The WIZARD, fkap

the existential blues archives, vol.2

A Special Welcome to those of you following

Essay Links. Click Here to go directly to the WIZARD's
Essay Contribution to the 24 Hours of Democracy Project.
Or, feel free to stick around, read the other essays and explore the WIZARD's Universe.

Index of Articles in Volume 2:
7 - October 20, 1995 - Digital City
8 - November 4, 1995 - Zen and the Art of Money Management
9 - December 6, 1995 - An Old Fashioned Christmas
10 - January 3, 1996 - Sex on the Internet
11 - February 17, 1996 - Virtual Reality, Really!
12 - March 21, 1996 - GUEST ESSAY - "Standard Disclaimer"

the existential blues

October 20, 1995

Digital City

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sadly, Viper.Net, our first ISP and host for the Wizard, fkap Journal, slowly and painfully went out of business and was ultimately purchased by another comapny. As a result these links are no longer available and Digital City has ceased to exist.

Sherman, set the way-back machine for August, 11 1995, the oldest (still existing) existential blues essay. The central question of that essay was "Where is Cyberspace?" and even more importantly, "Where are we?" Well, I may not know where we are, but I just built a house there!!!

Thanks to the folks at Viper Net, we now have a real Digital City or at least an on-line representation of one. The city is growing rap idly. When I was there a few minutes ago.... (opps! When is a few minutes ago? When is now? But I digress.) there were 728 residents and over 40,000 visitors had dropped by.

I built a building to house the Phoebe Cates Resource Directory using the building representation the "city planners" recommend for businesses and the like. Phoebe, as you all know, deserves the very best. My coordinates are (19, 3).

People (are there still people?) build houses for their home pages, schools are built by schools or other educational institutions, and government agencies can build government bui ldings. Or you can plant a tree, or make a lake. You can help build a road. You can leave your mark on this growing city.
Why a City?? Well, first of all, this is really a massive link site, where anyone can leave a detailed link with information, even images to help publicize their pages. But, I think the appeal is that even the most avid cyberfan likes "grounding," a physical representation of Where we are at. Maybe we all miss the real world.

Believe it or not, Viper Net plans to create a "map" of their city. As for me..... Well, let me assure you that a frontal lobotomy continues to be absolutely out of the question.

the existential blues

November 4, 1995

Zen and the Art of Money Management

Well class, let's review what we already know. We have deduced that:

1.) We don't know WHERE we are.
2.) We're not always sure WHO we are.
3.) And, as we learned last week, we're not sure WHEN this is.
In short, I think we've started to learn NOTHING!

But, have you noticed, that while we are HERE it all makes great sense. It's like a Douglas Adams novel. No matter how outrageous the plot, it makes perfect sense while you're reading it. Just don't try to explain it later to a friend.

Now it has been discovered by Wall Street, that there are 24,000,000 of us here (according to a research report released Monday, 10/30/95 by Dun and Bradstreet's Nielson Media Research unit). Twenty Four Million People just in the United States and Canada on the Internet! Wall Street was so impressed by these numbers that last week (real time, not cyberspace time) that they ran out and purchased any stock that was even remotely related to the Internet. Spyglass stock rose over 70% in one week. Netscape closed near the $100.00 mark per share, valuing the company at close to ONE BILLION DOLLARS!!! In short, millions and millions and perhaps billions of dollards were made on.... well.... nothing.

Now, I would like to get into a few thousands of words on stock and paper profits and Wall Street and how that's nothing too.... but it would take too long to download this page. So, I'll stay on topic.

The subject of the series of comics (from which today's example was taken) is working on the computer via modem. Like the Buckets, above, I never got a score that high at the office! You see, at the office, physical life continually intrudes into cyberlife. But when were alone we can really travel deep down the electronic corridor. We can become one with the computer. We travel to a different place... and time.... and become a different person. And IT is real. IT IS REAL. Just ask the folks who made millions of dollars last week.

Stay tuned and keep that bottle in front of you....

the existential blues

December 6, 1995

An Old Fashioned Christmas

Allow me to share with you a bit of an essay written by Judy Collins and included with her Christmas Album (MESA CD #R2 79095)...

"Christmas was always a time of music, of good cheer, of secret gifts wrapped and hidden, stifled giggles and whispers about who was getting what for whom - of books and bikes and roller skates and wagons, bought and stored in the trunk of the big black Buick touring car, and the last minute raids my father made on Christmas eve especially for my mother and us children - a friend at his elbow, assisting his choices, while he smelled and touched and "felt" each purchase, his blind eyes open and his inner vision seeing more than most."

"My Father read us 'The Night Before Christmas' on Christmas eve. The five of us children, eager and delighted at the ever-new story, hoped for reindeer and went to bed where we stared for hours into the dark, unable to sleep, trembling with the excitement, listening for reindeer hoves. Dawn could not come soon enough."

"When I was four..." "...I remember the night I saw Santa Claus. That night, vibrating with anticipation for the dawn, I slept in our living room of our then home in Seattle, for we had a house full of relatives and my mother and I had given our beds to my cousins and I distinctly saw the bearded, jolly gentleman in the red suit put my new Christmas doll under the tree that was hung with its holly and tinsel and bright red tin norns and glass balls of silver, gold, red and green. Mother always says I was dreaming, but I know I wasn't."

"I saw him, spirit of Christmas past and present."

Our way of life is changing so rapidly. For most of us at least. This wonderful essay speaks of big family dinners, gathering of extended families, carols around the piano, and the hope that always accompanies Christmas. My family was like that. We always had a big celebration of Thanksgiving and again on Christmas. Relatives gathered at our house to overflowing for a big dinner. A year's worth of catching up was done at one dinner.

But today.... ahhh, what of today. Cyberlife is only one of a myriad of changes. Mom works, Dad is often missing. A myth like Santa Claus. My son has a friend who makes up stories about his father and make-believe presents he's received for Christmas. Not all children are isolated, alone, but many are.

Initially, the computer was an isolating device. People were pulled away from friends and family and sat fixated at the screen, amazed with a make-believe world of wizards and warriors, or games played only in the imagination. But today, the computer is connecting us in ways we never dreamed possible. Intimate connections with real people, themselves often alone and isolated in their cubicle cities of millions of souls - yet connected into a cyber community that becomes more real with each passing day.

This is evolution, societal evolution. Nature abhors a vacuum. And we do have a vacuum. I have a vison of hope. IF we can get on-line, we are all equal. We can be understood. We can be appreciated. We can find communion.

Change is not a bad thing. Indeed, something is lost, but something takes it's place. What will be our children's memories of Christmas 1995? What essay will appear on an album sleeve in forty years? Keep the bottle in front of you.

"My father taught us that the gifts of the Christmas holiday are not the tinsel, not the gold and never the presents that cost money. The true gifts are those of music, the gifts of spirit, and the gift of hope that triumphs over the darkness, he said, those are the real gifts."

the existential blues

January 3, 1996

Here are LINKS for those of you following the 24 HOURS OF DEMOCRACY Essay Trail... Index
Written by wizardfkap@prodigy.net (Bob Keller)

Sex on the Internet

Now why would the Wizard, fkap, do an article on Sex on the Net? Three Choices:

1. The Wiz, with this picture, is making a not-so-secret play for more readers - more hits to the page.

2. Like Tom Leher in his famous 1960's song "SMUT," the Wiz is all FOR it.

3. The Wiz IS worried about internet-ignorant politicians obstructing the budding publishing industry on the net.

Here are some hints: The hot internet news this week is the ban on certain newsgroups by the German governemnt. First, Germany banned some 220 newsgroups. To be certain some are focal points of sexually related materials. Some are clearly pornographic by many people's standards.

Some, however, are innocent groups. Some are merely mis-named like "alt.fan.sexy.bald.captain," a fan group for Star Trek fans of Captain Piccard. Others are self-help groups for handicapped persons. Still others are groups with information on sexually transmitted diseases. All contain some reference to sex in their names.

However, to make matters much worse, Compuserve, in an effort to comply with German regulations, wiped out these same newsgroups for all readers world-wide. No doubt, Senator Exon,who is spearheading the "Communications Decency Act," is thrilled.

I'm certain that being banned by the German government would greatly increase my readership. Being banned by Senator Exon would help even more.

A really key point is made by Dan Rosenbaum, editor of the new magazine NetGuide (a link to their site is available at the WIZARD, fkap main page), "Nothing happens online that doesn't happen in the real world."

The obviously suggestive, partially nude photo above is from an ad (shown in its entirity below) for Calvin Klein's "C K One" fragrance. This ad appears in the December 29, 1995 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine (and no doubt, many others). Is it more.... well, sexual, here on the net?

Calvin Klein is no stranger to sexually suggestive advertising OR controversy. It is worthy to note that this ad is actually printed on very heavy cardboard and perforated to separate into TWO POST CARDS. The back of the ad is designed to be a postcard. Calvin Klein clearly wants his ad to be distributed through the U.S. Mail. Pornography through the mail? His idea of a joke on the Government?

Well, I'll bet Calvin will be glad to see it here on the internet.

Now, what was the question? Oh yes, why is the WIZARD taking up essay space normally devoted to obscure references to cyber-philosophy, and devoting it to SEX on the Internet? The CORRECT ANSWER IS # 3. My point, however, is very important. You are going to have to fight for the right to keep this "bottle here in front of you..."

Here is a link to Center for Democracy and Technology This group is spearheading the fight against Senator Exon's "Communications Decency Act." They provide a focal point for internet users to coordinate their activities. And they provide up-to-the-minute news.

Another excellent resource is the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press.

UPDATE!! This column has generated a lot of feedback and comment. Many people want to keep their version of pornography off the net. Most want it removed from all of society. They truely are not "picking on the internet," but want sexually suggestive material banned from society at large. A very well-meaning woman assured me she would gladly give up her rights to freedom of the press and freedom of speech just to eliminate this filth. This is most certainly a different problem than the main body of the article addressed above. And to me it's much more frightening. I suggest she read the following link: The Freedom Forum is concerned with the larger issues of Freedom of the Press worldwide, including Latin America countries, Eastern Europe, China and anywhere censorship is holding back freedom and democracy. The internet is just one small part of their concern.

Don't surrender your rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, just because it's "on line." There are already much better ways to protect yourself and minors from objectionable material. Fight to keep this bottle clear, intact and in front of you. Given even a remote opportunity, there are many among us who would gladly give you that frontal lobotomy, just because your beliefs don't match theirs.

the existential blues

February 17, 1996

Virtual Reality, Really!

This Netscape Village Image Originally created and copyright by Netscape, Inc.
Reality is just not what it used to be. In fact, reality REALLYis not what it used to be. Consider the following:

1. A New Jersey husband is sueing his wife for divorce, claiming she and her lover committed infidelity during dozens of sexually explicit exchanges on America Online. The two "lovers" never met.

2. "e-mail: A Love Story," by Stephanie D. Fletcher is a best selling novel based on an e-mail romance... written entirely in the style of e-mail.

3. Movies, television shows and especially commercials are created using computer graphics, morphing and enhancements. Sure, you know "TOY STORY" isn't real, but with enhancements in nearly every commercial, are you sure of the vista, waterfall or sunset?

4. Computer chips are now being added to nearly every appliance. They fix, regulate and modify the performance of all these items.

5. The hugh Telecommunications Act of 1996 (that most internet users protested last week) allows the telephone companies to enter the cable business and cable companies into the telephone business. Both groups are rushing to provide high speed access to the internet.

We'll be connected dozens of ways into dozens of appliances throughout our lives. Not just the computer. The television... the phone.... even the toaster. And you'll control them all in ways you can't imagine.

Plus there will be dozens of new appliances. For example window treatments might be an electronic appliance. And just like today's televion commercials, they will morph into new looks. The popular joke in today's movies of the video tape fire playing on the television stuck in the fireplace will become tomorrow's three dimensional reality.

Netscape gets it! They understand the bigger reality. They see it coming and they're ready to meet the virtual train. Netscape 2.0 embraces Java applets. It allows multiple entries onto the internet with multiple applications. But even more than that - they REALLY get it: They call their new "browser 2.0" an ENVIRONMENT!! In fact any employee who refers to it as a "browser" is fined one dollar for each offense. My televion, my toaster, my phone, my drapes, my fireplace, my sunset, they are all part of my environment.

The question is..... is reality reality? Is cybersex really sex? Is the cute penguin in the BMW commercial really a penguin? Are your drapes really green? How will you really know?

You're not really going to have to worry about keeping this bottle in front of you. But you may need to worry about getting away from it. Netscape Anonymous?

the existential blues

March 21, 1996

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