Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Really great, Gerard.  Thanks for reposting it here.
  

    
I remember when you first posted that, Gerard.  I still like it.
And it also sort of sums up and uses past tense, which is the aspect of
having a history written about us that has prompted most people to wince.

There will never be another time when we have to explain what a modem is
and assert that it is possible to carry on a rich relationship
electronically, that part really is past.  But the "certain sort of
person that was also weird, difficult, kludgy and crashprone"  still is
weird, difficult, kludgy and crashprone...  and can also be generous, 
empathetic, solid, enduring and weirdly patient.    

For that reason, there is still a lot of magic.  And still a sense of
place which Lori and others step into for the first time every day, having
the opportunity to notice what a long strange trip it may still continue
to become. Something inexplicable is always happening.
 
  

    
Katie, what kinds of questions are you getting at readings?  What
expectations do people seem to have if they haven't read the book yet and
don't know the WELL?
  

    
That wasn't just Mark Graham's Moscow-SF teleport, it was the brainchild
of my friend Joel Schatz, one of the few true wizards I have met in this
life.  And that is how the Well is -- it cross-connects all kinds of
cross-connections that we never would otherwise know about.

As for the epic story of the Well, perhaps among us there is the Proust
or Pynchon or LeGuin who could really do justice to it in the long form.

And that's kind of the point -- it would have to be fiction molding a
story largely based on actual events that either occurred or could have.
  

    
La Recherce du Réponses Perdu


(Also, what Gail asked.)
  

    

Gail, I've been getting quite a few questions along the lines of "Why
the Well? Why then? Why so intense? Has it/can it be replicated?" etc
etc.

One person asked, interestingly enough, "Was the Tom/Nana relationship
also physical?" Or something to that effect....
  

    
!!!
  

    
> Why _Shockwave_Rider_?

               Brunner                     WELL

       cooperative community       run for years by the 
                                    Farm's own (figtex)

       located in California              ditto

        influence based on
      electronically mediated             ditto
           communication

        connection protected     (since ineternet connection)
         by software 'worm'     connection via network designed
                                    to survive nuclear war

       instrumental in turning
        the balance of power              we try
         back to the people
  

    

Or check out the computer in "Arrive At Brandywine" by R.A. Lafferty, that
will make you smile.  One problem with being on The WELL for a while is that
at first you scratch your head and search for a metaphor for The WELL, then 
later just about everything starts to fit.

I attended a concert with a piece composed by Elinor Armer with author 
Ursula LeGuin called "The Great Instrument of the Geggerets"
which envisions a world that depends on its inhabitants continuing to
make music togther, or it will sink.  Listen to that without thinking of 
The WELL.
  

    

Was that Epikt, the same computer Lafferty used in "What Was the Name of
That Town?"? That was one great story and one great computer. 
  

    
Yeah, Epikt is a major character in "Arrive At Brandywine" which is about
enlightenment and/or the failure thereof and other adventures in the weird
Lafferty manner.
  

    
Katie, is this the longest-lasting conversation you've had on the
WELL? Would you rather do a book signing in a rough neighborhood?

I'm going to be at your Book Passage gig in the fair county of Marin,
birthplace of the w.e.l.l. I'll be interested to hear what people from
the community's geographical home turf have ask.

Some think that rehashing the past is sappy and self-indulgent, but
before we humans became so "sophisticated" the oral history was a big
deal. This is part of our group history and the history of a culture,
so EXCUUUUSE MEEEEE if we share it for the umpteenth time. I learned a
lot from the WELL experience. Not much about making money, but a lot
about people. And there is a lot of universality in the Mandel story,
regardless of the online locale of much of it. I mean, it's not A
Christmas Carol with Tiny Tim, but it is a story of conflict, tragedy
and redemption. Heck, your reading part of it brought a tear to David
Gault's eye - not a trivial feat.
  

    

I was reading the book last night and had a similar reaction.  It's
really good to learn about Matthew McClure's role.  He comes off really
well,  and he never talks about that stuff.  
  

    
i think i *am* doing a booksigning in a rough neighborhood ;-)

a christmas carol with tiny tim?
  

    
Katie - How normalizing to know that you have dreams as bizarre as
mine.  Only differences are: mine never ever ever ever feature Brooke
Shields; and I tell them to my shrink, not a seven-year-old daughter,
and his reaction is, unfortunately, much less lyrical than your
daughter's.  

I'm reading your book and it's fascinating.  Especially in light of my
own experience having a discussion topic on the WELL for the first
time. Interesting to be part of a community, then log off and read your
book. 

I'm starting to feel attached to the WELL.  I'll say to people, "Hey,
I'm a guest on the WELL this week."  And if the reply is, "What's the
WELL?" I become annoyed with this person.  I'll say, in a
not-so-pleasant tone, "You don't KNOW what the WELL is?!"  It's like
the person just said he/she had voted for George W.  
  

    
<stdale>, aha, so there are "lurkers."  Good to know.  
  

    

Oh yes, many more lurkers than posters.  We keep track of them. g <blair.>
and take a look at the statistics.

Lori, I just want to say that one of the things that is very compelling
about the WELL is getting a lot of response to what one posts.  Attention
is the currency of the WELL.
  

    
#234 and #236:  Are you referring to R.A. Lafferty's novel "Arrival
at _Easterwine_?"
  

    
Katie, sorry for the unexpected contextual leap. A Christmas Carol.
Charles Dickens. Ebeneezer Scrooge. Bob Cratchit and his crippled son,
Tiny Tim.

I only mentioned it because Tom could be such a cynical Scrooge for
much of his time on the WELL - albeit a Scrooge with a biting sense of
humor. But as he came to grips with his mortality he opened the door to
a much more generous acceptance of MOST peoples' personal faults. I
don't remember Scrooge telling anyone to "shovel your
self-aggrandiizing sentiments up your wide ass sideways" but that may
have been because Scrooge was not much of a comedian.
  

    

My first real life impression of Tom:  at a Barlow birthday party in
SF,  we were chatting next to a table where sat a Mac with a "WELL"
icon on the screen.  He asked "how's the system running?"  I grabbed
the mouse and moved the WELL icon over to the trash can,  and said
"it's down."   He freaked and said "Don't Do That!"  
  

    
Aside to Lenny -- you are right.  Misremembered the title.  (And I was
just thinking about how various threads of sixties counter culture PLUS
science fiction were important to the community here and how fortunate
or inevitible it was that I had had a history of involvement in both
when I arrived here.)  Arrive at Easterwine. Duh.  Thanks for the
correction.

Tom's death did have a sense of grace and redemption about it. But
tigereye was not the only one who was only partially moved and wanted
to make amends in her own terms.  I know some others did not post and
stayed away from his goodbye topic, or who grumbled about it
elsewhere.  And I felt honored to be invited to his funeral, only to
learn later that to some my appearance there meant that others on staff
didn't care.  So the grace and redemption was kind of localized, I
guess.  That's one of the odd things about communities, we don't all
arrive at any understanding together.

One of the hard things about the WELL is that we have a sort of
universal uncontext going on.  Now and then a topic is so strong that
we get consensus, we are all sitting in the same room, or all players
creating the common scene on an empty stage, and then someone comes by
who is not expected or welcome by the visible participants, or who
doesn't notice or accept the tenuous consensus reality that has been
built.

It's particularly vivid in beams or obits topics, where prayer or grief
or well-wishing is expected.  Even mild criticism in that context can
cause a strong reaction.  I thought Tom's outburst quoted in your book
was a variation on that phenomenon which we see in many forms.  And it is
a real attention grabber in the book.

For the imaginary sequel, some of the things to explore are how that
shifting sense of context and norm has worked. And how unwritten
understandings are enforced and violated, the nature of "raiding" with
a shift of context and how destructive that can be to a conversation
even though it seems irrational. Also the story of the planning and 
creation of The River in more detail all around (including the reactions 
of Bruce Katz and the WELL staff,) and some of the social shifts around
the technology shifts, such as connecting to the Internet, launching the 
makeconf tool and independent conferences, and ending the ISP relationship.
Also, I think there are some articulate people with a lot to say about 
the WELL's huge gift to the world in terms of defining discussion hosting 
(rather than moderating), something which Cliff's book helps to solidify, 
but which has been a big influence on the world.  More stories, more
ideas, and not all of them would have to be expressed in science fiction
or epic poetry.  
  

    

More ideas for the imaginary sequel - a discussion of all the user-built
tools and scripts that we've all come to rely on.
  

    
Katie, at the end of the book you seem to imply, strongly, that the WELL's
"glory days" are long gone and that these days it's more or less a faded
hippie backwater -- as someone posted earlier, the Bolinas of the Internet.
But that's emphatically not my experience. I joined the WELL 9 years ago and
have been told I'm an "old-timer," and yet almost all the events in your
book happened before my time. Does that mean I missed the good stuff? I
certainly don't think so. Which makes this conversation not a little
amusing.
  

    

>one of the things that is very compelling about the WELL is getting a lot of
>response to what one posts.

And, conversely, learning not to take it too hard when youi DON'T get the
response you were looking for.
  

    <scribbled by castle Thu 14 Jun 01 10:16>