Last week I came across the "Closing 50%" sale at Rodney's, a used bookstore in Central Square that I imagine is famous and storied, though I have no idea, I only discovered it for the first time on my way home from a Red Cross course a few months ago. Now, they are preparing to close. I bought the first book that caught my eye. Surfing the Internet by J.C. Herz , out in 1995.
I settle in to the 1369 Cafe with an iced coffee and the book and... whoosh, I'm right in there in the "Net" and she and they called it, that glorious place that was the Internet before it became the Web. That place that is no place, thats hard to get to before or after college. That has long since been superceded by--what exactly? Corporate schlock? Live Journal? Photo heavy blogs about what we all ate? The only thing now similar seems to be, maybe Chat Roulette, which I have yet to try. Maybe Twitter, which I seem to follow the wrong people on (sorry, people).
What a trip dipping back into the future of the past or the past of the future. Seeing this brave new world translated--so artfully--for the book reader. At a time when people still read books! On paper!
No wonder William Gibson called this "post geographical travel writing." And what an idea, but Herz wasn't the only one traveling. Post geographical travel. What an idea.
That's what this stuff was. Zines. Pen pals. The Net. The ability to truly wander, without leaving your chair, and the crux of it was to meet strangers and sometimes have a deep if fleeting and text-based connection, intellectual, artistic, sarcastic. Whatever. With someone you never would have met otherwise. And now, I don't know. Something that's coming up, back, or under, hopefully will take us there again.
But for the moment, I've got the rest of the book to read.
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