Friday, May 10, 2002

Planet Mu Roster

From the middle of Planet-mu.com I bring you tidings! I am in the middle or a third of the way through this year's Webby awards and in some cases, there are slimmer pickins than last year. Well, to be fair, the classic "Zen" site where a fly lands on a meditatin Buddah's nose and his eyes cross simply knocked out all contenders in "Religion" since the mixture/blend/strange brew at Webbys (which YOU yes YOU can vote in, comment in, right reviews in etc!) is an amalgam; an alchemy of hybridity involving site design, category (say Personal Site which this Planet-Mu piece is a shard of), and content which I do not see HOW a person can divorce from the overall D-sign of the site.

To award Webby's to sites in an orgy of objectivity that frees us of EVEN what is "coolness" or "hotness" in content and topicality seems a really lazybones dsigner's "way out!"

The problem this year is one we are dealing with EVERYWHERE which is: simply, the corporate sites are beginning to change long-standing web practices like the copycat mirror site model which has been so useful not merely being bent as at a funhouse but being shattered in places like Guggenheim.com which NOT ONLY will not allow just ANYONE to link (hey, free associational linking has been a constant brainstorm and conflagration since we began linking through the auspices of html and the W3C and earlier still with the Memex and the Open Source movement so many of the young are embracing readily!) but denys countries in the following list: Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and other countries embargoed at this time by the US (United States and the Laws of New York invoked in this online entity located PHYSICALLY in the "hale and hearty" lands of Las Vegas where brothels and bordellos like small mapping dots spring up in true Nevada style) the used of any "Guggenware" (Guggenheim's only notable software I saw being a Motorcycle project CD available for afficianados at a price now commensurate with the Tupperware parties it appears they might NOT actually wish to host (and I thought the Tupperware Exhibition was such a GREAT idea in the history of "mass kitchen d-sign" and "women's clubs").

But why take my word on it... Hold on for the ALLOWABLE "landing page" (as they call homepage) link...
Guggenheim

I am not going to subsume the interests of my Blog, which is ipso facto a protectorate for those that get in line or stand on queue if only in our zen dreams behind our red velvet security fashioned of popcorn and movie house queues with old fashioned tickets torn at the "Duplex" and the "Homoplex."

In fact, far from cinema and cinetasters who pilgrimage to Cannes and/or Utah for Sundance, there are the audience response-o-meters set up in houses that watch LOTSA "All American Norman Rockwell TV" and these socalled "Nielsens" are now attempting to elbow their way in to the red velvet roped reality of the Webbys! It's on the the Webby Homepage-- a Nielsen's site which ranks Web Site Banners BY CLICK and BY GOD the horrible spyware banners which you see flashing with their "phony online barricade" designs have NAMES and are ranked in the top ten b-cause newbies can't stop clicking on them!
Nevermind that they NEVER recieve the message they have clicked on but howl and cry and call the nearest person in sight to get them out of the BOXED CANYON AVALANCHE MOMENT OF TRUTH of TOTAL ADVERTISING they have inadvertently let in which like Kazaa's spyware will now send tendrils spiralling through their innocent monitors (according to urban myths and legend whether reality based or gossip-contrived).

And Nielsen's, pls, Oh God, they have placed "Friends" above "Will and Grace" despite actual coolness in acting and writing (as embossed at the Emmy's and stitched into the new guayabara's imported from CUBA with pictures of ALL of Will and Grace's CAST MEMBERS (led by Rosario, now in possession of her green card no doubt!) to the island of the real Havana cigar: the "Castro" which will be depicted in each cast members mouth also, and along with the "special Viennese white chocolate cast of Freud's teeth with corresponding dark chocolate cigar confection" concocted for high and low brow CONCEPT zine "Cabinet" (available OFFLINE!) we suspect and suppose that the CONFECTIONER may well be looking at Celebrity Teeth (especially posthumous celebrities models of dentures from days gone by) to create a cottage industry.... we stayed up late let us tell you contriving this one! APPRECIATE IT! Publish the item in (we don't know) say "The National Enquirer" or "The Sun" ha!

You see did I tell you I like to write scripts where they don't exist that are MORE pleasing to me? Oh, well did I tell you I actually got a (blech, I know it's no longer trendy but MY DEPARTMENT was headed by a woman who is a high ranking official in the international group of "Taoist Tai Chi" members and no mere booklover alone! Yes the Professor President of Tai Chi and Board President of Literature sounds very similar to ONE of the plotlines of "If on a Winter Night a Traveller" by Italo Calvino which is one of those books we use to chart our conceptual courses by, so perhaps there is always in fiction however carbonized or carmelized, SOME DEEP BURIED TRUTH!.)

Noooo, I am NOT Village Voice maven and craven gay citizen band operator Michael Musto, I only sound like him when I stray into a second smoke section of the nearest queer rancheroo..

I say this not because of my own primary narcissim, though... but because we have to worry in this vote that the Peruvian Human Rights Prisoner of conscience (who did not have a good designer or design team) does not realize that even with Bush and Powell's promises (which are not always what they seem) the Webby's; as explained, are indeed meant for a content and context mixture of righteous d-sign!

The imprisoned Peruvian's homesite DOES NOT DEPLOY FLASH nor teams, nor sound effects once available only in Dolby! This does feel very homespun (as indeed is the name of the category itself) however this woman and others like her need the SAME (or bettah) dsign options as are made available to the US Army Recruiters Office which was such a good ride it ALMOST militarized ME with it's "Army of One" rhetoric about MY PLATOON and MY CONSTITUTION.

Plus the test at the end which I took WITHOUT watching the Army's Video and STILL managed to eek out a "Basic Sharpshooter" medal from was like winning a video game at a high level and made me feel smarter and more competent whether or not it was obviously true or not for I guessed on MOST QUESTIONS to tell the truth (shhh!!!). Still I can see how such a self-esteem "picker upper" might help people without much of a chance for the normally expected "college funding" to try to get somewhere they cannot find another legal route to.

The army has a really clever THING happening with their new PR campaign in identifiably cool yellow and khaki colour schemes used online in roleplaying and other games with some frequency! So the "new crop" is devoted to their own self-aggrandizement via the vehicle of their "larger territories" and "soldierly togs" (the clothing and night vision goggles being a "shoe in" with the "I don't dig fashion" gang of guys that sure like to dress in military attire when they get a chance and have been spoon-fed buddy movies based on War after War as an inevitability to the "survival of the species" along with the new "hi tech" arsenals with which it isn't a huge jump to go from video game to basic training to get a more "real feel" and forget haptics when you can grow up and be old enough to climb into a goddamn tank, but not yet drink. That will feel a lot more real than play acting and any amount of attempting to be as handsome and cool as Jude Law (for most guys an out of reach goal...)

Continuing posts and a review by Red Velvet Rope about the Guggenheim's colonization of cyberspace to come in later installments. Oh, and btw, feel free to LINK TO ME (yes link to me pls). We will have a nice d-sign to click upon as quick as a bunny and with God's speed but for now, just link to whatever post you like, the Landing Page was d-signed by one of the many Blogskin designers currently doing that thang! More on all o that too, in subsequent POSTINGS and RVR issues! For now, get to the Webby's, all of you, make things RIGHT however you can, or sabotage them if they are going WRONG, okay? Nuff said...