[Newspoetry] Newspoetry is Y2K Compliant!

[William Gillespie]

0

We might actually run out of days soon. Those who want to squeeze in a
Newspoem this month would do well to notify me, and tell me which day
you would like. Xmas, the 30th, and the 31st are spoken for.
http://www.newspoetry.com/test.html is one way to see what dates are
open.

Scott wants a slot, and Mike and I need to turn his killer Guatemala
essay into a hypertext, Bill has a poem, Mark's fearsomely inventive
mobius poem is still awaiting a competent technical director (Brian?).
Peter has an unfinished poem about governor Ryan, liquor industry
puppet, who was recently applauded by MADD. Ryan in Cuba frowning as he
is photographed in a gesture of humanitarian aid

XMAS will be the Hagy-riffic Sweet Besty Webcast (go Brianbrain go!
digitize it! we should all chip in to get Brian's computer some flowers
by way of thanks). Also I made some noise about making a book of the
year's Newspoems. It's a great idea that would require more work and a
better computer than I can offer at this point. Maybe someday.

30th will be closing credits

31st maybe we can write one over telnet from the party. Or maybe someone
will pen a timeless classic. It's negotiable.

1

Wo, man, this is wonderful. Joseph Marshall Futrelle has consented to
the awesome yet within his capabilites responsibility of taking over my
position as Webmaster, or, to phrase it more accurately, wo,
man-who-keeps-the-thing-updated-daily. Meaning that as of Y2K newspoems
should be sent to the list, or to futrelle at ncsa.uiuc.edu. Also meaning
that we should work together to ease his burden by WRITING NEWSPOEMS.
WRITE NEWSPOEMS. I don't know whether Joe will continue to Index by form
- I'm going to continue my obsession with form in a different hypertext
udnertaking described below  - such decisions should be made based on
what he wants to do, technically and literarily - but I'm still pulling
for multimedia, scanned artwork typing or careful handwriting, sound
image animation color and use of software such as Illustrator, which
allows liberation from the horizontal line.

2

I will help, but want to free myself up to kick off new collaborative
and otherwise hypertext projects. http://www.wordwork.org/  And also my
novel-who-wants-to-be I Will Keep the Home Fires Burning. Also Spineless
Books. And learning how to Salsa Dance. And someday winning a game of
racketball. And going whole days without using a mouse. Ah, after the
work I've put into this thing, including the work that Joe will
effortlessly automate using elegant scripts in exotic tongues such as
Perl. I guess that's a language, but it can't really be called a tongue.
It's not linguistic, it's typographical, life will seem effortless. Stop
me somebody.

So, yeah, those collaborative hypertext projects may include: an
incredibly sophisticated reconfiguring of Table of Forms. An Eclectic
Seizure website compiling everything - text, audio, and a few blurry
photos. (Design Idea, write the titles on cassette tape labels, scan in
the cassettes with the tape pulled slightly free.) And, in my dreams,
Spineless Books could become a real small press with an online ordering
system, books by people other than me, collaboratively wirtten books,
books with actual spines, UPC codes, LOC numbers, ISBN numbers, and an
aggressively anti-consolidation-in-the-publishing-industry stance.

There's more, but those three projects are enough to exhaust anyone's
money, programming acumen, love, hardware that would allow restoration
of old cassettes into clean digital recordings, CD-burners, coffee,
friendship, design ideas, and work.

And the ideas collide: Eclectic Seizure CDs could be sold through
Spineless Books/Unknown Press/Wordwork.org, all of which would be a
tremendously detailed and funline online hypertext and MP3 gallery, with
a featured hypertext project of the week that would accept submissions.
And it could all work together with eliterature dot org and the Chicago
School of Hypertext and handmaderecords dot com, we could buy that
building on Race and Washington, turn it into a
coffeshop/bookstore/performance space/art
gallery/classroom/love-in/book-on-demand press.

Foaming at the hands,
W