Apr 2000, 7 entries

how to make the web beautiful. when it’s such a mess. torn and disconnected, no two pages ever touching each other. they might as well be on differnet planets. and yet we flitter between them like they were pages in a book. a series of. words. and we put them together.

it would be apt to analogize this into some metaphor or another. cause that’s what i do. this is like this. is like this. the web is, as freeproton says, a huge city, a scrawling world full of elevated morals and pathetic blahs. or maybe it’s a spider web. or maybe it’s a fisherman’s net. or maybe it’s a long highway. looks like i’ve been beaten to the metaphorical punch on this one. in fact, we rarely talk about the net literally: 1024×768 640×480 red blue yellow rectangle dots squares and lines between 64 and 2 million colors. what eamon said.

focus. what is this. what is it that we’re trying to make beautiful. and what have we pushed out of the frame and are releasing to the world to be made beautiful by someone else. not us. even michelangelo focused on the ceiling and not the walls. let someone else do the walls. or let someone else make the soundtrack, i’ll just direct.

focus. the beauty will be contained. on the web, and in each individual mind. just like depression is contained in a single head. i walk by the depressed every day, i see their head float within 2 or 3 feet of mine, and yet the depression doesn’t jump out and leap in my ear. sometimes. other times it’ll shoot across a plaza and hit me square on the bridge of my nose. like when the couple was on a blind date and i saw them scrambling for a conversation about barbeques. what tasted good smoked. aim, shoot, i have the depression.

so beauty is aimed and shot. it exists across the plaza and then it exists within you. i have a three hour interview with four people tomorrow morning for the web development position.

does connectivity have anything to do with it. maybe not in the literal sense. one sentence doesn’t have to acknowledge the one before, one pixel doesn’t have to reflect the one below. but if you take them all, and focus, it should make sense.

i smoked a cigar the other night. then i drove out on the super highway and focused on the depression in 2 million colors.

what if every comment in the right nav area was an actual object that touched me and irreversibly altered my trajectory through life. every comment you left steered me to or away from wherever i might have gone otherwise.

freeproton says i need to relax, yesterday.

so i will. relaaaax. focus on focusing. here is what i think. beauty on the internet—who has mastered it?

the internet space is primarily two-dimensional—every web layout can be defined in <tr>s and <td>s, even if they’re a one to one coorespondence.

columns and rows. heights and widths. widthths. i want to make the web beautiful. to pay it the same attention that painters give the canvas that writers give the page.

who will come along and start the genre. do any of you have any ideas on how to make the web beautiful? please write to me with your ideas, or add them to the review bar on the right. perhaps this entry should be on the sinceritybird side of things, but it’s not set up yet.

you know, yesterday i registered and paid for do.com. it was available. but by the time my card was charged it was taken. or maybe it was a bug. imagine me on do.com.

is there really the potential for innovation in the web space—as far as pleasing to the eye is concerned. when will html be as flexible as the pen, and as colorful as the brush.

see, i’m relaxing. normally, i would never let such poetical nonsense slip through the code. the little paragraphs present sincerity as it could be, if i were the kind who was sincere. but i’m not. it’s not me.

i’m feeling much more calm over here. i want to make a clean break from the ianomalous stuff, but then i guess i shouldn’t have moved the entries over. oh well. i wonder what kind of people i’ll meet over here.

today i was talking about how different people deal with the public differently. a whole big deep thoughtful analysis and stuff was going on. some people despise the public, some people are the public, and some people interact with the public. in my head i see myself as someone who doesn’t despise the public (hence while i’m still around and some and others aren’t) but who often has scenario in head in which i am watching something that i know other people are despising but which i think is all a little funny. almost like there’s somebody watching with me where we’re sharing a private joke.

okay so i got all up in arms about liza’s list, especially from people who don’t want to be reminded that they have no reason to live. the problem with the general public is that there are by nature of the concept just so many of them. and for some reason i feel like i need to have a conversation with you(plural). what brings this on. if i want to make a clean break from anonymous and ianomalous, then i’ll have to stop thinking about you guys. and here’s my chance. don’t respond erik. okay.

but still, i want to say that my list, if i were to make one, and post it here, would have the very distinct characteristic of making people laugh (for being outrageous, not because it would have lots of puns and witticisms, cause i’m against that). i once told a father of a girl that i was friends with (the same father who accused me of corrupting her daughters’ mind, the same father who called me a “new age freak” and who wrote me accusing letters about how i was questioning too many things in the bible) that i wanted to be the second greatest person to walk the planet (after jesus).

it was during a rather urgent and irrevocable period in my life—shortly after my father died, and i was reading st. francis and tolstoy and dostoyevski and meister eckhart and such. the funny thing i remember thinking then, and still think, is that he only hated me more for saying that because it was obvious that he didn’t have one smidgen of ambition to be anything but a person who lived a middle class comfortable life and who got up in arms about the devilish effect of pink floyd music (in fact, he got a friend from out of town to come to our church and give an entire seminar on the devilish effect of pink floyd music just for my benefit). thanks. it’s easy to hate people with stupid dreams, i understand that.

anyway, my list doesn’t currently have being the second greatest person to walk the planet on it anymore—although that’s probably just weakness on my part to fully embrace the real purpose of this life or something. because the more i think about jesus (this being the day after easter and all) the more i think that his ability to enrage the authorities and hang out with the taxpayers and such while at the same time doing good is sort of what i feel like i do best (on an admittedly much smaller scale—you being the taxpayers, and diaryland being the defiled temple, i assume).

and anyway, my focus can use some work. if there’s one thing on my list, it’s focus. to, when running, feel the pain in my legs rather than listen to a walkman. to, when eating, taste the food in my mouth. to, when using words, take in all their meaning, and reflect the double triple quadruple meanings into separate equally valuable buckets. to, when talking, feel the words entering my ear and taste the words coming out. to notice things that aren’t directly or indirectly tied to my current train track of thought. all without the help of drugs, presumably. and, along with all of that, to become an expert in both receiving the given things into myself as i’m focusing, and to focus on creating and giving the same things back. at the moment, i’m assuming the medium will be book, or business. not sure which, and it probably doesn’t matter.

the only problem, is the public. there are too many of you, and very few people who are actually focusing on the same things—so there’s this world full of important interesting things, and they’re being ignored. that’s it for my responding. only me me me now.

today has been a depressing day. two people who i work with quit. and then there’s this list that i happened upon, which is a list of things that one of our fellow diarylanders has made. the point of it (and isn’t that nice about things we make—they usually have a point. too bad we didn’t make this life) is to write down all the things one wishes to accomplish during their life. so that when you’re sixty you can go back and review and see how many of the things were done. i cannot believe how little ambition or desire to do anything you people have. please, somebody tell me this is a joke:

1. give blood as often as i can until i’m too old to do it and still be healthy.
2. spend at least six months in a country where i don’t speak the language.
3. learn that language! (duh.)
4. work with americorps or the peace corps.
5. have sex with kevin spacey. (just kidding!)
6. adopt.
7. beat scott at trivial pursuit. this should be no problem.
8. hike the appalachian trail. the whole thing.
9. read the complete works of t.s. eliot, edgar allen poe, and emily dickinson.
10. go to south of the border.
11. visit every country in the world! and every state in the united states. (the second part shouldn’t be too hard. the first would definitely be a challenge.)
12. learn how to cook REALLY WELL.
13. figure out how to actually line up “dark side of the moon” and “the wizard of oz” correctly. (this means the movie can’t have commercials, and i have to use the CD, not the tape!)
14. see all of these movies.
15. read all of these books.
16. volunteer once a week, at LEAST.

with the exception of 11 you could probably do all of those things in a single year. and then die. maybe that’s what you’re planning. but if not, what will you do with the other thirty odd years—things that are no better than learning a foreign language and learning how to cook a good caserole as you pop in another dvd? please, everyone, if you make a list like this, don’t show it to me or i’ll have to feel sorry for you, and i’m too busy feeling sorry for myself right now.

erik

dear anonymous, it is the url. the url is the literature of our generation—it encapsulates the grit and pulp from the centermost part of the word we call fruit. of the fruit we call word.

How Not To Write A Url by anonymous

A url must not be longer than 2000 words. If so, the essense that distinguishes a url from, say, an essay (or any other of the longer amateurish forms of literature) is lost.

A url must not contain fancy punctuation. Do not begin your url with a pound sign (#) or any of the other non-ascii characters that have snuck their way into our otherwise beautiful language. Dashes (-) and Underscores (_) are common and are only to be used by those who also use asterisks (*) and blinking text as a way of distinguishing their important words from their less important words. In a url, there are no unimportant words.

A url must not be an oxymoron. Urls such as sadhappy.com, beautifulmess.com, paganpriest.com, superior.diaryland.com, etc will not be accepted for a grade.

A url must not describe its partner site. Urls such as auctionuniverse.com, buy.com, greatdomain.com, etc will only be as good as the site, and words need to transcend the subject it is describing in order to meet the criteria for being considered as literature.

A url does not represent a site, but rather the opposite way around. The site is the means by which the author justifies his use of the url.

A url cannot be the name of an existing brand. No, you cannot use barnesandnoble.com, gap.com, ticketmaster.com, or mtv.com. As existing brand names, they have no literary value, and although they may be worth money, they do not have souls.

If you are an owner of an existing brandname (such as pepsi.com) you have to use it—you cannot create a new brandname and expect people to like it. You should get yourself out of the business of writing literature and back into whatever business you were previously building.

A url cannot sound as if it was only chosen because the real url you wanted was already taken. Why would anyone choose ianomalous.com unless anomalous.com was already taken? Why would anyone take anomalous.com unless anonymous.com was already taken? Would anyone have chosen anomalous if it did not rhyme with previously held name anonymous? We thought not.

A url cannot sound witty. Wit can only be read once, and by definition literature must be read over and over again, getting richer with each new read. So don’t even try to register dairyland.com or jarjarsucks.com because not only are they already taken, but it’s not funny anymore.

A url cannot be a literary reference. There is no point in saying, yeah, my site is “girlyouknowitstrue.com”, you know, after the milli vanilli song “Girl You Know It’s True”. Because literature must not need to have qualifications unless you happen to be T.S.Boring.Elliot.

A url cannot be named after a pop icon. By nature, a url cannot be a fan site, cause if it is, it will only be as valuable as the pop icons. And everybody knows that Christina Aguilera is much better than Britney Spears, but both will be dead in 200 years, whereas good literature will not.

A url cannot be your name. Erikbenson.com is not taken, but neither did I take it merely for that fact. The url is a more pure form of literature than the name (being one word rather than two) and therefore should not imitate it.

There is nothing cleaner, more perfect, and more powerful than the url. However, there are so many things to consider and counterweigh in the process of writing a url that you cannot expect to write a good url in less than a dozen years. Ulysses took 7 years to write, and the url is greater than Ulysses so should take longer than 7 years to write. A good url, in fact, has not yet been written. Not enough time has passed in order for a true innovator in the genre of urls to be born.

Neither am I an innovator in the genre of the url. But consider me a student of the genre. In four or more years, I will graduate with the dream of writing the Great American URL, like so many other hopeful youth. I will devote my life to it, and so it will bear the fruit of my patience and dilligence when one day people will enter my url into the ranks of the great gatsby, of catcher in the rye, of anna karenina, of crime and punishment, of lolita, and others—only higher than even them because, of course, all of those pieces of literature break at least one of the requirements I have outlined above.

Stay tuned.

Love,
anonymous

oh what a surprise, an entry about diaries themselves. will erik continue to amaze the lazy, tickle the bored, and bring tears to the eyes of babies? just wait til you get a look at this line-up!

the kids wonder why they’re born dead, straight from cleveland!

i think that’s just about the best piece of literature i’ve ever read. plain beautiful.

and here’s a conversation with my mentor, it’s not even that difficult of a riddle to figure out who’s saying what:

of course you don’t have a humble opinion of yourself.
> it would be ridiculous to even think otherwise.

good, i’m glad you see it that way too. amazing isn’t the best description i can offer. you’re driving a hard bargain. don’t make me pull out the word, “fantabulous.” oh boy, these words are so fickle fackle dead on a rackle.

Ah, I dug it up.

Very interesting. Interesting that he would credit you without doubt for a feat you think you aren’t capable of doing when he always seems to think he understands . Interesting that an identity can be stolen so
easily. I don’t think it’s as interesting that you don’t know if you could have bested me as me, because that makes sense. Unless you truly knew me better than I know myself (quite tough to do from merely a net-based
perspective), and then at that point I feel like we’ve landed in a philosophical mess.

Addressing it as a “simple game” is a questionable method of truly taking
>>credit for it. So was it really a good, creative and shit thing?
>
>it was good, i don’t know if it was as creative for you since you were just
>being you—unless you were pretending to be me pretending to be you, which
>would be creative, but only if you pulled it off. i can’t tell. it just
>sounds like you to me.

is there actually a point when people become so
>dysfunctional they don’t know they are dysfunctional?
>isnt that called mentally unstable(crazy?)? I, for
>one, don’t want to ever cross that line. and is that
>the case for all things? do you ever become so smart
>you stop realizing you’re smart? or so mean you stop
>realizing you’re mean? i doubt that.

there is a point where we are so deep into something that we forget we’re even in it. yes, it is called mentally unstable, but it’s also called being crazy, being smart, being mean, rather than just trying to be in this world where we can try to be anything. i want to ultimately be the adjectives i now just imitate.

What you read is true truth, it all happened, and whatnot. However, I made sure I bit myself (note the opening) and did my typical things, like link back to myself and do “note to self” type stuff—things I find myself repeating
often, things I figured you would catch on to and assimilate. The nun image was something I made sure I harped on more than I would normally since it could be read into in so many ways and you have told your own stories in “i, soandso” (Sheepish, at least) entries and certainly are one for religious (Christian) overtones, so I was just lucky to run into a nun, and one thing led to another.

also good use of putting whatnot in there, to make me
>realize how silly and trite it sounded? useless even?

Since you are probably the diary I link most often, I made sure I got a “no meta-content” (not to mention meta-meta-content) remark in as a final zing. So really, I don’t know if I was you being me (perhaps partially, but not with a fine tooth comb), but I was doing what I think you do in your “i, whoever” entries while still telling what happened to me and what I was thinking about it. With that in mind, my guess is that it was probably somewhat creative, but it left a lot open to you in that department.

the creative part is really what i did (or didn’t do). it would’ve been

Where “didn’t do” is “not deny doing it?” I think it would have been really creative to have gone the extra Diaryland-head-fucking route and written an “i, jordan” entry in your diary discussing how you went about
creating this super-accurate rendition.

creative if i did it cause it would’ve been creating something in
>jordan-esque langue without actually being jordan-esque. being, in itself,
>is not creative. anyway. but it was good.

I agree about being. Thanks. It’s unfortunate that you stopped doing those entries, the concept was good. But you are also right in that people seemed to not really think much about them (or whatever it is that would have given you return pleasure).

Certainly you don’t think of yourself as someone so
>one dimensional they can’t accept cruelty as a part of
>who they are. You’re in it for the money.

you’re right. i’m cruel and i know it, but it’s not cruelty really in the true sense of the word—or maybe there is no true sense of the word. there is the complicated sense and the simple sense. and i’m trying to get away from the simple sense.

the money part may be the single value indicator available to us and i already make more money than i know what to do with. the next step in my money career would be the point where i had enough to retire and travel and write for the rest of my life. until then, i’ll be pretty much living the same life that i’m living now. i don’t want a house, i don’t want two cars, i don’t want slaves and junk cluttering up my living room.

I don’t think you necessarily want
>people to dislike you, i really don’t know what you
>want. maybe you want people to like you for your
>whole self, including the times that you are mean?

hm. i don’t know if it’s quite that. i want people to like me enough to challenge me, to see that i’m worth a challenge, and to dare me to go one step further than i’ve gone before. i’m running with a wheelbarrow in my hands, wanting you to run alongside me even faster, forcing me to catch up. then, i’ll give you the wheelbarrow. and i’ll race alongside you and do the same. we need to go faster and farther than we would by ourselves.

Where “long time” is…? Why is it that my being a boy ties into my being
>on the sidelines (as the “so” implies)? If I were a girl, would that
>change things?

with your first and second email i pictured you to be a boy, until the end of the second with your name. that may have potentially hurt the conversation.

haha you didn’t hurt the conversation, but i feel like i’m taking
>the quiz now. am i going to be amazing enough? am i making any
>sense? your writing is more concise, should i edit? am i being
>boring? i am boring as Hell.

Must we be recognized for our work?
>
>sure, why not? are you that modest really.

Alright, I admit that statement has its bullshit factor, but I don’t think the online diary should be done for recognition if one wants to get the most out of it. Most of the time it just ends up getting you in “real
life” hot water when you shoot your mouth off about your journal to people you actually know in the interest of accelerating recognition. Here you are afforded a practically blank slate from which to garner reactions and—as you well know—perform social experiments.

like art, interesting. i guess it’s sort of performance art. social experiments,
>as your friend calls them.
>and here’s what you can do with the million billion: buy yourself Beautiful,
>either for your own face or just to feed your eyes. buy yourself
>distractions and illusions instead of working so hard to make them
>yrself.

So then I suppose it comes down to how much you care about whoever it is that cares to complement you, and how much you close the distance. Complements are nice; complements with context (this seems to be tangential to the objects and meaning thread all of a sudden) are more meaningful. Online communications tend to have poor contexts since all you get is what the other person chooses to give you (we can’t rewrite running into each other on the bus, but we sure can revise our emails), and Diaryland is no exception. I think the next entry I write will have something about natural and unnatural interactions. We were all part of this transition as the net came into existence; it wasn’t a presence there at the beginning for us as it is now for the next generations. So when will people find this “natural,” if ever? Now I feel like I should be writing in Doja as I did here

Why do you feel compelled to always
>>talk about how you are doing your diary for others (even if you
>>aren’t really)? What if you stopped trying to make the reader wonder how
>>trustworthy a narrator you are and instead just narrated?
>
>that would imply that there’s value in narration, and that the narrator
>values the events, the story, more than the fabric that makes up the story,
>the person that tells the story. i want the person, the people, the fear,
>the the the. i don’t necessarily want to narrate, what i want to do is kick
>people, like you do.

why do i poke people? if you were a kid in a kindergarten room and everyone was asleep on their little blue mats but you had had a triple shot mocha and were from out of town and the teachers had died, wouldn’t you want to kick and poke and punch the people until they were awake and forced to leave their smiley dreams and see the dead teachers? maybe not. but that’s just me.

I think it’s like this: a good story is pulp, and good fabric needs a framework (and either needs to be very good when standing alone). But if you have a good story of good fabric—then you’ve got something, and your
narration is worth something outside of just telling tales. Your Kingdome lying business (I hesitate to call it a story or narration) is a good proof of your point about narration, however. I respect that, but I think the
problem is that you can only go on so long saying “Check out how tricky I am” before the act collapses (you seem to be aware of this too).

But you want to kick people. That’s too easy. You could kick people all day long without putting any thought into it. And making people.dl and a nice CGI diary and all of this does not speak of someone not putting thought into things. So what is it you really want to do? Do you mean “kick people into waking up?”

you
>don’t write about personal issues so nothing is taken
>on a personal level. and when you are mean you do it
>with style and wit and everybody loves someone with
>style and wit, don’t they? They think it’s Great.

Great. what exactly is Great? saving mankind from their sin? inventing the lightbulb? providing man the means to discover and find anything they want to buy online? revolting? writing anna karenina? helping the poor? raising the value of the buck? what the hell is it? I can’t think of a single Great thing.

it appears that they do like it though. it is sort of strange how i have people that don’t like me, but no real enemies—people who try to hurt me and be better than me in any blatant way. the people that don’t like me merely think i’m a waste of time and effort and leave me alone. it probably gives me a false sense of self since i spend much more around people that like me even though there are fewer of them. enemies are the silent majority.

As for hate, I’d
>>like to know what you think of me on that subject: does what I write
>>indicate that I hate like you do?
>
>nope. but you are detached, disinterested, like me. leads to hate, you
>know.

We’re so passionately disinterested. What is up with that? We talk and think an awful lot for people that don’t care—if that’s really the truth of the matter, regardless of what we tell ourselves or others. How does
your diary change your life, really?

I don’t remember asking you to let your guard down?
>keep it up if you like. i will allow you to stay in
>control of the flow of the conversations, so that when
>you are fed up with me and want to be mean we can make
>it an easy and painless process and you can keep your
>guard up the whole time because i will only take
>things as far as you do.

don’t you see—if you let me control the flow of the conversation it WILL fall apart and self-destruct. that’s where my things always end up—my bonzai tree, my pet oscar, my people pages, etc—and if you want to make yourself vulnerable, or at least feel like you are, you have to put something into this conversation, even drive its direction, as you have already been doing. i don’t even think you meant what you said above. is it a trap? a simple trick? laziness on your part? whatever it was, take it back.

coming next: something creative and blatantly non-controversial.

As you know, our program has been inundated with calls and e-mails regarding yesterday’s show with Maxy Maxine, author of the International Bestseller, “The Last Temptation”. So, for our viewers’ pleasure and, hopefully, to answer their queries, we have Maxy Maxine back today!

Welcome back, Maxine, we are much obliged for this second marvellous opportunity to talk with you.

Oh, you’re welcome, Darla, if my schedule wasn’t so hectic I’d be here whenever you wanted me.

Thankyou, thankyou… and now, I really must ask, because I’m afraid my OWN curiosity has gotten the better of me… did you ever imagine that your book would create such a sensation?

No, not in the least! To be honest with you, I was merely hoping that it wouldn’t be a great disaster— I had such a terribly difficult time convincing my publisher of an established “Internet user” demographic—and my secret anxiety was that of gross miscalculation.

Mm, mm… And so, Maxine, tell us… for it’s the question on everybody’s lips: What do you make of this fuss over Chapter Seven?

Darla, I’m stunned, quite frankly. Samplings and pre-release reviews had led us to confirm our personal, original assumptions—that is, that Chapter 11, on Cybersex, would be the focus of any and all public debate—for obvious reasons. And Chapter Seven? What is Chapter Seven, but a brief overview of the newly emerging research field of Net Typography? The incredible response we witnessed after yesterday’s interview took me by complete surprise.

Mm, mm… Yes, yes. Well, I must put some of our viewers’ questions to you, and see if we can unravel the mystery here.

Yes, Darla, please go ahead.

The number one question has, of course, been regarding Chapter Seven. In fact, it’s not so much a question, as a request for more information… Over one thousand, eight-hundred viewers have asked: Can you possibly extrapolate on your “Definition of a Kiss”?

Well, briefly, I was simply using the example of the word, “kiss”, to demonstrate the value and interesting nature of Net Typography.

Yes, your petite example was fascinating, and it’s left us all wanting to know more. Might you explain further? Taking the same example… The word “kiss.”, with a period immediately following it; what does this mean, in your examination?

Oh, this is the loveliest interpretation—the period subsequent to the word grants the theoretical action sincerity and thought. In other words, the author of the word wishes to convey the sentiments, “I would dearly love to kiss you, if I could. I care for you, sincerely.” It is pre-meditated—pre-wished—and not a frivolous gesture typed without thought or meaning.

Mm, mm… Please, do go on, this is intriguing. To think that such analyses may be read into the conversational written word! Maxine, indulge us with your thoughts on another extension of the same example… The word “kiss!”, with an exclamation mark immediately following it; what do you make of this?

Oh, this is the sexiest interpretation…. it…

Oh yes, go on! No need for caution in our program, Maxine, don’t hesitate to speak as you will.

Well… It… The exclamation mark lends passion, impulse and energy to the theoretical action. That is to say, in such an instance a “kiss!”—with an exclamation mark—might mean to say, “My god, if I was there right now, I would hold you back in your chair and kiss you hard, climb on top of you while taking off my t-shirt… bite into your throat, then cool the pain, licking from your collar bone, over your neck, up to your cheek and mouth…”

Ah, Maxine! It seems we have to go to an ad break! ....We will be back shortly.