MISC. WORLD for 7/7/99
Webbed Words of Worth

SIX MONTHS AGO, you couldn't see a string of TV commercials without at least one website address flashing on-screen.

Today, you'd be hard-pressed to see a string of TV commercials (except maybe on Pax TV) without at least one ad that's all about a website.

Yet despite the hype over e-commerce and the dubya-dubya-dubya as a marketing tool, the Web remains what I hoped it would become five years ago--an all-accessible repository for great, immediate writing.

Herewith, a few examples of fine online verbiage that are not Salon and heavens-not Slate:

McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Accompaniment to the print somewhat-less-than-quarterly McSweeney's alterna-lit journal, but sharing no content with the paper version--just the same sense of literate whimsy and post-postmodern graciousness.

Rat Bastard. Washington, DC-based Don Bruns doin' the personal-net-diary thang, with self-effacing wit to spare.

Exquisite Corpse. Andrei Codrescu's little paper litmag is now indeed a corpse, but he continues to present brash-yet-thoughtful voices online.

My current fave: James Nolan on American doublespeak in the age of spin-control (a topic that gets beaten to death every election cycle, but he manages to bring it back to life).

Bittersweets. Each day, a one-paragraph narrative or observation about the wistfully-regretful side of life.

The Napkin. Like Bittersweets, but shorter, usually less bitter, and sometimes even cosmic (in a nice way).

Word. Besides the fun contemporary-art pages, the pages of found-objects pix, and the "Junk Radio" section full of moldy-oldies in streaming audio, the words on Word are themselves darned interesting and lively. Current best example: Philip Dray's probably-fictional yet realistic reminiscence of being "a Jewish caddy at a WASP country club."

You can tell the folks running Word have the right attitude if you hit "View Source" on your browser when you reach its homepage. There, amid all the HTML codin', is this hidden (until now, anyway) treat:

"META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Forget about whatever you were searching for. It's not important. You may not be aware of it consciously, but you really want to read Word instead. So go on -- click here. You'll be glad you did! Satisfaction guaranteed!"."

Random Story Generator. I know it's just an automated version of Mad Libs, but damned if it's not a total laff-riot each and every time.

ELSEWHERE: There's a big convention of ethnic-minority journalists in my town this week. The Seattle Times has been dutifully covering and previewing the event, but its big Sunday feature story tie-in was strictly about the "minority" the Times, and Seattle, are most comfortable with--upscale, white women (preferably blond and blue-eyed); in this case, TV anchorwomen.

TOMORROW: David Foster Wallace's new fiction collection is anything but 'hideous.'

Recent highlights:

• If we can't have fewer cars, let's at least get some smaller ones like they've got overseas.
• The end of Mark Sidran's reign of terror?
• A 1973 book asks the still-relevant question, 'Is America Used Up?'
• Why the Mariners' latest management gaffe might be one of the last rounds of bigtime stadium blackmail we'll see.
• More reasons to love Pokemon, so complicated grownups don't get it.
• ArtsEdge butts up againstFocus on the Family; no fights reported.
• The final weeks of Another World show how soap operas as a whole might be saved.
• Some important disciplinary times and lengths for the true pop-cult artist.
• A new visual-art zine with no pictures; plus the anomie of Starbucks' in-store magazine Joe.
• Are Seattle singles too PC for their own good?
• A U.K. social critic looks at "sexual liberation" and finds consumer-narcissism and fear of intimacy.

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