Inkwell: Authors and Artists

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

Or, even worse, when you don't get any response at all.

Which can be a huge let-down when it follows a conversation in which you
got a lot of attention.  
  

    

See <inkwell.vue.107>  :^)
  

    
> the WELL's huge gift to the world in terms of defining discussion
> hosting (rather than moderating)

In recent months there've been many occasions, as cohost of the Energy
conference, when I've needed to remind myself that I'm just a host and
no one expects me to be an expert.  Thankfully!
  

    
I have been trying to impart 15 years of hosting wisdom on another system
lately, without much luck.  There are people who do not believe there can
possibly be any value in a system that costs $15 to join.  Thhat's bass
ackwards from where I sit, but maybe we're b etter off without those people.
  

    
Probably. It's a hard concept to define to others though. I see it
every time I go into another forum though. The flame wars can get
really really bad there - not that we don't have them here but there's
not as much control over them there. There's no control over staying on
topic. We have so much fewer nothing posts to scroll through here.
It's...it's...very hard to define but it's just so much more pleasant
here.
  

    
wThe monthly charge here is apparently a reasonable barrier against the sort
of drive-by bullshit that plagues the places where you don't have to present
a traceable identity when you sign up.
  

    

Yes.  Such an odd counter-intuitive business model.  The barrier to 
entry is a large part of what is valuable about the service.  

That's at least as profoundly complexifying as the fact of the 
customers being the content producers, which is true in all forums.
  

    
Of course, sometimes all the barrier to entry gets us is a more
affluent class of flamers.
  

    
This is true - but the Bozo Filter helps a lot there.
  

    
Did you hear that the original Bozo show finally got filtered?
  

    
Oh, yeah. Saw that. Where did I see that? Yeah. Got canned. Put in the
museum. 
  

    
The barrier to entry at the Farm was, "you gotta sign a vow of
poverty." That served as quite a powerful filter. I'm still paying for
it, but I'm still reaping the rewards from it, too.

Stewart Brand built his brand by being counterintuitive. 
"Let's make a catalog where the readers do the writing."
"Let's have an event where we give away $10,000 even though we don't
pay our employees jack shit."
"Let's have a business where everyone - including me - gets paid the
same minimal rate."
"Let's start a business that charges too little to make a profit." 
  

    

This has been a great topic, Cliff & Katie.  I have a lot of questions I
didn't get to, but one thing I want to do as a reference is to link here
to other places where anyone with a password could talk about the book.  

I think the criticisms of the book have been generally civil, nobody has
been beastly, and the discussions are interesting, though perhaps not as
fun as talking with Katie has been.  Here are the ones I know about...

<archives.290.1239->
(Still also linked to eff.845 media.1359 wired.252, the original WIRED 
Article topic, with new book discussion starting at about post 1239)

Plus
<books.1381>        Yo! There's a book about the Well

And two more very small starts I am aware of...  
<vc.427>  and <metawell.265>

Just for reference.  And for anyone poking around for fun and looking for
an antidote to the heaviness of history, I thought the 16th anniversary topic 
from the Genx conf was cool.  That's <genx.1683> which asks the personal
Q, Where were you when the WELL was born?  

Thanks so much.  It's been provocative, informative and good company, too. 
Not that you have to stop or anything...  this would certianly be the
place for a reminder post about the reading in Marin right before the
WELL's annual July picnic...
  

    

Yes, please do repost the details of your upcoming book appearances,
Katie.

Thanks very, very much to both of you, Katie and Cliff for doing such an
admirable job on a subject that we all feel strongly about.

You are welcome to continue for as long as you like, but the official two
week part of the interview is now over.  Stick around, we'd love to have
you!
  

    

  Thanks from me (over here in the peanut gallery) as well!
  

    

Thanks, too, from another peanut.
  

    
A book about the Well?

*This* is the book about the Well.

We own our own words.
  

    
Well, no, actually, this is just a taste.

For the real thing see <http://www.well.com/join.html>...
  

    
One of the first treasures I found when I first started reading the old
topics was <tex>'s stories of life on the bus in the archives.  These
are great stories that start with acid trips in Golden Gate Park and the
Monday Night classes that followed, then eventually to buying and
painting the buses, then the idea of driving the buses back home to show
the folks this new world, with the idea that they would understand it
and embrace it, and that would change the world.

A friend of my brothers had returned to Chicago in one of those 
buses.  They also brought a mirror ball and a lot of grateful dead 
music.

Those buses are probably sitting in lots all over the country these
days, but this place is still running, spreading ideas around and
bringing people together.
  

    
Yes.  And the contact high you get from time to time requires no cube,
pane nor square of blotter paper for transmission.  Ideas, visions, 
delusions and affections can get into your brain here, and as time passes 
they ferment and become culture.  (Ah, man, I swore i wasn't going to use 
drug or yogurt analogies again, what have you done?)  

You know, because I came to the WELL from a counterculture context some 
of the most interesting things I first discovered were from the other
side of life..  those amazing submarine stories from Chuck put me into 
a whole nother reality, and still do.  More stories, different kinds of
voices, more humble and not so humble opinions are our life blood.  May 
it continue and outlive us all.  
  

    
And speaking of the old days, does anyone know where "Oakleaf" went? I
think she left many years ago, but was a great help way back when.
  

    <scribbled by castle Fri 22 Jun 01 13:51>
  

    
Thanks.
  

    <scribbled by castle Fri 22 Jun 01 13:52>
  

    

Tonight, at Katie's request, I read a section from The Well
at echo's read-only series at KGB down on 4th Street.

I'd agreed to this in an off-hand way a month or so ago
thinking it would be a slam dunk on my way home one night.

I'd had several sections copied out of the book -- fig and tex
maria wilhelm, katz, the well then, the well now, the idiot founders and
owners ... a host of savvy, trenchant, cynical and amusing
little anecdotes. All nicely bundled and ready to amuse.

But when I got down to it, I realized what I already knew that it
isn't a book about the Well except as a frame. It's a book
about Tom and I knew it would be probably my last chance to
put a little of what I knew of him into a reading that would
be listened to by at least a few people who would intuit
who he was and what his life meant to this still fledgling
and struggling medium.

So at the last minute I found myself compelled to read the
passages about his last days.

I'm usually pretty good at public speaking and reading. Glib,
fast on my feet, a full sheaf of various rhetorical tricks
and techniques, but tonight I don't think I was very good
at it at all. In fact, it was the hardest thing I've done
in years. Easy to introduce and start but becoming progressively
harder to maintian my composure as the whole nightmare
unwound again over a few pages to the obvious ending.

In fact, to my irritation, I sort of lost it a couple of times.
Very unprofessional.

But I did get through it and left immediately, hailed a cab
and went downtown and over the bridge, looking at the whole
city sinking down into night and feeling mawkish and silly
that Tom's been gone since the last century and, yet, grateful
to Katie Hafner that she had seen fit to put what really
mattered about Tom Mandel's life into a book where it will
go on long after all this is erased.