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justin hall 18 may 1998 history of the english language craig williamson
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the wyrd of wired
| prologue - penthouse | |
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Read this! We've heard of old king Caligula: ugly in times before these he was rare for sleeping with his sister and battles against the sea. A young Roman, fever rotted his brain, never has a king been so sick and sadistic, killing his most loyal men, and sending senator's wives to slave as whores for mere pennies of common folk; after his sweet sister died, he kept her and moved his manhood within her body then lacking life. | |
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These tales of destructive grandeur moved some men to stage them in modern magnificence, with a motion picture. The scale of this tribute was grand, tall monuments to misguided magnificence stood in Italy in a time of drugs and sex indulgence in the nineteen seventies. Their craft was expansive, they emulated Roman opulence, verging on madness themselves; the project was extended into debt and dissolution. Desperate to find funds, to finish their film and see their work reach the eyes of men, |
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they reached out to a penthouse pornographer, Bob Guccione. He'd taken the technique of a civilized playboy, well groomed women nearly naked, and added naughty wild compromisings - pairings and penises, celebrity women posing in their poorer days, things unseen in polite print, prior to Penthouse. Bob propped up old king Caligula's flick in a manner befitting his dented stature; interspersed amidst the grand acting of Englishmen playing romans, plotless nymphs and studs fingered their genitals and ejaculated without regard for his legacy. |
| 1 - electric words | |
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We know this story as it was shaped before us, by a young prince of media there Louis Rossetto, wearing sneakers with long hair, he sang silently the song of modern Caligula; for the assistant director, he ghostwrote The Ultimate Porno. Beyond those days of Italian beaches and penthouse pets he'd since gone on to the Netherlands to start Electric Word; "The world's least boring computer magazine" they said, "...focused on very advanced technologies for handling word-based information, and it handled everything from machine translation to word processing, or from voice recognition to grammar checkers." That was the eighties, where is Electric Word now? |
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As electric words themselves us today surround, artifacts of Electric Word itself are rare; published abroad, and not a success it was not something that stuck on our magazine racks. Even the tales of struggle, the rise and fall respect of brave intellectuals seeing before their time none of this remains in this song; we sing solely of the technologies, those machines, and of Louis, with another vision for a magazine next seen still celebrating the electric word. |
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In high school, Chicago, quite out of the scene a boy sits on a small hill, buses ride by on the side of one he spied: a neon flash: "At last. A magazine for the Digital Age." This was the boy who tamed fourteen score computer conquests; Carmen Sandiego to Phantasie III: the Wrath of Nickodemus. He beta-tested games even worked in a software store, where he was the boldest disk pusher on the famed shopping strip of north side Chicago - Michigan avenue. Besides his skills at sales |
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he was a travelled teacher, sharing Word Perfect tips earning more than his age fifteen in hourly pay. But he was a listless geek, publishing more poor text than playing his expertise. So he came to visit Swarthmore college, on the far eastern shore of the American states. Fate interceeded there, that he should have seen no dorm, nor dining hall but rather dwell three days with Joe Razza, a speaker of challenging virtue; who argued: |
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"You who would perform social service! What is it to help people? When are you changing their circumstances, and when are you merely perpetuating the system that puts you in a position to help in the first place? Make of yourself a tool for those you would aid, and let them decide how you should be used!" And this boy, who did not yet have a name, answered him, "Yes, you speak of a challenging virtue. I understand |
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that a wise man has shared important truths that have not been known to me before. What you say is more honest than action to mend a guilty heart; service must work for change, and change I must not try to control. I will come to Swarthmore in the fall to study these things further, Swarthmore, a place where work comes before pleasure; Swarthmore, a place where work is pleasure!" And he came to Swarthmore as he spoke, |
| 2 - when the web was young | |
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and lived in Willets first south, where sober mortals fear to tread, and there he took up a wastrel lifestyle, imbibing liquor over cards and smoking more than his share of sensimilla; he could swallow huge bongloads without coughing or belching and many marijuana virgins did he deflower there and took he their photos and later shared with them their madness. Still, he remained a computer maven, and after these times, alone, meandering about on the internet, when the web was young, |
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he found some sex drugs and lock picking information there, and in a barren land unpopulated, he settled his home page; he penned these tales of perditious hours wandering for fleeting pleasure. An early traveller, he became a guide; unsure of his own path, he lead people nowhere. And they came back to him. And so too did he stumble upon Wired, this bus announced magazine; they also had a web site. In the murky waters where human meets machine they were like a lighthouse, beaming a certain truth; |
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they claimed the title of transcriber, chronicler of those great deeds of history in progress: "the digital revolution" they cried, Wired, which had opinions. And the boy, who was still without a name, called on them, "Oh I have a great desire to work with you who are so cool, Wired, other souls may seek this position; but not like I; i who can troubleshoot any software problem, I who have crawled under the desks of business; |
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who have worn a tie and still kept my cool; I who am young and hip and I surf web; i who have this web site, I have prepared myself for you, and I will perform any feat or task - photocopy a mountain of media, and I can clean trashcans let me do anything to be near you!" He hurled these phrases once, at editorial where he was denied with silence and again to the office manager, he cried his desire and found no willing ears there, no hiring. |
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After two again he tried, the boy who had no name, he pronounced finally a title he'd earned online: "Justin's Links from the Underground" and Julie Petersen heard the call; she, the woman who runs in all ways like a horse, said, "I have seen this web as you have and from your work I can see you love it as I do. Where did you get that picture of cary grant taking acid? Your web page is funny; you may visit us but we can promise little." |
| 3 - wyrd of wired | |
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And so the boy packed up his new name, the underground, and took Colourball, the great Powerbook 180, across the country typing to golden gated San Francisco, where lived both Wired and his sister Christina, bearer of three children and beautiful. And he strode in to the wood beamed office; there was noise, and coloured hair, a parrot and nearly too many people. The boy with borrowed tasseled loafers found the band of Wired Online standing tall in sandals and ponytails; their raiment |
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of purple and tied dyes; in their eyes a drug craze. They drank lemonade in South Park, hoisting a plastic cup to the new web, new comrades and work that was to come. The boy, now one of them and they together formed HotWired, the brave electronic son of Wired. In their office they plotted this site to celebrate the web, where bold images and new philosophies would reach further than all of Caligula's malignant projects. "New thinking for a new medium" the battle cry - brave fun online. |
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In a south of Market building they stretched themselves on doors for tables and cheap rolling chairs; their phones rang; their new Macintoshes sat online under hot pink ethernet cable blazing overhead; decorated and fast enough, the Hotwired gear were honed toys. This boy, now nineteen winters old, from the underground, played well and loved his time there. And on that first day, like a shot of mercury from a narrow syringe, Louis Rossetto, wearing sneakers with long hair, emerged |
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from the beach and Caligula into the Wired lunchroom; around him, sixty hearty savvy media makers, the most fashionable of a dozen different sets with ideas braver than those even of Electric Word, ready around a broad round table, beneath a grand banner blow up cover of wired one point two, the crypto rebels issue: under the logo, digital anarchists with a stars and stripes flag held bar coded white masks to their faces. Louis the leader was there to rally the troops, "Welcome to the new world, where |
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we define the bleeding edge. No other company knows what we know. No one is so close to the future! Fate favours magazines when they drive the news themselves. We have worked for two winters to be here together, and we now move to define the future again. I welcome you of HotWired into our home here; Wired is like a child to me, and we are like a family." So they there raised sentiments around the new digital offspring, and wished that they might carry |
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the Wired future forward. The boy stood by, watching these words and washing himself in the new ideals - they were bold! Making history and leading the charge to a digital future! Instead of Swarthmore, here was a noble calling, heralding the onset of new ways to live. This was the best way for him to work in the world. So the boy named now from the underground approached Louis later for to better understand the mission of the magazine, and he was rebuffed |
| 4 - branding | |
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as he cried, "Sir, I am honoured to work with you amidst this edge-wise crew and I wonder how we came to be here; I ask only that you tell me the story of your creation and what drives you so." Though he initially dismissed the boy from underground, it was not long before Louis, wearing sneakers with long hair, took time to speak bold words on branding to him: "What is it that makes America great? It is that choice we have when |
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we stride into a supermarket; that we may select from thousands of products and each type has ten contenders. Amidst the glorious heaps of consumer bounty like no nation has ever known, how is it that we make our selections? Brands! we look for names and product legacies familiar to us. Upon these names do we place our trust, that we might know how best to feed our families, to wipe our asses, these brands are how we identify ourselves |
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in a world where otherwise we wander!" These brave words on branding stood far in sentiment from the words of Joe Razza, speaking of difficult virtue. Here was a path to personal investment; building your reputation that others might purchase you. Joe Razza spoke of integration, a less glamorous means to throw a party: letting your visitors decide what they want to celebrate. Louis's words were easier, and arbitrating cool more immediately monetarily profitable. |
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Over time there were other brave folk the boy met there in the Wired digital workplace: Jonathan Steuer, the young visionary who brought Wired onto the web, and who had a truly electric, eclectic taste in culture. Jonathan, who offered him a home amidst the young geeks of San Francisco, they that lived with the Internet in their bedrooms before such things were for sale; and Howard Lee Rheingold, he who had conjured books on concepts: "Virtual Reality" and "Virtual Community" |
| 5 - how the heirarchy was | |
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ages before the pens of other men, Howard who managed not only coherent computer academics but also dressed and spoke like a psychedelic explosion. In an age when magic is seldom mentioned Howard was a wizard, both wise and wild. With these more mystical souls the boy from underground sided as web-launch approached with the winter, the bards of other tribes penned tales of the glory and brains of this crew, as HotWired took a turn for branding away from fun |
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and away from the idea of bringing people together making something for people to use as they would. Hotwiredlings and management traded stares like daggers in the awkward quiet that permeates an office gone wrong where the project between them was floudering its soul on the line, as the real parents were being divorced for surrogates. The boy could see the family of Louis coming apart as a head from a body; those who ran the company listening less to those below them, |
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HotWired, once new, was turning old. And so the boy from underground was called on to dispatch a letter of invitation to the Wired troops; there was a celebration planned, the mead and media was to flow, to mark the second winter of the Wired world. Plates of steaming delicacies and flagons of the finest brew were offered to the most high, while the cheaper members of the family were left two drink tickets at Bimbos; this was for the boy to explain to his |
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lovely cohort, and explain over e-mail he did, in frank and perhaps rebellious terms, how the heirarchy was. And so the boy saw how bitter words will work in a hot-tempered brain; Louis, wearing sneakers with long hair was incensed, furious and called on the boy from underground; "Come hither, into my office that you might know of my anger, how you have betrayed us, and the greatest opportunity of your life. You who have tasted |
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of our success have chosen to spill ill will over the wires. You have moved for vengeance against those who have done you no wrong." The boy stood his ground against elitism until he thought Louis would listen no further, and then he apologized and earned a small smile and left that office and soon that job and returned to Swarthmore, and studied words like Joe Razza's, challenging virtue. Louis, wearing sneakers with long hair, he |
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like any king great or small, lost his power to time and inability to change; Wired was soon sold: only the fertile old media lands, the magazine went to Conde Nast and Louis was left holding some Wired web sites. Few succeeded in charting culture wrought by technology like that rare moment when men mindful of community and those mindful of brand met to make something new out of something old. The merger of virtue and the digital world is still being shaped, in songs beyond these. |
analysis: wyrdlit
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