MISCMEDIA.COM: 2000 Columns

MISC.Media by Clark Humphrey; Archived Columns

Index to 2000 MISCmedia Columns

January

Worse Than Getting a Rock for Trick-or-Treat: A Peanuts tribute.
A Future Trend, No More Trendsetters: As the Internet Age expands, will professional tastemakers become obsolete? (I certainly hope so.)
A Post-White America; A Post-California America: The Fool's-Golden State has faced much turmoil in adjusting to a more multiethnic society. The rest of the country doesn't have to repeat these mistakes.
Obviating Obfuscation: Is awful writing necessary for "political" discourse?
The Big Bamboo-zle?: A sex-workers' zine says American hetero-males stand no chance of living out gigolo fantasies. For men living in foreign tourist zones, the story's a little different.
Separating the Crap from the Crap: A few indie MP3 music files that don't completely suck.
AOL+TW=$$?: New media buys old media, or is it the other way around?
Attitude, Schmattitude: Why bullheaded 'rebellion' is so overdone these days.
Back to the (Print) Future?: New media gets the hype, but old media still has the business plan.
Schelling Out: The right and wrong reasons for wanting to dump a mayor.
Waiting for the Pop: Internet stock-speculation fever--is there a cure?
Reel Places: Some real-life movie locations revisited.
The Ultimate Leftovers: Seeking a use for all that Y2K survival food.
The Ex-Liberal Industry: A surefire career strategy: Briefly champion lefty ideas, then spend the rest of your life loudly renouncing them on the right-wing lecture circuit.
Norma Jean & Marilyn & Frances: Choose your favorite Hollywood-martyrdom legend.
Game Theory: Who wants to kill 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'? The Hollywood establishment, that's who.
Don't Dis Ataturk: Our guest columnist goes to Turkey in search of Amazon warrior legends, and instead finds a country torn by present-day wars. (Part 1 of 2)
Praying for Turkey: Our guest columnist's downbeat travelogue continues. (Part 2 of 2)
From City Light to City Extra-Light: Seattle in the '80s and early '90s was a bourgeois, conformist place, but it had pockets of resistance and alternate modes for living. Today, everything non-upscale is gone or threatened. (Part 1 of 2)
From City Light to City Extra-Light, Part 2: Comparing yesterday's blandly-bourgeois Seattle with today's maniacally-bourgeois Seattle. (Part 2 of 2)
Make Our Day!: Let's reschedule the canceled Seattle New Year's festivities as the opener of a year-and-a-half celebration leading to the city's 150th birthday.

February

A Striking Move: Will it take Microsoft money to give the Pro Bowlers Tour a "hip" image?
Late '90s Nostalgia: The 1997, filmed-in-Seattle movie 'Slaves to the Underground,' on video at last, can now be seen as depicting a past, simpler time--when all you had to do to make a 'feminist' movie was to depict the same old gender stereotypes, merely completely reversed.
I've Got the (Low) Power: Why low-power radio could be the coolest thing ever, if they don't ruin it at the start.
'Rising' Damp: 'The Rise and Rise' of a journalistic cliche.
More Media Merger Madness: EMI's 'unlimited supply' runs out.
The Future of the Future: Post-millennial utopian visions are compared.
Samoa the Same: If Margaret Mead hadn't famously romanticized Samoa as a land supposedly free from sexual hangups, would Mary Kay LeTourneau have fallen so hard for her Samoan-American student?
Giving Us the Business: Those rah-rah way-new business magazines. (Part 1 of 2)
Your Money: Every other media outlet's gone finance-crazy; why not us? (Part 2 of 2)
V.D.: A reluctant bachelor's reluctant look at Valentine's Day.
And He Will Fly, Fly A-way!: Local media depict Ken Griffey Jr. as nice, then mean, then nice again; without him actually changing one bit.
The Final Frontier?: Another cool place endangered.
Jem Assessment: Still another cool place endangered--the heart and soul of the Seattle visual-art scene.
A Cursed World: Cussing across cultures.
Glam I Am: Putting the DIY funk back into fashion.
Yes, It's Chicken: Several short items, including the latest false Net-rumor.
Search Engine Fun: Some more keywords that, often mistakenly, bring readers here.
Improv Nation: A zine for improv musicians claims that genre holds an example for a future post-corporate society. (Part 1 of 3)
Toward an Improv Nation: More on avant-improv music as a post-corporate aesthetic avatar. (Part 2 of 3)
Improv Nation Ascendant: Can a Grammy-fed nation really learn neo-tribalism thru music? Quite likely. (Part 3 of 3)
Survey Says: Results of our most recent MISCmedia questionnaire.

March

Microsoul: A "permatemp" escapes Microsoft and lives to tell the tale. (Part 1 of 2)
Where I Don't Want to Go Today: Gates-land depicted as a dystopia on Earth. (Part 2 of 2)
A Requiem for 'Today's News Today': America's last profitable big-city evening paper finally gives up, moves to mornings.
Who Killed the Video Star?: MTV, one million or so videos later.
What's In a (Corporate) name?: Dozens of the goofiest company names we could find.
Restored to What?: Some old buildings that got gentrified (a fate just slightly better than getting torn down).
Unholier Than Thou: "Bohemian" culture as just another form of centralized marketing.
Where Are the Fat Guys?: Reminiscing about when the online ruled was ruled by jovial big dudes, not by aggressive tall dudes.
A Case of Mono(culture): A self-proclaimed "Magazine for the Rest of the World" puts out an issue "celebrating" the ubiquity of global brand names.
They Might Be Broadcasters: The singular joys of single-artist Net radio.
You're (Not) Lookin' At Country: The cable channel formerly known as The Nashville Network becomes just another rerun dump.
What I Don't Know (A Partial List): What part of 'I don't know' don't you all understand?
Retro-Progressivism: Two Harvardites have a scheme to bring back lefty-populism to U.S. politics.
It's An X-Treme World: Snowboarding and other "extreme" sports--more things that are no longer rebellious.
When the Muzak's Over: Memories of elevator music past.
Less-Filling 'Fillmore': Learning to appreciate the worst comic strip in the papers.
Where America No Longer Shops: Sears and Penney threaten to go the way of Woolworth.
Proper I.D.: Identity politics, target marketing--what's the difference really?
Business - B.S. Still = Business: Big companies that ceased talking like clueless bureaucrats would probably still exploit workers, endanger the environment, etc.
Wagons East: Even Los Angeles worries about losing its civic identity.
Even MISC-er: Shorts about an abhorrant politician, new wave karaoke, and a dead record store.
Rendez-Who?: A vital local nightspot's been sold, but nobody seems to know the buyer.
Demo Days: You bet we've got demographics!

April

Read A Little About It: Could Philadelphia's little new 'Metro' daily be the savior of the U.S. newspaper biz?
Loving It To Death: Thoughts on seeing this column's original home refitted for zillionaire "artist-loft lifestyle" condos.
Save the Arts. Buy Art: Turning cyber-rich condo buyers into arts patrons.
Wine Dark Sea: What a wine-biz trade magazine teaches about marketing, free trade, and smarmy PR.
Hammin' Eggers: Is author-editor Dave Eggers a 'Staggering Genius' or just another hip-ironic bad boy?
Art, Commerce, P.R., and Toasters: A poet-salesman's selves have a debate while reading the business news. (Part 1 of 2)
More Art, More Toasters: Still searching for aesthetics among the business pages' paeans to power. (Part 2 of 2)
Copywrongs: Further adventures in 'intellectual property' power-grubbing.
On the (Virtual) Air: Announcing the next phase of this omnimedia project--MISCmedia Radio!
How High Was My Tower?: For all his positive qualities, I've still one beef with Jim HIghtower--his claim that the Democrats used to be as progressive as he wants them to become.
Dime Store Nostalgia: Remembering when downtown retail wasn't just for the upper-income brackets.
A Brighter 'Today': USA Today turns 18, tries to start looking mature.
Right Field: Some of the real reasons conservatives (heart) baseball.
Bread, Roses, and Miatas: James Twitchell, an English prof who (hearts) the culture of marketing.
The Continuing Story of CNBC: The stock market as soap opera.
Even MISC-er: Short stuff, including fun facts about a "world class" architect.
Picture Deals: The new world capital of the stock-photo business.
Harping: Harper's Magazine meets the Dreaded Eugene Anarchists.
Dream of Fields: A visit to Safeco Field, where the best seats are the worst. (Part 1 of 2)
Stadium Blackmail, Tacoma-Style: So much for AAA baseball's supposed purity. (Part 2 of 2)

May

The Way-New Left: For May Day, a relatively optimistic look at the neo-radical subculture.
Dreaming the City: An acclaimed novelist looks back at how dreams, schemes, visions, and tropisms helped to create today's urban reality. (Part 1 of 2)
Drawing the City: Visual images of urban scenes, real and imagined, and their use as political tools. (Part 2 of 2)
The Destruction Continues, Again: This time, prepare to say goodbye to a thrift-store favorite.
Cold-War Moderns: Modern art as capitalist tool.
'Psycho' Babble: 'American Psycho' as anti-capitalist propaganda.
A Cure for MS? Could two Microsofts be more dangerous than one?
A Premature Plug Electric cars are coming at last, for sure this time, one of these years, maybe.
Girls Rule. It's Official: After last year's spate of save-our-sons books, a magazine piece now claims boys are falling ever-further behind in school.
How to Be A Male Feminist Without Hating Yourself: Being born into a position of relative priivlege doesn't make you automatically evil.
The Pre-Post-PC Era: Could Microsoft's time in the sun be nearing a natural end anyway?
Stacked: The new Seattle library as the Experience Music Project's good twin.
The Then Generation: You don't have to be a Republican to be tired of demographic-butt-kissing paeans to the Sixties Generation.
Still Boomin':Twenty years after Mount St. Helens's vomit launch.
'My,' Oh My!: The latest annoying Web fad, those commercial 'My __.com' sites.
Reliable Sources?: Open-source software and the return of the ethic of the (old-definition) hacker.
It's (Still) Square to be Hip: Is the anti-branding movement just another way to define your hipness via brand names?
Why Sweatshoppers (Heart) Hipsters: There is a relatively consistent reason why the supporters of docile, underpaid foreign workforces like to domestically identify with images of individualist 'rebels.'
Scootin': Those way-cool new collapsible scooter thangs.
Napstermania: MP3 trading is killing the music industry. Keep up the good work, boys and girls!
The Typeface That's Taking Over the World: Call it "Meta," or call it "Fette Mittlelschrift"--it's this year's Helvetica, and it's everywhere.
A Geek Medici and His Discontents: Bill Gates has remade Seattle's attitude in his image, but it's Paul Allen who's changing the town's whole look.
Why Seattle (Hearts) Film: The 'highbrow' art form that even the middle-class children of G.I. Bill parents can enjoy.

June

'Life' Dies Again: The fate of a mass-market magazine in a niche-marketing age.
Things You Think You Know: Some short stuff, including a few commonly-believed "facts" which are, in fact, untrue.
Never Mind 'Never Mind Nirvana': The questionable thrill of being personally name-dropped in a bad novel.
Footing the Bill: More things we could demand as part of any Microsoft settlement.
Rap Sheet: How hip-hop devolved from a celebration of black intelligence to a celebration of white stupidity.
Looming Geezerdom: Some activities that don't seem as much fun in one's forties.
Partying Like It's 1999: The parallels between old-style Woodstock nostalgia and new-style WTO-protest nostalgia. (Part 1 of 2)
The Good Old Days: Will today's young radicals age into the same insuffrable nostalgia-fetishists that their '60s precursors became? (Part 2 of 2)
What You're Reading: A few of our readers' favorite books.
What You're Writing: Results from another of our periodic questionnaires.
The Golden Ticket: The company that billed itself as the indie-cred alternative to Ticketmaster sells out to Ticketmaster; plus Courtney Love's conversion to the anti-major-label cause.
Getting Reel: Differences between the world of the movies and the real world.
The Next Step?: Mulling potential changes to this site; plus a look at the Fremont parade.
Will the Real 'Idiots' Please Stand Up?: Who's dumber, the characters in a Danish movie trying to find their 'inner idiot,' or the MPAA censors who butchered the film?
Myles Ahead: Remembering Flann O'Brien (aka Myles na gCopaleen), the Irish novelist-essayist who turned the newspaper 'humor' column format into a surrealistic epic. (Part 1 of 2)
Myles, To Go: Some brief excerpts from the newspaper work of Flann O'Brien/Myles na gCopaleen. (Part 2 of 2)
Dot-combustion: If the tech stocks keep falling, how would it affect an urban society that's become dependent on confidence in unending growth? (Part 1 of 2)
After the Gold Rush? Imagining what a post-Net-mania America might be like. (Part 2 of 2)
Dot-commodification: Some buildings that have been refitted for tech workers' work and play spaces.
The EMP-ire Strikes Back: Random ruminations about the Experience Music Project. (Part 1 of 2)
'Experience' Preferred But Not Essential: Some more half-baked thoughts about the Experience Music Project. (Part 2 of 2)
Reality! What a Concept!: Once the anti-virtual-reality backlash hits, 'reality' will become the Next Big Thing--if it isn't already.

July

The Downward Spiral: A local landmark gets defaced by its owners; plus a Jacob Lawrence appreciation.
The State of the Politick: The election season's shaping into a Ford/Mercury contest--largely identical products being sold to different target markets.
Nothing But 'Net': What the heck IS 'Microsoft.NET' anyway?
Post-Industrial Fantasies: Preserving urban land for companies that actually MAKE things? How passe!
What The Hell Happened?: Did the Y2K non-event put a kibbosh on dystopian fantasies; or is real life hellish enough?
Open Media, Closed Wallets?: 'Peer-to-Peer Information' is all fine and dandy, but how's anybody going to get paid for it?
A Kozmo Quiz: You don't need invasive background checks to test dot-com couriers. You just need a magazine-style pop psychology quiz.
Who Wants to Get Laid?: Our guest columnist has an odd night on the town in Pioneer Square.
Girl Trouble, '50s Style: The 'good old days' of Esquire magazine, when men were men and women were something else.
Confessions of a Boss Chick: A guest columnist recalls teen miseries in Philadelphia during the Bicentennial summer. (Part 1 of 2)
Further Confessions of a Boss Chick: Our guest columnist resumes her memoir of dancing in hot pants with older men. (Part 2 of 2)
The Magazine Glut: More than half the magazines now on the stands could go out of business within a year. Would many of them be missed?
The Look of Cluelessness: The 'In' look in men's fashions this year--utter ridiculousness!
We Are Driven: Pondering whether it's really true that the more you drive, the less intelligent you become.
Misadventures in the Housing Market: Preparing to get the heck outta Belltown after nine years. (Part 1 of 4)
Bye Bye Belltown: Remembering what the old neighborhood used to be like. Before the dark time. Before the Upscale. (Part 2 of 4)
Make Your Move: Moving's never easy. Especially for an avid amateur collector of old trade magazines and promotional yo-yos. (Part 3 of 4)
Transformation Through Movement: More moving weirdness, and the peculiar feeling of no longer feeling like an ex-college student. (Part 4 of 4)
The Next Pioneer Square?: Ballard becomes the new art-party zone, for the time being.
Rebuilding communities by turning malls into retro "town squares": Is it enough?
108 Channels and Nothin' On: The total-immersion experience that is digital cable.

August

Habeus Corporate: Author David C. Korten has a dream for a world freed from big-money control. It would be mellow, pastoral, and boring as hell.
Surviving 'Survivor': The show whose lessons are the exact opposite of the skills needed for real survival, in the wild or elsewhere.
Yeah I Still Like Seafair: Our nearly-annual defense of Seattle's old-time corny civic celebration.
The He-Man Woman-Lovers' Club: A search for a model of male behavior beyond both the modern asshole-vs.-wimp dichotomy.
John Carlson and Me: Yr. columnist's sordid past with a current candidate for Governor.
eBook, schmeBook: Does the endorsement of Stephen King mean electronic literature's 'arrived'? Does it even need such media-anointed designation?
No 'No Logo': Go ahead. Be a walking billboard.
You Kids These Days!: Isn't anybody being rowdy anymore? (Actually, yes.)
Getting 'Edge'-y: A new anthology offers up Northwest fiction that has nothing to do with birds or trees.
Conventional Thinking: Some short items, including a defense of political-party conventions.
One-Track Mindfulness: One "grass roots" movement wants to keep the Monorail Initiative alive; another wants to kill all public transit.
The Least "Bizarre" Sight on Earth: Two magazines that revel in supermodel flesh treat ordinary-looking nudists as freaks.
What Now, My Love?: Starting a pondering about the future of this here venture. (Part 1 of 4)
Is There a Cure for the Ideavirus?: One of those new self-help business books claims all successful marketers start with an idea. A really simple idea. (Part 2 of 4)
Keep It Simple (And) Stupid?: It's not just in business where simple, marketable ideas rule. Politics and pop psychology also abound in gross oversimplifications that sell. (Part 3 of 4)
The Brand Called Who?: How does one come up with a simple PR line for a website that's all about celebrating life's complexities? (Part 4 of 4)
It's Wet, It's Wired, It's Wow: The best (or perhaps second-best) Northwest pop-cult trivia book ever written.
Cirque du Simoleans: Our guest reviewer sees flashy, costly performance art in the heart of Renton's Boeing country.
Stuck in the Skate-ies: Does skate punk, that 20-year-old subgenre of suburban white-boy self-destructiveness, deserve museum-piece treatment? Yes.
They Love the Decade We Hated: No, the '80s weren't all that great (or were they?) (Part 1 of 2)
Memories of Reagan-Bashing: More '80s reminiscences. (Part 2 of 2)
Bell System Nostalgia: Buildings left behind by the old Ma Bell; pre-US West, even pre-Qwest.
Unbroken 'Arms': In 'The Cornelius Arms,' fiction author Peter Donahue remembers the pre-dot-com Belltown.

September

Unburnt: Why I've never been to Burning Man.
The English Channel: Fun with BBC America.
Out-spoke-en: A zine for bicycle messengers remembers a fallen member of its tribe.
Shooting the Bumber: What's right with the Bumbershoot arts festival at age 30.
Rough Seas: The 2000 Seattle Mariners--'Sodo Mojo' or a classic baseball collapse in the making?
Cineplex Onerous: Multiplex bankruptcies, coming soon to a theater near you.
In the Realm of the Censors: Both the Gore and Bush campaigns would like to crack down on sex and violence in America's entertainments; particularly if said entertainments come from outfits other than the big media conglomerates.
Razin' Heck: Life on a Razor scooter.
My Dear Watson: A tribute to Emmett Watson, possibly the greatest self-proclaimed hack writer in Northwest history.
Cracked Schell?: An already-beleagured mayor apparently thinks he can regain popularity by banning all-ages music; proving again just how out-of-it he really is.
Green, Not Red: No, protecting the environment is not a Communist plot to deprive rural citizens of a livelihood.
Shifty Business: Why you can't get a decent old-fashioned bicycle anymore.
I Am (Not) Canadian: Notes from perhaps the only place that frets about its identity more than Seattle. (Part 1 of 2)
True North?: Further Canadian notes, including what's right with BC Transit's SkyTrain. (Part 2 of 2)
How Sound Is It?: What's wrong with Sound Transit.
Downtown Non-Retail: A few remaining downtown Seattle buildings not exclusively created for the purpose of selling stuff.
Laff-A-Lympics: The possible end of the Olympic Games as we U.S. audiences have known them.
Be a PayPal, Why Dontcha?: Another possible solution to making websites supportable.
That '70s Column: Starting a reminiscence of Seattle 25 years ago this month. (Part 1 of 6)

October

When AM Still Ruled: Back when we still had an afternoon paper and you could hear rock n' roll on AM radio. (Part 2 of 6)
The Spirit of '75: The local arts scene, back in the pre-Bicentennial days of funky theatricality and free-flowing funding. (Part 3 of 6)
Memories of Gas Lines: The good old days of economic stag-flation. (Part 4 of 6)
The Old Sleaze District: The pre-gentrification First Avenue, and other lost landmarks. (Part 5 of 6)
I Miss the Diminished Expectations: Ending a reminiscence of Seattle 25 years ago this month, with random impressions of the Good-Bad Old Days. (Part 6 of 6)
Who's the Big Cheese?: Perhaps the simplest, dumbest business motivation book ever written.
A Poke-President: A 'Pokemon' guide to the Presidential candidates.
Part 2, Sounder: A follow-up piece on Sound Transit, including a trip on its new Sounder commuter train.
Napster and the Un-Dead: Could any musical act other than the Grateful Dead prosper without the 'intellectual property' industry?
Alter-Ego Mania: Experimenting with fictional characters for this online column.
Burn Hollywood Burn: Looking forward to the threatened big-studio strike.
Whither CNN?: The news continues; so does the cable-news leader's slow decline.
Low-Tech Fun: Cool toys and tchotchkes obtainable at the Puget Sound High-Tech Career Expo; plus a brief Mariners post-mortem.
Places That Rocked: Memories of music clubs past.
Virtual Worlds of Real Paper: Things that make a magazine (or content website) work.
Nader's Serenaders: Why so many normally jaded political observers have gone gaga for Ralphie Boy.
Burning on Re-Entry: Remembering The Rocket, the onetime bible of Northwest rock.
Lit-O-Rama: How to improve Northwest Bookfest.
Here Today...: Why one devout urbanite decided to split for the 'burbs. (Part 1 of 2)
...Gone to Kenmore: More on the siren-like lure of sprawl-land. (Part 2 of 2)
Old Fake Architecture: The possibly-last installment in our occasional series of looks at old buildings and the stories they have to tell.
Haunted Ground: A guest columnist describes the cemeteries and other favorite haunts of her town, Bremerton. (Part 1 of 2)

November

Haunted Ground, Part 2: More reasons why Bremerton might be the most surrealistic town on Earth. (Part 2 of 2)
Positive Negativity: Why I like negative campaign ads; plus a Halloween roundup and other short stuff.
The Sound Of Young America: Re-listening to the Clash's 'Hitsville UK' in the Age of Napster.
Pre-Election Rant: Me telling you what to do this Tuesday, at length and in aching detail.
Cal-Gone?: Should we pity the San Franciscans yet?
Election Aftermath: In the end, it's probably turned out to have been all about branding after all.
Anti-Drugs As Drugs: Why I'm down on drugs and other self-destructive addictions, including the 'war on drugs.'
Squeeze Play: What if America's major team sports all went co-ed?
Drips: We revisit our cast of fictional alter egos as they sort out the unfinished election business.
Book Review Confidential: Why they're written; why they're read.
Losing Vision: As Hollywood sinks slowly in the west...
Daring to Be Dull: Several short items, including a challenge to find a topic that could not even possibly be entertaining.
Apres Napster, Le Deluge: Compared to the up-'n'-coming file sharing Net systems for music and other media, Napster's relatively industry-friendly.
The Bon Target: The chain store commonly known as "Tar-szhay" opens in a pedestrian-friendly "urban village" development right next to Northgate, the original pedestrian-hostile mall.
Poker Face: Our fictional sullen barista faces a personal dilemma--she's happy, and she doesn't want anyone to know.
Bylines and Picket Lines: How the big Seattle newspaper strike might affect the local media landscape.
Full Disclosure: The softcore Net-video show The Naked News turns out to be no more showbizzy or exploitive than real newscasts.
Things I Like 2000: A post-Thanksgiving random listing of people, places, and things I'm really not cynical about.
Non-Master Races: A listing of people who might think they're better than you but aren't really.
Disconnecting the Dots: A fictional object lesson in how not to face potential unemployment.
Better Listening Through Research: Celebrating Raymond Scott's pioneering work in what now might be called "ambient" electronic music.
The New Positivity: How the WTO marches, intended as just a bigger version of ordinary protests, got progressives to think beyond just protesting. (Part 1 of 4)

December

Frankly Speaking: Despite the Way-New Left's progress, Baffler editor Thomas Frank still finds much to complain about in the milieu of pro-corporate punditry. (Part 2 of 4)
The Old Corporate Order:Thomas Frank's apparent nostalgia for the old days of smokestack industries is a bit misguided. (Part 3 of 4)
Police Action: A guest columnist reports from inside the anti-protestor dragnet on N302K. (Part 4 of 4)
Nerd Nostalgia: Remembering the days when programming was a craft.
Unmade in Japan?: Remembering the Japanese economic threat.
City Lite (Tentative Title): A new book project and other short topics.
Generation S&M, Part 1: A theory why bondage images were so hot in the '90s. (Part 1 of 2)
Generation S&M, Part 2: Revealing Catwoman as an unsung role model to millions of girls. (Part 2 of 2)
The Comeuppance of Benny Bucks, Almost: Can a god-in-his-own-mind learn to accept supervision? Apparently not.
Soul Food to Go: Intelligent black people on TV--something you've gotta pay extra for.
Dander in the Dark: A film set in Washington state but made in Sweden turns out to be more authentic than most films set in Washington state but made in Canada.
Back to the Old Drawing Board: Scott McCloud's Reinventing Comics--or is he?
Favorite Videos and Worst Job: A guest columnist tells a cautionary tale from commission-sales hell.
Point, Click, Organize: Why Amazon.com staffers want to unionize.
The Most Spectacular of 2000: Some of the year's biggest local public spectacles.
A Dot-Com Christmas Carol, Part 1: Beginning a new holiday tradition, a story about a businessman who doesn't just order his employees to work Christmas, but gives them a motivational speech explaining why they should want to. (Part 1 of 4)
A Dot-Com Christmas Carol, Part 2: Our antihero experiences the vision of Christmas Past, which looks just like an early video game. (Part 2 of 4)
A Dot-Com Christmas Carol, Part 3: In which the vision of Christmas Present is a Playstation-quality VR landscape, with solid-polygon hairdos and occasional digital dropouts. (Part 3 of 4)
A Dot-Com Christmas Carol, Part 4: In which our antihero learns the error of his ways, or imagines he does. (Part 4 of 4)
The Innies and the Outies: What will become hot and not-so-hot over the next year.

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