MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
| MY GLASS HOUSE | THE PREVIOUS EVENT | THE NEXT EVENT | THE WRITERS/GUIDELINES | |
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Baltimore - 20 March, 2000 : I popped Phillip Glass's "Heroes" symphony --- inspired by the music of David Bowie and Brian Eno --- into my CD player before sitting down to compose this last "Glass House" as Editor of the magazine. I have listened to it many times over the years while putting these pages together. So it seems appropriate that I should listen to it this last time.
After ten years as Editor & Publisher, only being the publisher will be quite a change. I'm moving on. So I thought I'd begin this final word with a letter from my successor, Wolf DeVoon:
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FEED THE HUNGRY. You can help someone else in this world and IT WON'T COST YOU A DIME. If you simply remember to drop by The Hunger Site every day that you surf and click a simple button ONE LESS PERSON WILL GO HUNGRY. The food is distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme and paid for through the sponsorship of companies that care. Do your part.
Dear G21 Readers,
The World's Magazine: g21.net
Event # 207: CHANGING THE GUARD
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When a person is given a position of honor, the only decent response is to reply with one's loyalty and honesty. This has happened to me several times during the past five decades, and the stakes seem to get higher on each occasion.
About six months ago, I was honored by Laissez Faire City. They appointed me (roughly speaking) their national poet. My futuristic adventure novel, The Good Walk Alone is being serialized weekly on the web in Laissez Faire City Times. I'm currently working on Chapter Fourteen, which means that I'm only one week ahead of publication. Two fictional people named Archie and Janet have to live and love another sixteen weeks and triumph in a slam-bang ending that makes sense. This is no small task, I assure you. Somehow, it gets done on Tuesdays and Wednesdays like clockwork, one chapter a week. Late Monday I glimpse the way forward, and Wednesday afternoon I hit the Send button.
Guessing that I had maybe four or five idle days every week, in which I could make myself useful, creator/publisher/editor/columnist and soul brother Rod Amis decided to drop a bombshell. He asked me to edit The World's Magazine. Rod can be very persuasive when he wants to be. My objections were swept aside with a blunt instrument --- the truth. Rod's truthfulness is a monster (see brother Radio Raheem's testimony in a recent, revealing RDR).
Rod was the first zine editor to publish me, in 1998, and he continued to feature my essays ever since. I used G21 as a personal pipeline to discuss how I felt about the world. If you invoke the HotBotSearch function on our home page, you'll find a passel of stuff by Wolf DeVoon (especially "Forty-Nine").
Now, starting on April Fool's Day --- thanks a lot, Rod --- it will be my job as editor of The World's Magazine to encourage you to do the same thing. Every reader is hereby invited to contribute your unique, personal voice to the jazz band of expression that Rod worked solo, for four years, to orchestrate into a respected, much loved symphony for the digital World Community. If I can't feature everybody on the Cover Page, there's always plenty of room in Vox Populi, our reader's forum. The rules are simple. You write something, I post it.
So, here we are together, the New Guy and tens of thousands of people all over the world who collectively make this magazine possible. The best thing about being editor of The World's Magazine is that perceptiveness, timeliness, and weirdness counts. Those three themes are Rod's permanent contribution -- a G21 tradition that speaks for itself and won't be altered much by yours truly. I will consider myself a huge success if I can keep up with your emails, answer your questions, mind the grammar, punctuation and spelling, and somehow halfway understand everything that our correspondents are talking about, sufficient to bat out some headlines and "readouts" for the Cover Page.
The rest is up to you. In every part of this living, breathing world of humanity, your unique personal view is valued and sought. Let's celebrate it, together.
Wolf DeVoon
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Nice letter (if slightly sentimental). I hope all of you will take it to heart.
I know --- judging by the size of our VoxPop page these last few editions --- that NO ENCOURAGEMENT is needed to get you to submit to the "Letters" page. I hope Wolf will be able to keep up.
Farewell
Wolf expressed surprise when I announced this weekend that this Anniversary edition would be my last and began handing over Editorial duties so rapidly. I guess he didn't take into account that I'm not a Long Goodbye kind of guy.
I tend to want to cut to the chase, once the decision is made. Besides, as long-time readers know, between the influences of yesterday's Full Moon and my impending birthday this Friday, I'm ready to take dramatic action. I need to both close old doors and open new ones.
I've promised Rastislav Durman, over in Slovakia, that I would do a play for the Romathan Theatre and I mean to live up to that commitment. I have more than a full plate at Andover.net these days, between columns and working in the new Newsletter division, for which I am now Editor.
And then, quite frankly, I've been confronted lately with the fact that I need to do some work on my personal life. I need to have one, that is, which exists in the present rather than the past tense.
Part of that process, which I have learned painfully here in the Glass House, but also in the saga which unfolded at RDR, is that I need to deal with past ghosts, past guilts and demons. I have decided to seek the assistance of a therapist. Now there's something I never thought I would choose to do!
But I'm quite willing to now that I've re-opened the wounds. Me and Tony Soprano. Let's just hope that I don't get a therapist as attractive as his. I've never figured out why Tone would have chosen a female therapist. Seems to me that he was just asking for trouble, considering he's as much of a horndog as I know I am. (Joke!)
In all seriousness though, I feel I have been "okay" in my personal relationships, my friendships, but --- like most people --- I believe I can do better. As my pal, Yona, has pointed out I still tend to treat personal comfort as my enemy. I tend to want to take care of others first and myself last. In this transition, I plan to spend some time caring for Rod... Wish me luck.
******************** I have tried to put some wonderful things in this Anniversary Gala for you! I hope you'll take the time to visit each and everyone. We cover lots of international news, reasserting in my exit the vision of this as The World's Magazine. I hope you'll refer everyone of your friends.
Well, I guess that's about it for me.
Elvis has left the building.
Hey, Kids! Check out this page. We want you to join us.Things That Bother Me This Week
- My shabby wardrobe.
- Making such a large commitment to Andover.net.
- Wondering if I can rediscover the hero in my own life story and find love for him again.
- Taking on the role of Loyal Reader.
REMEMBER: Tell every single one of your friends about this Web site.
Why do we keep doing this? Because we like you.
Thanks for coming back this week."Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod
This is another Web site made on a Macintosh.
ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. He steps down as Editor-in-Chief today. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services.
Rod is now a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he writes on web design and development issues every Thursday. He is principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviews technology issues five days a week. His opinions on the Info Age began appearing on MethodFive's HYPER technology newsletter in March. 1999. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000.
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