As URLs Go By

I was born on The Internet in 1994.

As lavishly expensive as my small liberal arts undergraduate college was to attend at the time, it was a bit late to connect members of its student body to the world wide web. My friends from prep school who had matriculated at Amherst, Swarthmore, Vassar, and Williams boasted .edu email addresses from their first days on their respective campuses; I did not receive my official “abartelby@mail.slc.edu” email address until close to the end of my sophomore year, in the spring of 1994. I remember the occasion as if it was only yesterday, however: the newest building on campus, the Science Center, had just been completed and opened for business. But the lines of students snaking out of the building’s main entrance on that first day were not there for tours of the new science labs, they were there for the assignment of email addresses, and to finally explore the new and expanded collection of Apple Macintoshes in the Academic Computing Center.

My friends with whom I lived that year and I were among the first students in the lines. We collected our new email addresses and passwords with the excitement of Christmas morning, and spent our first strictly limited hours during those first few weeks in our little adjacent workstations, emailing each other back and forth.

From: Kramer @ mail.slc.edu
To: Atherton @ mail.slc.edu
Date: Thu, Apr 23, 1994 at 8:13 PM
Subject: Re: Re: OHMYGODISTHISNOTEXCITING?!?!
Mailed by: slc.edu

This is kind of retarded. You do realize we’ve been here nearly an hour sitting right next to each other but emailing instead of talking, right?

Write me back.

Love,
Kramer

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From: Atherton @ mail.slc.edu
To: Kramer @ mail.slc.edu
Date: Thu, Apr 23, 1994 at 8:15 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Re: OHMYGODISTHISNOTEXCITING?!?!
Mailed by: slc.edu

WHO CARES?! ISN’T IT FUN?! WE HAVE EMAIL, DUDE! IT BEATS WRITING THAT PAPER ON 17TH CENTURY METATHEATRE, OK?!?!

Write me back, too.

Love,
Atherton

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From: Kramer @ mail.slc.edu
To: Atherton @ mail.slc.edu
Date: Thu, Apr 23, 1994 at 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: OHMYGODISTHISNOTEXCITING?!?!
Mailed by: slc.edu

OH, TOTALLY! I wish we could smoke in here. I need a cigarette. Where the fuck is Amory? Why is he on a WINDOWS machine?! He’s such a loser. Wanna go to Bates after they kick us out of here?

Write me back.

Love,
Kramer

And so on.

It was exciting, because it was new: this foreign mode of communication.

Time spent at the Academic Computing Center became even more exciting, however, during the first semester of my junior year, when, after befriending the 1337 g33k students who staffed the Center, I acquired access to flatbed scanners, the single Macintosh workstation that housed Photoshop and Pagemaker, and advanced knowledge of the world that existed in the tubes beyond those of our college’s mail servers. It was not long at all before I was exchanging emails with friends on a site called “Hotmail,” developing my very first (of, tragically, far too many) Internet crushes on the “Intellectuals” “floor” of a chat site called “Gay.com,” and, perhaps most exciting of all, establishing my very first home on The Internet, on a site called “GeoCities.”

WANDERING THROUGH SOHO

GeoCities - Circa 1996

I seemed to understand intuitively that my GeoCities page would be seen by “everyone” on the world wide web, and therefore took great care in selecting which “Neighborhood” I would “move into,” knowing that this would be “everyone’s” first impression of me. “Athens?” I did adore philosophy, and Plato, and…no, no, no, because then “everyone” would think I was an uptight, too-serious academic and wouldn’t “get” that section of high resolution scans of pages from Madonna’s Sex book that I intended to “feature” on my “page.” “SoHo?” I did have an internship in the neighborhood that year, and that was where I invariably hung out when I was in Manhattan. Trendy. Cosmopolitan. Artsy. Yes, totally, “SoHo” is so me!

And so, “SoHo” it was.

My “page,” as I remember, was hideous. White text set in Times New Roman on a black background. Garishly hued, animated navigational buttons. Graphic headers that I “designed” in Photoshop: thick, indelicate text banners, that I embossed, outer glowed, drop shadowed, and lens flared the hell out of, each color-coded to match the content of each section. (I still give myself props for at least being consistent in the color arena, despite the hideous aesthetics of the rest of my “page” architecture.) Aside from the Sex book scans, I can remember precious little other content. I can vaguely remember a “Literature and Philosophy” “section” in which I posted my course syllabi each semester, as well as a few seminar papers, and there was almost certainly a “section” devoted entirely to gritty, scanned, pseudo-sexy self-portraits over which I imagined my Gay.com crushes would drool, but that’s about all I remember.

I was always embarrassed to mention my very first GeoCities page, once I settled into my own personal design style and graduated to CSS and a properly designed and self-hosted site from my early, clumsy HTML coding and GeoCities hosting, until a few weeks ago, when I stumbled upon a screen grab of noted designer Jeffrey Zeldman’s web page circa 1996, which made me feel a whole lot less embarrassed. Now, I wish I had had the foresight to take screen grabs of my own, all throughout those first laughable infant steps of mine into the world wide web, if only to be able to laugh at their hideousness when held up to the clean, minimalist white tundra of my current blog theme.

I mention all of this, of course, in response to Yahoo!’s media release yesterday stating that it will shut down GeoCities entirely before the end of 2009. I know, right? It was still around? I forgot all about my once-treasured GeoCities page after I was graduated from college in the spring of 1996, once I entered “The Real World” of living in New York City on an Editorial Assistant’s salary, when I no longer boasted constant access to The Internet.

But I remembered it, yesterday, and became, I dare say, a bit nostalgic for the old pixelated “SoHo” in which I used to “live.”

THE DEATH OF THE REPUBLIC

The Designers Republic - Angryman

This most recent occurrence of Internet nostalgia, however, is only the latest in a series that began back in late February, when I first read of the death of The Designers Republic. February has for many years been a month of death for me, following the death of my father in February of 2002, and the death of my mother in February of the following year. So it seemed fitting, somehow, that this most recent February should herald the death of not only my most recent romantic involvement, but also that of one of my most revered design studios.

But for me Ian Anderson’s Designers Republic was far more than an important design studio whose work I admired and whose business practices and client list I sought to emulate and achieve myself. It was also, much like Joshua Davis‘ Dreamless.org before it, of which I was also a member, an international community of designers who met in its forum, Neue.DR, to socialize, brainstorm, and share work and music. In those early days of the new millennium, when both my personal and professional lives were constantly in flux, Neue.DR was my one constant, my one home, the one thing on which I could always depend. I could escape into its tubes, away from my hectic job, away from my relationship that I knew was nearing its end, to find solace in the conversations I had with the other designers, humor in the flirtatious antics between the Icelandic woman and the French dude, and inspiration in the latest Photoshop battle.

It was my haven on the world wide web.

So, even though The Designers Republic had (again, much like Joshua Davis had done with Dreamless.org before it) long since shuttered the Neue.DR forum before its own ultimate demise at the end of this January, I still felt a bit of nostalgia when I read of its passing during my dead month. Because, much like GeoCities had, Neue.DR marked a specific time in my life, and became, like any of the physical senses will become, a trigger for memories of events, and of work, and of people: a road marker on the map of my life’s experiences.

The passing of both online “homes,” for me, really does signify, if one will pardon an oft-employed phrase in these Curious Affairs, “The End Of An Era.”

THE ONLINE MAPPING OF A PERSONAGE

In some ways I feel that these words and ruminations that I am recording here are only the beginning of a more expansive project, inaugural notes for an endeavor that will eventually record my life and experiences, not only in words or images, but also in the URLs at which I have left traces of myself, and which have left their own traces on me. As an individual who almost obsessively records his experiences and memories based on sights, sounds, scents, and other senses, it seems only natural to begin recording them also based on my online activities. Because, much like I can vividly recall the scene outside of my apartment’s balcony when my brother told me over the telephone that our mother had died, or describe in minute detail the scents that filled my nostrils as I lost my virginity, so too can I recall precisely which design forums I was frequenting when my father died, or which blog I was maintaining when I was told that my first friend to die of AIDS had just been diagnosed with it, or exactly how many subdomains resided on my website when I experienced the most soul-destroying breakup of my life.

And, as someone who, almost quite literally, lives online, I think it is important to document these sojourns throughout the great white web as faithfully, and as thoughtfully, as one records his experiences IRL. If only to be able to, many years and several lifetimes later, look back on design forum conversations and Photoshop battles, and on the hideously designed pages of his first “home” on the Internet, and marvel at just far one has come.

And at just how much one has changed, as the URLs have gone by.

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RELATED ARTICLES FROM ACROSS THE WEB

• There Is Always A City by AV Flox: “Perhaps more than places of residence, spaces online are like lovers. We enjoy many people who touch our lives, but there are only a number of them that really change us so deeply, and teach us so much, that we remember them forever. In a sense, GeoCities was that. It may not have been the moody codependent relationship I had with Diaryland, or the drama-filled, torrid affair I had with LiveJournal or the wild, no-strings-attached fling I’ve been having with WordPress, or the warm marriage I enjoy on this self-hosted blog—but it shaped me. Maybe it was my first crush.”
• RIP GeoCities by Maria Diaz: “What this ending of Geocities does make me realize is, for all our scary talk of how we need to watch what our slutty, drunken selves put online because oh no someone who may pay us to do something might see it, is how not permanent so much of the web truly is. This is why I think talking about the Internet’s history is so important. So much of what happened is gone now. We have to discuss it, there’s so little evidence of it but our memories and a few pages with dead links.”

Filed under: Blogging, Editorials, Net Culture, Personal, Technology, Web Design, Writing , death, defining moments, Dreamless.org, eexhibitionism, GeoCities, history, home, Ian Anderson, identity, Jeffrey Zeldman, Joshua Davis, linkage, memories, needful reminders, Neue.DR, online communities, representation, The Designers Republic, traces

Exploring All That Plus More

Scallywag And Vagabond - A Salon of Cultural Affairs

When I first received the list of suggested assignments for my column at Scallywag & Vagabond this week from my fabulous editor, I groaned inwardly. Not because the topics were uninteresting or unseemly (quite the contrary; my fabulous editor’s assignments are always unflinchingly flawless and titillating), but because I knew immediately that “How To Tell If They Are All That, Plus More: A Guide To Assembling The Clues” was the topic I knew I had to attempt to tackle. This distressed me for a variety of reasons, and the most bothersome of my thoughts on the topic were: 1) I have never enjoyed sustained, long-term fortune in deciphering such clues about My Others on my own, so who in hell am I to give any advice on the topic whatsoever?; and 2) despite over six years of on-again / off-again relationship writing in this blog, I had not attempted it in any sort of serious fashion in quite some time, and was frankly frightened that I could not accomplish it effectively anymore, or, worse, that if I could, my words would convey a pale imitation of the passion with which I once wrote about love.

However, always one to rise to a challenge as opposed to run from it, I decided to cover the topic anyway. I began with a recent dream I had about a man, and my relationship with him, and worked backward through memories and my own relationships, to compile what I believe to be a fairly accurate foundation list of how one knows that the he (or she) one is dating just may be “All That, Plus More.” As it turned out, I am rather pleased with the piece, not only because I think it was a successful return to relationship writing for me, but also because it is a pretty nice compendium of only the most positive attributes, words, and actions of each of my previous boyfriends (and even non-boyfriends).

So please do stop by and have a read, won’t you, of “How To Tell If They Are All That, Plus More: A Guide To Assembling The Clues,” and tell us what you think?

The Bartelby Brew tea this week is only slightly bittersweet, and significantly less bitter, and sweeter, than one might have imagined.

Filed under: Blogging, Editorials, Relationships, Writing , a-list, being servicey, dating, linkage, listicles, lists, memories, needful reminders, pimpage, process, scallywag & vagabond

10 Design Thinkers To Follow On Twitter

Not Your Average Twitter Listicle

I was inspired recently by GrainEdit’s curated list of designers to follow on Twitter. I admire it because it not only includes the “Design Rock Stars” as one would expect (@ilovetypography, @DesignObserver, et al.), but also highlights some truly amazing designers who are currently doing some truly awesome work. So, for this week’s #followfriday phenom on Twitter (in which I do not usually participate, and when I do attempt to do so it seems, to me, to be entirely awkward and therefore inorganic), I thought I would put my own spin on recommending designer-ly types to follow on Twitter.

I employ the completely made-up term “designer-ly” because not all of the individuals on my list are graphic designers. But since, as a designer myself, I always gravitate toward those thinkers and designers who speak on a variety of topics (because, really, design inspiration can come from anywhere), I decided to highlight those individuals whose content inspires me. I also tried to select “designer-ly” Twitterers who maintain impressive blogs and / or websites, as well, and whose Twitter streams augment their excellent thoughts on design, art, or technology as presented in their forums that go well beyond Twitter’s 140 character confines. Lastly, I sought to focus on those thinkers who tend to be more engaging with their followers on Twitter, and not only follow / engage with the “Twitter Design Elite”; I am not criticizing those who do this, but I personally get more out of following design thinkers when they actively engage with their audiences.

With that, I give you my top choices for the “10 Design Thinkers To Follow On Twitter”.

@brainpicker

Maria Popova of Brain Pickings

I have been a huge fan of Maria’s for awhile, and have written of my admiration of her blog before in this space, but my love of her content bears repeating. Brain Pickings “picks culture’s collective brain” for innovation, inspiration, and brilliant ideas, and Maria’s Twitter stream follows this up with bite-sized bits of brilliance on art, culture, design, photography, sustainability, technology, and, of course, all things TED. She is an awesome resource for inspiring some very heavy “outside of the box” thinking about design, innovation, and the inter-connectedness of ideas.

@changeorder

David Sherwin of ChangeOrder

David Sherwin’s ChangeOrder is an amazing resource because it focuses on the business and process of design in a way that makes its content truly accessible to all designers, not only to Creative Directors or Principals. His articles never fail to inspire thought concerning the business side of design, and allow one to see the design process not only from the design side, but from the all-important client side, as well. All of this amazing insight is, of course, nicely supplemented by David’s Twitter stream, which is a resource I could not imagine being without.

@darrylohrt

Darryl Ohrt of Brandflakes For Breakfast

As the most recognizable online voice from the greatest agency in all of the land, Plaid, it would be an egregious error on my part if I did not include Darryl’s Twitter stream and Plaid’s blog in my list of most valuable Twitter design resources. With a sense of humor, frankness, and shockingly accurate eye for detail and all things branding, Darryl consistently delivers the best of what internet culture, pop culture, good design, and branding trends have to offer. Pair that with an amazing attention to how (and how well) companies are using social media to their (dis)advantages, and you have, well, one of the greatest Twitter streams in all of the land.

@hellyeahdude

Patrick Algrim of Hell Yeah Dude

I remain a longtime fan of Patrick’s Hell Yeah Dude, which was initially launched as a forum to which young authors trying to break into the design world could contribute their own thoughts, beliefs, and topics concerning design and the design process. Hell Yeah Dude has, through numerous incarnations, retained this contributory, collaborative focus, and it is one of my top go-to sites for fresh design ideas and perspectives. Patrick’s Twitter stream is an excellent supplement, focusing on design, art, Chicago, and the web with refreshing insight.

@jackcheng

Jack Cheng of JackCheng.com

I first began following Jack Cheng’s work and ideas back in October of 2008, when I read his article, “I am my own boss (and so can you!),” published on his site. A former copywriter and UX / web design lead, Jack has an amazing talent for conveying innovative ideas concerning design, writing, working, and living in a way that I find very engaging and useful in my own life and work as a designer and thinking visual artist. His Twitter stream also never fails to give one pause with its ideas and textual images painted in less than 140 characters.

@jomc

Joanne McNeil of Tomorrow Museum

The Tomorrow Museum is a collection of images and speculative essays exploring how technology, science, and economics are affecting the fine arts. Curated and written by science and technology writer Joanne McNeil, the original essays themselves, as well as the curated links in the blog’s “Asides” column, always inspire one with their observations of how technology, science, and the web inform the processes of creative thinking and artistic production. Additionally, Joanne’s Twitter stream augments the blog with a characteristic wit and keen eye, and should definitely not be missed.

@kitsunenoir

Bobby Solomon of Kitsune Noir

I discovered Bobby Solomon’s rather excellent blog collection of links to and ruminations on all imaginable goodness related to art, design, fashion, film, and music via the previously-referenced list of top Twitter designers compiled by GrainEdit, and I am so glad I did. Bobby has an amazing eye for all kinds of visual and aural awesomeness, and presents them with a wit and candor that make reading and seeing them all the more enjoyable. One should follow his equally engaging and informative Twitter stream to remain abreast of all of the action occurring on Kitsune Noir.

@michaelSurtees

Michael Surtees of DesignNotes

I cannot imagine anyone remotely related to design being unfamiliar with Michael Surtees’ DesignNotes, but if for some unexplainable reason one is, one should rectify that immediately. Michael writes widely on graphic design and all things visual with a candor and frankness that I find refreshing in the arena of design writing. He has a unique eye for finding interesting sites, projects, and events online and in New York City (and chronicles them in his impressive weekly Link Drops), and can always be counted on for unique, innovative content, both on his blog and in his Twitter stream.

@rbtlshow

Aaron Heth (@aaronheth) and Matt McInerney (@mattmc) of Read Between The Leading

One of the great new resources that I recently began following is Read Between The Leading, a podcast that focuses on graphic design and typography, and produced by two extremely passionate design students at the Savannah College of Art & Design. The two designers have produced some amazing episodes thus far, including interviews with Glenn Garriock of FormFiftyFive and John Boardley of ILoveTypography, and never fail to direct thought-provoking questions toward their interviewees or other design topics. Their show’s Twitter stream is a must-follow resource for anyone interested in design on any level.

@serial_consign

Greg J. Smith of Serial Consign

Greg’s truly amazing site and more casual yet still truly amazing Twitter stream are in my top list of immediate go-tos for design brain candy. A designer and researcher interested in media theory and digital culture, Greg’s work focuses on how “contemporary information paradigms affect representational and spatial systems”. What this means is that one can always be inspired to think about design in vastly different ways once one reads Greg’s take on design as manifested in illustration, information design, visualization, and writing. Another definite must-follow.

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There are many, many other impressive designer-ly thinkers on Twitter, to be sure, and I follow a lot (but by no means all) of them. Do you follow anyone on Twitter (“designer-ly” or not) who you consider to be a “must-follow”? If so, leave some tips in a comment so that I and others can check them out!

Filed under: Art, Blogging, Design, Net Culture, Technology, Typography, Web Design, Writing , 31 days, a-list, being servicey, follow friday, linkage, listicles, lists, twitter

Bartelby Goes Scallywag

Scallywag And Vagabond - A Salon of Cultural Affairs

To say that I was elated when Christopher Koulouris, Chief Editor, Cultural Correspondent, and Scallywag himself, invited me several weeks ago to become a contributing correspondent to Scallywag & Vagabond, would be a woeful understatement. As I was already a loyal reader of the “Salon of Cultural Affairs,” which promises a daily “dissection of popular culture, arts, fashion, manners, etiquette, and the stimulants that accompany them,” I could not think of an online publication that would be a more fitting stage for my prose, observations, and sometimes arcane wit. So I jumped (albeit graciously) at the invitation.

A forum for critical reviews, interviews, insights, and interactive dialogue, Scallywag & Vagabond pays particular “attention and grace to charmed and perhaps outlandish individuals, institutions, and icons,” and “sets forth to engender marvel, giddy delight, and provocative repartee.”

I do so hope that my debut Scallywag & Vagabond slice of life, a slightly disquieting account of my last personal experiences with psychiatry entitled, “The Curious Affairs Of Psychotherapy,” lives up to such dashing expectations. Go have a read, won’t you, and let us know if it does? Hopefully this will be but the beginning of a long and mutually advantageous editorial relationship between Atherton Bartelby and Scallywag & Vagabond.

As the Scallywag himself would write, “Tea is now being served. Sip carefully.”

Sip carefully, indeed…particularly when partaking of The Bartelby Brew.

Filed under: Blogging, Editorials, Writing , being servicey, christopher koulouris, from the couch, humor, linkage, pimpage, psychotherapy, scallywag & vagabond

The Curious Pitch

The Curious Affairs Of Atherton Bartelby - Inaugural Graphic Banner

Way back on a rainy evening in January of 2007, in a deserted office building quite literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I typed the inaugural entry of Curious Affairs on WordPress. It was not, of course, my first blog, but it was my new blog, or, as I termed it, my “Home”: my space, online, that was for me and me alone and anyone who chose to engage me in conversation in it because they appreciated or were touched by those things about which I chose to write. My intention for the blog was that it would be something very unique, a blog in which my passions, however varied they may be, could collide, and a space in which the professional, the political, and the personal would forever carry my own unique voice. But it was always very difficult for me to articulate precisely what, exactly, Curious Affairs was about, beyond obfuscated references to Lewis Carroll and my own sometimes cryptic way of expressing my ideas in writing.

The graphic banner I chose to grace my blog at the time, the same one that graces this entry, spoke the volumes about my blog that I, somehow, could not: a blond man (Jude Law as “Alfie,” hello), hunched into the weather as he walked down a New York City street, into the heart of Oahu’s Ko`olau mountain range, simply…searching. For me, and for readers of this blog, I decided, the experience of writing and reading its contents would be a journey, into the City and across the island and into myself and down the proverbial rabbit hole; a search, for whatever, at the time, inspired me or others in my life, however curious those things may be.

You know what?

That’s a hard concept to pitch.

I write this because I am redesigning my blog, and my portfolio site, and of course with that comes at the very least a reassessment of one’s “brand,” of how one presents oneself online, and the devising of a nice, concise way to package all that one writes about, all that one is passionate about, into one complete sentence. And it is rather difficult for me to package all that I write about, and have written about (graphic design, web design, internet culture, art, music, film, opera, philosophy, erotica, dark cafe days, dreams, memories, family, friends, relationships, sex, video games, hopes, desires, Macalania and moonlight and Pikachu) into one nice, clearly organized, with just the hint of a “hook” to make you want more, sentence.

I would really like to be one of those bloggers who is comfortable with being all “niche,” all “industry-specific.” I would love to be termed a “design blogger” or a “media blogger” or a “gay relationship blogger.” But neither I, nor my blog, will ever be just any one of those things, because one’s life is not single-faceted like that; one’s life, and certainly mine, is multi-faceted: the professional and the personal, the good and the bad, the specific, and the all-encompassing. And I think that the internet, more and more, is allowing this kind of blogger to exist (provided said bloggers can artfully toe the line between “just enough” and “outright oversharing”): this kind of blogger who does not fit into any one “group,” but who instead features content that a variety of people will find attractive sometimes, and sometimes not.

So how do I, as ProBlogger Darren Rowse suggests in his first task of the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog Challenge, come up with a pitch for my blog that could be delivered to another passenger in the time and space of an elevator ride?

Curious briefings on culture, design, and the digital world, as observed through the looking glass by Atherton Bartelby.

It is not perfect. It is, in fact, rather cheeky and self-deprecating. But I like it. Because it, in some way, encompasses at least a little bit of what readers will find when they stumble through my own particular rabbit hole. And it, rather fondly, recalls in words the theme that my blog’s old graphic banner sought to convey in a composite image: that this blog is a journey, along a lot of different roads, some well-traveled, and some traveled not at all. But each path will lead me, and the reader, to someplace interesting.

And if one is curious enough, they will follow along with me.

Filed under: Blogging, Personal, Writing , 31 days, branding, darren rowse, defining moments, history, home, linkage, memories, needful reminders, problogger, questions, the elevator pitch