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Online works for smart humans ... since 2006

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 ISSUE 16 - FEBRUARY 2008  GRAND CENTRAL DECLARATION 

Hello! What's This? 

Time Stopped In Grand Central Station!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo

The brilliant ImprovEverywhere* used only human cooperation: humbling and inspirational!

We are inspired by this glorious video to see and to declare: Our Mission is to bring online works to smart humans.

Recalling our birth in Issue 1 way, way back (nearly two years ago!) and squinting ahead into the Global Brain Fog that obscures the Future, we see we strove, strive, and aspire to the Mission we can now express ... declare! 

Those who have been with us know that we have grown, and it is a joy to behold Frozen Grand Central unfreeze our ability to express that which has motivated us until now and that which forever will remain our aim.

*http://www.improveverywhere.com/

 

 

 ISSUE 15 - START 2008  GRATEFUL DEAD PREDICT BURNING SHORTS 1972! 
Can it be true? 
The Grateful Dead predict Burning Shorts in 1972?

Introducing the Dead, May 7, 1972, The Bickershaw Festival, UK:

" 'For all our muddy friends

THE GRATEFUL DEAD.'

Thus spake the announcer as the Dead launched into "Truckin'" - the start of a mammoth 245 minute show . . ." during which, this:

"After RAMBLE ON ROSE, the band comment on the stink from the dozens of fires.

Unknown band member: "What's on fire"

Weir: "I don't know what you're burning out there , but it smells rotten."

Phil? "It must be my shorts ... " 

Below mid-page and just following "After RAMBLE ON ROSE ..." http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/dead.html 

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So, we embrace this opportunity to honor hippie heroes and true creative visionaries: Timothy Leary, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, and Jerry Garcia with Kesey, all as today's internet can only make possible.  

Indeed, there is such a wealth of content that what follows is a mere taste. Humble thanks to Web2.0 for providing us with such wealth.

In a recent Flaming Arrow, we mentioned our encounters personally with Leary, as he was an early, passionate, digital media evangelist: "Turn on, tune in, boot up ..." as he said. 

The recipients wanted more: You got it! We spent a weekend with Hunter S. Thompson; we interviewed Kesey; and we had a most memorable conversation with Garcia. That was a while ago.

Yet, time only illuminates more brightly just how swashbuckling these creative visionaries were and, as inspirational figures, important to our current mission: to commit heart and soul to advance the Human Adventure unfolding in digital media. 

It is therefore a personal pleasure to bring you the following homage: 

Timothy Leary: Psychedelics as sacraments; coat and tie era for Tim; black and white television clip; 42 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HclVTYUQV-M . Then, Tim circa 1980 and ambushed by television interviewer. Behold Tim's commitment to gentleness and remaining open and non-defensive. 10 minutes 18 seconds and worth it. And he tells the interviewer to go "back to Iran"! Close to a hundred K views on this post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT31oB2vspw&feature=related Nearing death in 1995, Tim provides advice for all of us: ""You have to go out of your mind to use your head." Part of a series of length, captivating interviews by Paul Krassner. E.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-KAmpXsdUE 

Hunter S. Thompson: Hunter was surely big fun back in the day. Here we have Hunter struggling with intimations of mortality and just perhaps hatching a plan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r31hV_BPFf0&feature=related  ... For an accurate tribute to Dr. Gonzo, it would require the unique verbal intensity and apparent psychic chaos of another we met ... Gary Busey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-rE0dNV5Bo&feature=related 

Ken Kesey [and the Merry Pranksters]: Seeking to visit Leary (they were all connected with each other ... just not on this day, but see Garcia and Kesey below). Look for the "Further" sign on the front of Kesey's bus. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcstOdT1Pe0 

Jerry Garcia with Ken Kesey: Interviewed by the strangest of all, the late Tom Snyder ... captured herein (Live, NBC Studios, New York City, May 7th, 1981)  is a trace of the infectious joy and silliness that fueled the era: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ilnADvT2s 

 

  ISSUE 14 - 2007 ENDS WITH A ZUNE!
Zune Journey: we just may have a masterpiece at http://www.zunejourney.net/ .

Please know and remember that the visitor controls the velocity at which one moves as well as the angular direction: Fast and straight is spectacular and even more so is slow with angular exploration.

Standing still is also fascinating: what a tribute to an interactive digital artwork.

This is a work, a Journey, of glorious kinetic, visual richness, and it is recursive in that the visitor-guided Journey moves through phases which repeat. Yes, the refrain from a song or, more accurately, the variations on a melodic theme in a symphonic movement repeat; however beautiful such musical repetitions or recursions may be, the listener remains passive. In Zune Journey, the visitor fully shapes navigationally all variations of each thematic return, and all occur seamlessly.

Zune Journey’s music, specifically, is a series of linear songs which are diverse yet supportive of the visual, self-propelled adventure, both in brisk forward mode and in thematic visual variations.

In design, there is an early ancestor of Zune Journey by Cyan called The Manhole.

Regarding The Manhole, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manhole. Regarding Cyan and its legacy, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyan_Worlds
While The Manhole was a children’s game and thus simplified, the visitor moved in and through a recursive journey, as with Zune.

I had the privilege to represent Cyan during its most celebrated years circa 1993-1997, the period of Myst and Riven, the hauntingly beautiful, completely innovative, and exquisitely shaped works of interactive fiction for the personal computer. During its era, Myst was the best-selling computer game in history.

The Manhole was a very early work, and yet its innovative creativity alerted the player to the Cyan brilliant imagination which bloomed fully in Myst and Riven.

It is, therefore, both a personal and editorial pleasure to recommend Zune Journey, this native online work (hence available free and worldwide, though unobtrusively in service of a commercial product), which is uniquely beautiful.