[Newspoetry] greetings from NYC

[wordwork at shout.net]

William: I'm sitting here with Manhattan correspondent Nick Montfort in
his East Village penthouse with the stunning view of the fire escape.
We've been working on a clandestine elit project, but we keep getting
plagued with the guilty feeling that we should be working on Newspoetry.
Trouble is, we don't know what's been in the news. Ah, today, though, at
St. Mark's Books, in their self-published consignment books section, I did
BUY a newspoem. A self-published, 5.5 * 4.25 rubber-band-bound newspoem
entitled "Flying Over the Fence with Amadou Diallo" by Julien Porier. A
true spineless book, this is all typewritten (not especially immaculately
(the shift key seems to have a problem)) 20 pages in length and sells for
$ .25. Despite its haphazard layout, the poem is quite satisfying. Worthy
of a Newspoetry book review.

Also, we made a slight attempt at lunch to rearrange the words in slogans
for various newspapers and the words to the Pledge of Allegiance, but we
weren't sure it was Newspoetry caliber.

There is really no excuse for us not knowing the news, because the only
thing that is cheaper in NYC than anywhere else in America is the New York
Times, the newspaper of record. I did consider conducting a Newspoetry
interview with Nick to get him to talk about his works of electronic
literature available online, but I was afraid that it would come off as
shameless self-promotion ("junket"?), because, really, that's exactly what
it would be. However, if any of you are interested in reading
"Winchester's Nightmare," a classic work of interactive
text-adventure-styled literary fiction, or "The Help File," a creative
work written in a Microsoft Help File, they are available currently at
http://www.media.mit.edu/~nickm/ soon to be at http://www.nickm.com ... 

Nick: We're pledging our allegiance to NewsPoetry right now, and promise
to take a newspaper to the bar (McSorley's of e.e. cummings's snug and
evil poem) with us to assist the composition process. As we become less
and less composed, we hope to compose some worthy words that enliven
current events.

William: Well, in case we don't manage to have a run-in with NYPD or
write a newspoem tonight, let me just conclude by saying that the weather
here today is somewhat cold. And that's the way it is. And, oh yeah, I
made Newspoetry the default homepage for one of the computers at
Alt.coffee, which has been our office during my stay. You know how
fascinated, after all, New Yorkers are by the midwest.