MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
|
|
MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
|
Baltimore - 1 June, 1999 - This is our first edition from Baltimore, Maryland.
It is also our largest edition ever, featuring sixteen new articles and features from our eclectic team of writers from around the globe. We've been discussing, playing with, challenging each other, and planning this edition for a number of weeks.... even as I made my move from New York City. (More on that below.)
I'm extremely proud of the satire, the laughs, and the social analysis The World's Magazine has to offer you this week. I suspect that most of you won't be able to digest all that's here in a week's time, so I welcome you to come back and savor it over the course of your summer. Cruise it on your Powerbook while sitting by the pool.
I could go and on about the great writing featured in this edition. There are even pieces I'm tempted to recommend to you. But because this is a Special Edition, I'd rather encourage you to peruse it for yourself, read it all, and let me know what you think.
AMTRAK (Between Newark and Baltimore-Washington International Airport): Baltimer, Baltimore City, B'more, I am learning to make myself accustomed to all the names applied to this place which is the heroin-addiction and murder capital of the United States. It is also the seat of Johns Hopkins University, that shrine to Unitarian charitable instincts, one of our nation's finest. The National Marine Aquarium, which attracts more visitors than even Disneyland (It's true!) is also there. The television series, "Homicide - Life on the Street" shoots there (it's been cancelled on NBS, but you can see it every night on CourtTV) and Edgar Allen Poe and H.L. Mencken drank copiously and wrote there.... Now the World's Magazine will come from that contradictory and contrary city on the mid-Atlantic coast of this country.
I have abandoned my usual practice of composing entries for the Publisher's Notes page last as I have this stretch of time (3 hours) on the final train ride of my jaunt from Manhattan to Baltimore. I have made this journey a number of times over the past month, so the charms of the scenery have exhausted themselves. I have read all the graffiti, seen all the scrap metal and auto graveyards, the light rail yards, the rivers, lakes, schoolyards and abandoned housing projects, office parks, rowhouses, power substations, oil refineries, stretches of interstate highway, and apartment buildings.
I have always found the sound a train whistle holds a melancholy romance for me. Hearing that hoarse squall of a train's signal, deep in the night, I have always wanted to be on the train travelling to wherever its unseeen destination, rocking along to a rhythm reminiscent of time measured by the beat of horses' hooves rather than the pulsing of electrons...
I have ridden trains often on this hejira. Through New England, New York and now the mid-Atlantic states. There are many more train rides in store for me, places and people I must see.
There's a technology-related cocktail party at the end of June, at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan, I intend to attend, for example. And then my publishers, Andover News Network, are planning a Grand Opening party for their new offices in Massachusetts in July. Yes, travel is definitely in the cards for Life of Rod. I am beginning to see that it is not only part of my nature, it is part of my destiny.
She said that she has told my sister-in-law that it bothers her that --- since leaving California --- I won't "establish" myself anywhere.
I tried to explained to my Mom that I am established on the Internet. Like many people, even people who are not eighty years old, she was confused by that statement at first. I reassured her. I told her not to worry, geography is less relevant for my continued employment, my writing, or my publishing, than electronic access. I explained to her that I was only semi-joking when I say I "live" on the Internet. For my publisher, and the 20-odd writers and contributors here, I do.
For you, as well, Gentle Reader, this space rather than the room in which I type these words is where I "live."
In my view, it's not a bad place because I can *literally* see the world while leaving you with the assurance that you'll always find me in *exactly* the same place as you have these past 170 weeks. That's "established" enough for me...
We're glad you're here. We have a lot to offer this (and EVERY) week. Stick around. More importantly: TELL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS. We want you here EVERY DAY.
WHY?
Because we like you...
Work like you don't need the money,
NOTES FROM THE ROAD:
My mother telephoned me today and asked if I planned to stay in Baltimore for a while.
Thanks for coming back this week.
Love like you've never been hurt,
Dance like no one is watching,
Rod
Rod is 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.
When not busy with his publishing chores at this site, and answering sixty -to- one hundred e-mails a day, he likes to throw darts; seek female companionship; and listen to Tupac, Beethoven, Philip Glass, Joni Mitchell, James Carter, Eric Clapton, Snoop Dogg, Etta James, Miles Davis, Handel, Portishead, Toots & the Maytals, Bob Marley, Sinead O'Connor, techno, house, jazz....
CREDITS || AWARDS
|| SEARCH ENGINES || LINKS ||
VOX POPULI, The Reader Response Page.
©1999, GENERATOR 21.
Our Editor does listen!
© 1999, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your snide remarks to rod@g21.net.