I like to think of myself as somebody who's "with it," "hip,""cool." As I've gotten older, I've taken great pains to befamiliar with the culture around me.
I enjoy the latest movies-- even if they don't have subtitles.
I like the new books except for that hack who typed "The Bridgesof Madison County."
I'm familiar with the new music, even though a lot of it justsounds like warmed over punk.
I'm "now." I'm "wow."
But I have to admit that I've been avoiding entering the world of theInternet. I had little understanding of it other than as some kind ofplot device in a Sandra Bullock movie.
"KA-CHING" went off in my brain when my assistant at Mocha Dazesuggested going on-line, but I decided to follow Aesop's adviceof "Look Before You Leap."
So I let my computer-savvy friend Drew take me by the hand and popmy cyber-cherry.
We started with a discussion of the hows, whys and wherefores ofthe Internet as he handed me magazines that talked about URLs,HTTPs, WWWs, ETC, etc. and we got started.
What a revelation!
I typed a word and searched. Like a stream of consciousness, Istarted with "Rimbaud" which led me to French Writers of the sametime period, then to Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" web page, linked to anovelists page, read interviews with Camille Paglia, Anne Rice andDennis Cooper, linked to Eric Bogosian's Web Page where I ordereda t-shirt, joined an open chat on contemporary theatre, went tothe celebrity gossip on Usenet, and linked up with the alt.nude.celebrities page and downloaded a nasty picture of James Dean.
And it only took four hours.
Cyber punks tell us that computers and their often strange linksopen up new channels of thought, helping us to associate things ina different way than we're used to. As a result, we end up givingour brains a work-out.
It used to be that you had to struggle through "Ulysses" or anyWilliam Burroughs book to do that.
Now you can just go to their Web page.
T.T.F.N.!
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