MISCmedia for 4/4/01
Site Flying

LOOKING FOR WORK, which I happen to be doing nowadays, takes a lot more time than working.

Between that and the new book project, and I just haven't the time to continue maintaining the MISCmedia website at its past-two-years level of a full-length essay or fiction piece every darned weekday.

(Besides, I've looked back at recent months' entries and found an embarrassingly large number of mediocre-by-my-own-standards "filler pieces" and abstract media-critique essays that weren't sufficiently thought out.)

So here's what I'm thinking of doing. (I know, I've pondered changes to the site before, but this time I mean it.)

Option #1: The same fabulousness as you're accustomed to reading, but replaced with new material less often and/or supplemented with more frequent guest-written columns and stories.

Option #2: Switch the site's main page to that increasingly popular "weblog" format, allowing a juxtaposition of small items similar to the original Misc. print-column format. I've talked about this before but never bothered to pursue it. Now I might. I'd still run full-length pieces and guest writers within this format, and archive these as separate files.

The print mag may change as well.

Right now, it basically collects the online pieces, with layout and pictures added, on inexpensive paper, and thrusts this material out into the world with little marketing or promotion.

To make it work as a stand-alone, potentially profitable venture means treating it as one. And that means putting more effort into creating a package of stories and art that will sell, or at least attract investors who think it will sell. And at my current schedule (see above), that means something bigger but less frequent.

I don't know what that will exactly be. But you'll be the first to be told.

NEXT: The roles played by role-players.

ELSEWHERE:

• Yes, light-rail projects can indeed be popular with riders. Even too popular (found by Metafilter)....
• You don't have to be an art historian (but it helps) to enjoy the Museum of Depressionist Art....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Memories of the radio station formerly known as KCMU.
• Thanks to the Net, some folks are writing more. That's supposed to be a bad thing?
• Remember rain?
• In defense of DIY publishing.
• A special offer on slightly-hurt Losers.
• Parts one and two of Boeing becoming just another global corporation.
• Could you be turning into a hippie without even knowing it?
• Is it time to privatize welfare customer-service?
• Tell me a story.
• A TV critic faces cancer.
• Music to accompany the mattress mambo.
• Goodbyes to film critic John Hartl, the outre-music zine The Tentacle, and some cool stores.
• A last lingering look inside the OK Hotel.
• Seattle as a city that works (and works and works).
• The terrible beauty of the freeways.
• The end of our little makeover parable.
• PBS discovers marketing to kids.
• Courtney Love reinvents herself as an anti-major-label crusader.
• Handicapping the Seattle mayoral race.
• The local Mardi Gras ought to be just as dumb and naked, just less fight-prone.
• Fun, sort of, with earthquakes.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• Some slightly weird little fiction pieces
• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving
• Cyber Stuff, links to cool and/or useful sites
• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate)
• The origin and future of MISCmedia