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" |
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Baltimore - 19 December, 1999 - In March, 2000, this effort will celebrate its 10th anniversary. Not as a Web magazine, of course, but in being published every week. I have taken only three breaks in publishing The World's Magazine weekly since 1990. The first was for a few months in 1992, the second was for three weeks in 1998, and this end-of-century break of two weeks is the last. That might lead some to observe that the 'nineties were my decade and the decade of GENERATOR 21, a.k.a. G21: The World's Magazine.
If that is so, then we are best qualified to write the post-mortem on this fin de siecle. Unlike last century's "Gay 'Nineties," I would have to call this decade the " Rant & Rave 'Nineties" --- and you can take the inference of a comparison to the "roaring" 'Twenties.
- We created that ultimate appellation of glitz "Supermodel," and doomed a new generation of young women to waifdom and starvation and drug-addiction.
- We proclaimed a short-lived, frustrated musician from Seattle the John Lennon of his generation for want of a better rock 'n' roll hero.
- David Bowie took to the Internet along with everyone else, continuing his reign as the best chameleon of modern times.
- A peace, of sorts, came to both the Middle East and Northern Ireland, two of the world's most volatile hot spots.
- The "Information Age" emerged from the egg-shell of desktop computing (micro-computing?) on wobbly legs like an Easter chick and won the ardor of the "developed" world.
- The mini-skirt and platform shoes came back.
- A Bubba-Yuppie from Arkansas followed an adle-pated actor as the second U.S. President in the last half of the century to serve two full terms in office. (Just barely, some might say.) We proclaimed that the Baby Boom generation had finally taken the torch of leadership from the Great War generation.
- It was definitely proven that paisley will never be a fashion statement.
- An entire generation decided that "retro" was the source of identity. Everything from the "Swinging Lifestyle" of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack to believing "That 70's Show" was relevant to post-modern life reared their ugly heads. America's biggest film director, Steven Spielberg, went from a fascination with space aliens (ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) exhibited in the '80s to a fascination with World War II (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan) to culminate the '90s, and didn't lose any box office momentum in the process.
- Instead of buying America, as predicted in the '80s, Japan became the nation to mirror and propogate its pop cultural trends from anime to Pokemon.
- Mercantilism re-emerged as the order of things in the business world; citizens were reduced to consumers; nations were reduced to markets; and Bill Gates became the most preeminent robber baron since John D. Rockefeller and followed his predecessor's example by passing out dimes through the Gates Foundation.
- What was once considered "news" in the United States, for a brief period at the middle of the century, devolved to infotainment and the worst impulses of the beginning of the American republic, when gossip and innuendo passed for information, were repeated.
- What once passed for the impulse toward democracy in human political life devolved to the impulse toward multinational "free" trade agreements sponsored by weakened national governments dependent on corporate largesse.
- With the end of the Cold War, nationalism went on the wane, under assault as it was by multinational corporate culture, but ethnicism became resurgent. Especially in the former Soviet bloc, where nations quickly imploded, old ethnic hatreds, anti-Semitism, and persecution of the Romany a.k.a. Gypsies was resurgent. But it was no different in Asia or Africa, where ethnic differences often led to genocidal crises, and neo-Nazi, White Supremacist organizations thrived from Germany and France to Iowa, USA.
- If I have to say anything about the 'nineties in a nutshell, I would have to join Bruce Tognazzini in declaring it the culmination of the the century of the shell game, the Big Scam. The computer industry in its present form represents the epitome of the scam, followed by Hollywood and what passes for "justice." (Shakespeare was right to insist that we hang all the lawyers.)
- The 'Nineties was the decade in which "rave" meant an all-night party suffused with laser light and deafening music where a "new global community" of youth came together to create a resurgence in the ingestion of LSD and felt tribal because of their "new" drug, tellingly called "Ecstacy." ("Only do Ecst with people you are *really close* to, Dude!") It was the decade when the Internet's Misanthropic Bitch and cable's Dennis Miller could become media-darlings by performing non-stop "rants."
Where was the G21 when all of this was going on? We were a hybrid creature producing strange visions of "liberal" hopefulness and reporting hard stories like the rise of the Kidnap and Ransom phenomenon abroad which was profiting both narco-terrorists and global insurance companies; like corruption in the politics of Disney's "home" of Orlando, Florida; like Goodyear Tires running an advertising campaign in Peru in which they had asserted: "Goodyear Tires. Strong as a Black man's lips."
We were covering "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland, and the election in Cambodia. And, yup, that was us writing about racism in the United States, and the plight of the Philippines after the Americans left.
We were interviewing controversial subjects like Oakland, CA's mayor Jerry Brown, Porn queen Vanessa del Rio and the World Church of the Creator's Matt Hale.
We took our mission of being The World's Magazine seriously and reported from Wales and Thailand, London and San Francisco.
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.
And that didn't stop us from chatting up more "Establishment" figures like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN's) Esther Dyson.
The World's Magazine: g21.net
Event # 197: TURN OF THE CENTURY
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LAST WEEK's EDITION
For Deep Background visit the G21-Barnes & Noble Shop
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And we had the courage to be satirical about some of your icons.
Yeah, Wolf DeVoon is right: No rest for the wicked.
So now the G21 Decade comes to its close. We take a two week hiatus so that old Rod can rest up, perhaps recharge his batteries, and come back swinging with a new vision.
As Editor and Publisher, I'm supposed to have something sagely to say about all that has come before and what you can expect from us in the future.
All I can say, paraphrasing Abe Lincoln, is that every day I wake up and try to do the very best I can... I have no magic wand. In fact, who knows where I'll be in 2000 and what my concerns --- other than more blocks in this Cathedral of Words --- will be.
I'm grateful that the G has allowed me to "meet," promote, and converse with so many fine writers over the years. I thought of that a lot today as I was working on the page for Kevin Carey's fine essay in this edition. Kevin's writing is not for everyone, I know. But I sometimes find it thought-provoking and inspiring, as in this instance. What more can a publisher ask?
(Will there be a special Holiday message from the G21 during the hiatus? Yes --- for those Clued-in enough to find the "Easter Egg" I mean to plant. Good luck!)
THE PLAN, as it now stands, is that I shall try to disappear to somewhere warm and tropical over the holiday. As you read this, I shall be badgering travel agents to find a suitable place for me to celebrate the dawning of the New Year now that my plans for going to Belgrade have come acropper.
Also, for those of you who were concerned about my re-entering the world of Corporate Dronedom, that ain't happening either. I had the temerity to actually ask for a JOB DESCRIPTION. NetSlaves don't get Job Descriptions, don't you know? So, yes, those of you who believe that I'm a Dreamer, I remain footloose and fancy-free.
Hey, Kids! Check out this page. We want you to join us.
Things That Bother Me This Week
- The on-going travel limbo.
- The illusion in Web companies that they are non-hierarchical. Turf is turf.
- The notion that writers and writing are inconsequential on a medium that is built on Hypertext.
- People who invariably believe that I am willing to sell myself short for their benefit.
- Pretending that I don't notice when I'm being dissed.
- People who have forgotten the concept of "elegance."
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.
EDITORIAL CORRECTIONS: Thanks, and a tip of the hat, to Dmitri d'Alessandro for pointing out to me that I missed correcting the typo "near;y" in last week's DAY ONE essay. His "head's up" helped me to correct that one within 24 hours. I apologize for the error.
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. 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.
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