:39 am
empyre won't let me post this?
after chris ashley's Shake Things Up (-empyre- 9)
- rich (guest) 6-11-2005 2:01 pm
oh no, it's appeared now. several hours later? (and after i moved the file!) other posts didn't take this long to clear?
- rich (guest) 6-11-2005 5:03 pm
Cool--I like the way it fades to white, that's especially effective when you drag it up to the largest scale. It's posted to the archive, but the URL in your email to empyre is different from the one you have here--takes me to a "page not found."
This is frustrating to read because the phrase "does this mark a shift to distributing the self from a node so to speak rather than free ranging.." makes no sense whatsoever, and instead of asking for a clarification, Liza says "are you inferring that...?" and launches into whatever she wanted to say based on what she thinks Rackham meant. Maybe this is why it didn't appear in the archive, but that's not a reason to censor it (especially since Rackham is one of the moderators). It's always possible something went wrong with the email and then Liza didn't press it...Since we're talking about things that didn't make it into the archive, Liza Sabater cc'd this to the panelists because, she said, it seemed to be in the "empyre holding bin." That was over a week ago and I haven't seen it in the archive:
- tom moody 6-11-2005 5:19 pm
both links should work now. it took so long for the empyre post to appear i'd taken the page down and posted a different one on here!
- rich (guest) 6-11-2005 5:24 pm
I missed this hoopla, but I've been slugging through it all (thanks bill) here and over on empyre. As I said to my friend, "this is a long thread where people who use different modes of online communication are arguing passionately about which is better." Sounds dumb, but it's not, for one reason: the what's-better-a-list-or-a-blog-debate is a stand-in for the more fundamental difference between writing for a broad audience, and writing for an expert elite. Blogs are more like magazines, and lists are more like, well, like lists. Lists are older and full of that cunning punning cryptic technical language that both programmers and academics thrive on. Blogs (at least the blogs I like), perhaps partly because of the individualistic ego of the blogger, tend to be written plainly, with explanations and context given when jargon is required. Is this attention to an invisible potential mass readership a bastardization of the once-refined online community? Probably. Can it be reversed? No way.
Chris Ashley and Tom Moody, with their plain talk and accessible, transparent propositions were speaking a fundamentally different language from the empyre list members. I suspect the lack of meta-level hyper referentiality was genuinely disorienting to the list. What do you do when someone asks you a direct question?
Why does the thread work here and not there? I think its mainly because Tom is actively moderating. Eventhough he is a fully engaged participant, who gets his shirt in as big of a knot as anyone else, at the same time he is stepping back, making jokes, taking up queries with honest answers, showing the odd bit of humility, always with the unseen, unknown reader in mind. I feel like I can chime in here, when I'd never in a billion years post this to empyre. But is that my fault or theirs?--who cares!
- sally mckay 6-15-2005 1:28 am
Thanks, Sally, you were a trooper to wade into this after a vacation. That's a good point about the two different languages being spoken. Not all academics use a language of obfuscatory mystification--for example, Daniel Albright makes complex arguments in clear sentences--and I would have welcomed an opportunity to have friendly conversation, as opposed to having to parse the standard twaddle about "dependence on fossil fuels, resource extraction, geography as a class 'formant,'" and "integration of technology as a social object," which a glance at the panelists' pages would show was inapplicable to the subject matter at hand except as the purest condescension. Ugh, this is getting angry again, I'd rather to try to deal with this humorously.
- tom moody 6-15-2005 7:07 am
>6/14/05
>
>the bloggers seem to be very good at filling their own void.
>i'll stick to lists
>komninos
>
>komninos zervos
>lecturer, convenor of CyberStudies major
>School of Arts
>Griffith University
>Room 3.25 Multimedia Building G23
>Gold Coast Campus
>Parkwood
>PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre
>Queensland 9726
>Australia
>Phone 07 5552 8872 Fax 07 5552 8141
>http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/k_zervos
>http://users.bigpond.net.au/mangolegs
> http://spokenword.blog-city.com
>"Our Workplace Rights are NOT for sale."
there is a reason that there are blog artists and that list artists do not exist. its because of the differences in facility. the panelists intuitively seek the limits of available media. examination of limits brought these artists to blogging. a lack of intellectual curiosity may be what keeps the list members resentful academics and not artists. curiosity or it may just be a bandwidth issue.
any one aware that the ubu project has been completed and preserved online as an archive?
- bill 6-15-2005 5:11 pm
After four days off, Chris Ashley is working away over there on the list (seventeen emails today so far), answering all lingering questions (even the mean ones) with the utmost patience and tact. He is a one-man good will squad for weblogs in the face of a hostile and/or uncomprehending audience. Jesus said, turn the other cheek to him who smiteth you and Chris says "Now, if I really wanted to engage in a long range, fully archived, multi-view, searchable discussion with a bunch of colleagues, sure, I'd probably go with the list."
Again, we have all that here at Digital Media Tree (except for the multiview, but only because no one asked for it) and we don't have to sort through, save or delete emails every time someone posts. Oh, should I stop saying that, so as not to hurt the list subscribers' feelings?
- tom moody 6-16-2005 4:24 am
In the interest of completeness, here is the "final straw" email and the email I sent asking to be unsubscribed from the empyre list. It was that dude Henry Warwick again, the one I made fun of my page, and a more pompous condescending spew I simply cannot imagine. As Kyle McLachlan says in Blue Velvet, "Why are there people like Frank Booth in the world?" I found myself helpless before this tripe--I could only ask for mercy to be spared having to read any more of it. The italicized comments are Warwick's:
On Jun 15, 2005, at 3:57 PM, Chris Ashley wrote:
>
> I think this is a really good point, and one worth
> acknowledging and repeating. Don't confuse the tool's
> current application with its potential. There was the
> early dream by some of the web's democratizing
> capability- that citizens will be more involved and
> empowered. If that was the case George W. would not
> be president.
Indeed. I was working at Macromedia from 1995 - 1998 doing tech support
for FreeHand, fontographer, and then Dreamweaver. When they first
acquired the engineers for Dreamweaver and I was trained on how to
support it, I thought it was amazing - kind of like "Quark Xpress" for
the web. Then at a company-wide shindig at Pajaro Dunes Resort, (those
were the days....) in between massive all night drinking binges, we
actually got together in groups and discussed the products etc. I'll
never forget my supervisor's look when we were talking about
Dreamweaver - he had a great smile, as he thought "A great
democratisation - everyone will be able to make a web page - oh the
beauty..."
then his eyes widened, and he said
"oh, the horror...EVERYONE will make a webpage..."
and sure enough: within months a million pictures of pets were scanned,
record collections listed, etc. Oh. The Horror.
But then, I was on a list that shut down not long ago because the topic
of conversation for a week was "List all the crap on your desk". The
List Owner threw a fit and killed the list. I thought it was kind of
cool, myself...
> The web has leveled the playing field
> for easy entry, but the discipline of practice and the
> place of the author filter out the good from the bad.
I dunno. I tend to think people find an audience or vice versa. Good or
bad - I dunno - depends on the audience I suppose. Discipline is a
means to an end and not an end in itself - but practice is a good thing
as it creates consistency. I think the author gains more from a
practice than the audience.
SVM wrote:
>> blogs m.body a perspective of elementary content
>> alteration in a melange of
>> communication dynamics driven/governed by economic
>> rationalism + blanket
>> perspectivism.....
I would like some elaboration on that, myself. It sounds intriguing,
but has a scent of philological obscurantism + blanket reductionism...
> And Nietzsche's idea that truth depends on our
> prespective? Yes.
Hmmm- so then solipsism is the only verifiable truth structure?
Somehow, I don't think you'd agree with that, but it's a risk of
relativist arguments going back to - oh jeeepers - a long way.
Besides - Nietzsche was crazy.
;-)
HW
And my unsubscribe request (a scream for help--emailed to the empyre list earlier tonight)
Michael, Melinda, anybody...
Will you please unsubscribe me from the list? This is getting really
painful, getting these horrible emails...
Chris is doing his best to answer questions and gets these "I dunno... I
dunno" answers from this blowhard.
Such condescension, and the moderators don't do anything to stop it.
So many emails that are rude and condescending to the (remaining) guest.
I can't stand reading these emails anymore! Nothing substantive is being
said, it's a nightmare! Release me from this prison!
Best, Tom Moody
- tom moody 6-16-2005 6:14 am
spoiler: if youve been surprised by the lack of professionalism by the members of the empyre group and have tuned the whole thing out, read no further. i submit an excerpt from a response to yesterdays posts by the remaining two guest list participants (toms post was the above refd resignation letter) :
>Perhaps it is an American trait to respond with swift and overwhelming force when
>dealing with any perceived threat, but it would benefit us all if we attempt to understand
>those who "threatened" us, encourage them to further explain their opinions and
>engage them in active, healthy and civil discussion. Shock & Awe clearly doesn't work.
>One of the beautiful things about this discussion group is the rigorous critical discourse
>generated by the diversity of its participants. If the guests choose to respond by
>dropping out or engaging in pissing contests or calling participants "cunts"...well, there's
>always next month. It would be terrible if people felt unable to express sincere opinions
>here, for fear of offending or whatever. Artists censor themselves too often
>anyway, and that's the most dangerous censorship of all.
i dont know the exact number of members of this list. i may have heard the number 500? but based on the lack of moderator and fellow list participant counter argument to statements of this sort we can only assume that they all concur. its far from a shock and awe response to walk away from what has steadily revealed to be a group driven by an extant undercurrent of chicken shit american artist baiting. withdrawal seams the only dignification this group deserves.
- bill 6-16-2005 3:55 pm
it is unfortunate that many list members are not countering remarks of such generalisation against specific people. i fear the same factors that caused the initial fracture of this months discussion are responsible for this kind of remark i.e. splitting people into groups - 'you are blog users, you are list users - you are americans, you are.. not americans' (i suppose, in this case?)
this kind of lumping into generic group types never works, people are far more diverse than this.
living and working in england i am not fully aware of what the rest of the world feels 'english' people are like. sure there are stereotypes but my stiff upper lip forbids me to acknowledge them.
joking aside, it's the expected perception of a type of person that seems to have marred what should have been a very good discussion about a genuinely interesting, creative, and prolific medium/platform.
bill, have you posted something to the list regarding that anti-american remark? i think withdrawing is not the best way. i'm not saying you have to fight back with cutting remarks and insults, but stand your ground. you have the opportunity to voice your opinion as much as they have.
i also think the lack of response to the comment might be due to people not actually reading it? the list seems to be turning people off?
tom, don't unsubscribe, we could still save the list. people are joining in now who actually want to talk about the work.
- rich (guest) 6-16-2005 5:17 pm
oh, and as i always say... i hate the way everyone generalises!
- rich (guest) 6-16-2005 5:18 pm
rich - i failed to include in my posts the exceptions, you are a hell of a nice guy. re walking, im just saying that no one should feel obligated to put up with that kind of crap. responding only in terms framed, offered or deemed acceptable by the group, seams needy and ill-deserved at this point.
- bill 6-16-2005 5:47 pm
Rich, sorry to you and the other cool people on the list things didn't work out. Thanks, Bill, for re-posting that parting shot from the list about "American traits"--it gave me a good laugh this morning. I got a note from Melinda, one the moderators, and the apology was appreciated, but I wish she could have avoided the self-backpatting and "blaming the victim" language:
- tom moody 6-16-2005 6:17 pm
I have closed this comment thread (the spammers found it and wanted to chime in). If anyone has any follow-up to this please email me and we'll start a new topic.
- tom moody 3-12-2007 7:56 pm