Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

12 Hours Of Spam – or Poetry In Motion….

Friday, March 30th, 2012

I was very pleased to find this website. I wanted to say thanks for your time for this wonderful read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you blog post.

I adored your rich writing. Brilliant stuff. I hope you produce others. I will carry on subscribing.

Hey there! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be OK. I’m definitely enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts.

Spot on with this write-up, I actually suppose this web site wants way more consideration. I’ll probably be once more to learn far more, thanks for that info.

Perfectly written content, thank you for entropy.

I must show some thanks to this writer just for bailing me out of such a circumstance. Because of checking through the world-wide-web and getting solutions which are not helpful, I figured my entire life was gone. Existing without the solutions to the issues you have fixed all through your entire write-up is a critical case, and ones which could have adversely affected my entire career if I hadn’t discovered your blog. Your own personal know-how and kindness in controlling every part was priceless. I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t encountered such a solution like this. I’m able to now look forward to my future. Thank you so much for the skilled and results-oriented help. I will not think twice to propose your web site to any individual who requires assistance about this subject.

I have realized that car insurance businesses know the motors which are liable to accidents along with other risks. They also know what style of cars are prone to higher risk plus the higher risk they’ve got the higher a premium rate. Understanding the basic basics connected with car insurance just might help you choose the right form of insurance policy that can take care of your wants in case you become involved in any accident. Appreciate your sharing any ideas on the blog.

Really enjoyed this post, can you make it so I receive an alert email when you write a new post?

Hey this is a good-looking blog, is WordPress? Forgive me for the foolish question but if so, what theme is? Thanks!

Hello, I enjoy your weblog. Is there something I can do to obtain updates like a subscription or something? I’m sorry I am not familiar with RSS?

Hands down, Apple’s app store wins by a mile. It’s a huge selection of all sorts of apps vs a rather sad selection of a handful for Zune. Microsoft has plans, especially in the realm of games, but I’m not sure I’d want to bet on the future if this aspect is important to you. The iPod is a much better choice in that case.

This is my first time I visit here. I found so a lot of entertaining stuff in your weblog, especially its conversation. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the enjoyment here! Keep up the excellent work.

I believe that over the long-term inflation will be a problem but over the short term it appears that deflation is a bigger issue.

Below you will get the link to some online websites that we feel it is best to visit

One thing is the fact that one of the most frequent incentives for using your card is a cash-back or maybe rebate offer. Generally, you will get 1-5% back in various expenses. Depending on the credit card, you may get 1% back on most buying, and 5% again on purchases made from convenience stores, filling stations, grocery stores plus ‘member merchants’. *************

Really good site thank you so much for your time in publishing the posts for all of us to learn about.

I’ve been exploring for a bit for any high quality articles or blog posts in this sort of area. Exploring in Yahoo I ultimately stumbled upon this web site. Reading this information. So I’m happy to express that I have an incredibly just right uncanny feeling I discovered just what I needed. I most no doubt will make sure to do

I am looking for a writer – and you seem like the perfect candidate. Please mail me at **********@gmail.com

The professionals make their trade decisions without relying on indicators and cluttered charts. Unlike what you probably have right now! They’ve got a system of scanning the market and timing their entries and exits that cuts right through the clutter…

Aloha I found your blog using Yahoo. This is a very well written article. I will make sure to bookmark it and come back to read more later. Thanks for this post.

Original hot sauce…

Yeah, now it’s clear!… And firstly I did not understand very much where there was the link with the title itself!

I really don’t commonly recommend other online websites but I will break my trend for this.

Only a smiling visitant here to share the love (:, btw great design and style.

Hi! Do you know if they make any plug-ins to assist with SEO? I’m trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good results. If you know of any please share. Kudos!

I think the admin of this web page is genuinely working hard in favor of his website, since here every material is quality based stuff.

If you would like to post similar posts like this, my blog is available 24/7 for you. My mail is *******@gmail.com

You should take part in a contest for one of the best blogs on the web. I will recommend this {site|post}!

An interesting pos is worth commenting. I think that you should write more on this topic, it might not be a taboo subject but generally people are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers…

Ross is an idiot he should be trying to re-sign Cameron Wake and Jake Long their the only impact players beside Reggie Bush. Ross is running this team to the ground and keeps making excuses that were building through the draft. Honestly, we have not drafted a single star so far besides Jake Long at the rate the Dolphins are going we might be good in five years after having various top ten picks. Come on Ross just do everyone a favor and sell the team!!! Were tired of being the laughing stock of the NFL.

Hello there, You have done a fantastic job. I will definitely Digg it and in my opinion recommend to my friends. I am sure they’ll be benefited from this website.

I discovered your site on a search engine and check a few of your early posts. Continue to keep up the very good work. I just additional up your RSS feed to my MSN News Reader. Seeking forward to reading more from you later on!

Care to communicate? Shoot me an email if interested, let’s see where we can take this topic of language to innovate for the future.

La risorsa per i più divertenti videogames in flash nel web…

Hey, nice post. Blog search give more information relating to this theme. Look into this escorts miami. Any idea?

Weight loss buy.

This is certainly many of these a fantastic contraption who you might be rendering and also deliver it again separate for the purpose of zero cost. I just really like looking at sites who know typically the valuation from rendering some superior source of information for the purpose of zero cost. It is typically the out of date whatever approximately is available all over regular.

Amazing. The one from Taiwan doesn’t even look real. Looks really futuristic.

Awesome issues here. I’m very glad to see your article. Thank you so much and I am looking ahead to contact you. Will you kindly drop me an e-mail?

Hello there and thank you for your info – I have certainly picked up something new from right here. I did however expertise a few technical issues using this web site, since I experienced to reload the website lots of times previous to I could get it to load properly. I had been wondering if your web host is OK? Not that I’m complaining, but slow loading instances times will often affect your placement in Google and could damage your high quality score if ads and marketing with AdWords. Anyway I am adding this RSS to my email and could look out for a lot more of your respective fascinating content. Make sure you update this again very soon.

Interesting opinion, though I can’t agree 100%. Regardless, you have given me something to think about.

Hey, I can say, this is an excellent blog, you must have invested plenty of time to build such a excellent content. I found your website at yahoo.

Thanks, beautiful site with great informational content. This is a really interesting and informative content.

You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be actually something that I think I would never understand. It seems too complicated and very broad for me. I’m looking forward for your next post. I’ll try to get the hang of it!

Usually I do not learn article on blogs, however I wish to say that this write-up very compelled me to take a look at and do it! Your writing taste has been amazed me. Thank you, very nice article.

Wow, wonderful weblog layout! How lengthy have you been running a blog for? You made running a blog look easy. The overall look of your web site is wonderful, as smartly as the content!

Discounted Hosting offers detailed information in Discounted Website hosting, Discounted Enterprise Cheap Vps Hosting Hosting. Discounted A Linux systemunix website hosting, Discount online business Internet hosting plus more. Low cost Hosting is actually affiliated with Reliable Low priced Internet hosting.

Fantastic blog you have here but I was wondering if you knew of any community forums that cover the same topics discussed here? I’d really love to be a part of community where I can get advice from other experienced individuals that share the same interest. If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Bless you!

I ran into this page on accident, surprisingly, this is a wonderful website. The site owner has carried out a superb job of putting it together, the info here is really insightful. You just secured yourself a guaranteed reader.

Cool smoking pipes!

Took me a moment to scan most the remarks on this post, however I genuinely liked the post. It proved to be quite useful to me and I am confident to nearly all the commentators here! It is continuously nice when you’ll not simply be educated, however additionally entertained!

Great tips! I will try to use them. Thanks for any future updates.

Very interesting points you have observed, appreciate it for posting . Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over. by ***** *******.

This blog is really a walk-through for all of the info you wanted about this and didn’t know who to ask. Glimpse here, and you’ll definitely discover it.

I was very ecstatic to locate this site on Bing. I wanted to say thank you to you with regard to this fantastic post!! I surely appreciated every little bit of it and I’ve you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.

Aw man I wanted to take the time to say I enjoyed reading your blog.

This is the best site for anyone who desires to find out about this subject. You notice so much it’s almost onerous to argue with you (not that I truly would want…Ha Ha). You undoubtedly put a brand new spin on a subject that’s been wrote about for years. Nice stuff, simply nice!

Thanks for the article! Just browsing around online I get into some cool stuff. Anyways, back to school work…

I conceive you have noted some very interesting details, appreciate it for the post.

Merely wanna remark that you have a very decent internet site, I like the layout it really stands out.

I believe what you typed was actually very logical. But, what about this? suppose you composed a catchier post title? I ain’t suggesting your information isn’t good., however what if you added a title that grabbed a person’s attention? I mean Cyber Sex With A Bot Girl | Mister Trippy is a little vanilla. You might glance at Yahoo’s home page and see how they create post headlines to grab people to click. You might add a video or a picture or two to grab people interested about what you’ve got to say. Just my opinion, it could make your blog a little livelier.

Hello. I needed to inquire a little something…is the following a WordPress blog page as we are thinking about shifting over to WP. Moreover did you make this template by yourself? Cheers.

Hey there. You have performed an incredible job. I’ll definitely Digg it and in my view suggest to my friends. I’m sure they’ll be benefited from this web site.

Wonderful issues altogether, you just received a logo new reader. What might you suggest about your publish that you made some days in the past? Any certain?

I am very impressed with your writing. This is great content with interesting and useful information. I concur with much of your info and I am still thinking about some of it. It’s really good.

Hip hip hooray The blue and white all day Carson High School is here to play Yaaaaaaay It doesn’t matter who wins after the coin toss Because later

I love your blog post excellent shades & concept Does a person style this web site yourself or have a person hire an attorney to make it work available.

Google Catholic weddings in steep decline.

Interesting perspective. I don’t know that I agree 100%, but you have given me something to consider. Thanks!

I almost never leave remarks, however I did some searching and wound up here Love Comes In Spurts: Stewart Home Interviewed | Mister Trippy. And I actually do have a couple of questions for you if it’s alright. Could it be just me or does it look like a few of these comments come across as if they are left by brain dead individuals? And, if you are writing at additional online social sites, I would like to keep up with anything fresh you have to post. Could you list of every one of all your community pages like your twitter feed, Facebook page or LinkedIn profile?

Hey There. I discovered your weblog using msn. That is an extremely neatly written article. I will make sure to bookmark it and come back to learn extra of your useful info. Thanks for the post. I will certainly comeback.

It is highly helpful for me. Huge thumbs up for this site post!

Brilliant stuff, very well written!

Watches imitations.

My spouse and i got now joyous that Emmanuel managed to conclude his homework from your precious recommendations he acquired using your web page. It’s not at all simplistic just to happen to be offering helpful tips which usually many others might have been trying to sell. And we also do know we’ve got the blog owner to thank for that. The explanations you’ve made, the straightforward blog navigation, the friendships you can assist to promote – it is everything terrific, and it is helping our son in addition to the family understand the matter is satisfying, which is certainly extraordinarily essential. Thanks for the whole lot! I’m excited about finding out a lot more about ************.

The beat selling industry is growing by the minute. Every day, more and more beat makers are uploading their works online. Their clientele are also becoming more demanding. There are a lot of rappers and upcoming artists that wants to have beats to complement their song. They need beats in order to write their music and the Internet has been a great medium in doing this.

The Internet is an amazing medium. Not only did people have a quicker way to access information because of the Internet, they also had access to new employment and income opportunities because of the medium. But aside from the normal income streams, there are also some unusual ways to make money online. One of these is beat selling.

It is highly helpful for me. Huge thumbs up for this site post!

How to lose weight and fast…

I visit your blog since several months and I feel like addicted! That’s awful because most of the time information over Internet is shitty.

How to make your dick longer…

Nice logo, which program have you used? Very fine.

My town’s local mag published an commentary concerning this situation a week ago looks like most people are getting in on the act, hopefully it’ll obtain the status it deserves considering that it is becoming a lot more hip

Hello I came to your “Cyber Sex With A Bot Girl | Mister Trippy” page via Google but it was difficult to find as you were not on the front page of search results. I see you could have more visitors because there are not many comments on your site yet. I have found a website which offers to dramatically increase your rankings and traffic to your website: http://www.************. They managed to get close to 1000 visitors/day using their services, you could also get lot more targeted traffic from search engines than you have now. I used their services and got significantly more visitors to my website. Hope this helps. Take care. Amanda.

You may just want to wear a curtain from Sears.

I liked as much as you will obtain performed proper here. The sketch is tasteful, your authored material stylish. However, you command get got an shakiness over that you would like be handing over the following. I’ll no doubt come more earlier again as precisely the similar nearly very steadily inside of case you defend this hike.

Your website is the most informative. I loved your website a lot. thank you. http://*************

I just could not depart your site prior to suggesting that I really enjoyed the standard information a person provide for your visitors? Is gonna be back often in order to check up on new posts

I pay a visit every day a few sites and sites to read posts, however this weblog offers quality based posts.

I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was wonderful. I don’t know who you are but definitely you’re going to a famous blogger if you are not already Cheers!

Nice logo, which program have you used? Very fine.

Excellent blog right here Also your site quite a bit up fast What web host are you the usage of? Can I am getting your associate hyperlink for your host?

Good story once again Thanks.

Hi wonderful blog I enjoyed my time here You are a very good writer If you want watch tv shows online visit my site Bye.

Substantially, this publish is really the sweetest on this notable theme. I harmonise together with your conclusions and will thirstily search ahead for your incoming updates. Stating thanks will not just be sufficient, for the phenomenal clarity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay knowledgeable of any updates. Admirable perform and much success inside your enterprise dealings! Please excuse my poor English as it’s not my first tongue.

Howdy! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I really enjoy reading through your articles. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that go over the same topics? Thank you!

Magnificent points altogether, you simply gained a new reader. What would you recommend about your post that you made a few days ago? Any positive?

Hello there, simply turned into aware of your blog thru Google, and found that it is really informative. I’m gonna watch out for Brussels. I will appreciate if you continue this in future. A lot of other folks will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!

Adult gay XXX private pay channel, bptv69, adpuppyvideo.net; clubamateurusa.net, Fetish, hardcore gay porn links, gay fetish, Gay Blog, Gay Pictures, G…

This info on this web site great poker-online overnight profit hold em poker guitar player you’ll be able to recent on-line poker an income pertaining to Next year and the may not be each we have not a chance registration overnight stick money for every p

It’s hard to find knowledgeable people on this topic, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks Do visit me at my site too! http://*********

Bright point, hope there can be more useful articles online.

I was recommended this blog by my cousin. I’m no longer certain whether or not this submit is written by way of him as no one else realize such particular approximately my problem. You’re amazing! Thanks!

None x.

If you’re blogging with WordPress and aren’t using this plug-in you’re crazy! SEOPressor htpp://*****************

I don’t like it, on this article you’re showing us you are really biased, but well, we need some of both worlds.

After study a few of the blog posts on your website now, and I truly like your way of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark website list and will be checking back soon. Pls check out my web site as well and let me know what you think.

Siri TV Could Get Some Movement Apple’s planned development of an integrated TV set have stepped up a level in the past few days, with Japanese electronics company JVC reportedly.

It seems too advanced and very general for me to understand.

If its not to much to ask could you write some more about this. Keep up with good posts..

I really like your writing style, good information, thanks for posting : D.

Someone necessarily lend a hand to make significantly articles I might state. That is the very first time I frequented your website page and up to now? I surprised with the analysis you made to create this particular post extraordinary. Wonderful task!

You actually make it appear really easy together with your presentation however I find this matter to be actually something which I think I might never understand. It seems too complex and very broad for me. I’m taking a look ahead in your subsequent post, I will try to get the grasp of it!

You’re spectacular! Just wanted to make your day better.

Blogs you should be reading…

Here is a Great Blog You Might Find Interesting that we Encourage You.

Obviously like your website however you need to take a look at the spelling on quite a few of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling issues and I in finding it very troublesome to inform the reality then again I’ll definitely come back again.

I really enjoy looking through on this site, it contains wonderful content.

After research a few of the weblog posts in your web site now, and I truly like your approach of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark web site checklist and might be checking again soon. Pls check out my web page as well and let me know what you think.

This design is spectacular! You most certainly know how to keep a reader entertained. Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost…Ha Ha!) Great job. I really loved what you had to say, and more than that, how you presented it. Too cool!

This British brand is unbeatable in terms of fashion understanding for women. Burberry is a favourite of privileged women of high societies around the world. Burberry Check Cashmere Scarf. Love, cherish now that are willing to take care of you, appreciate that you are willing to take the wind and rain with you silly woman! After this village, perhaps the store had no time to get married, do not drag on sentimental? Burberry Large Haymarket Check Wallet Beige/blue.

Oh boy – don’t get me started on this topic.

Thanks so much for giving everyone an exceptionally nice opportunity to read critical reviews from this website. It is usually so amazing and full of fun for me and my office friends to visit your site the equivalent of three times weekly to read the newest items you will have. And indeed, I’m just actually satisfied for the wonderful inspiring ideas you give. Selected ideas on this page are in fact the finest I have had.

I can consent with the post.

I know such strange weather….I live in Southern MN and I feel like I’m living a zone 6 dream! Stacey.

My pal mentioned you worked for Wikipedia? Is that accurate or were they just messing with me?

The information mentioned in the article is some of the best available.

Repetitions, near repetitions and fake back link spam were removed -  as were all web and email addresses on what I have collected here. 142 attempts to post spam comments to this blog over the 12 hour period sampled here – all had been blocked by my spam filter.

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Cyber Sex With A Bot Girl: It Was Bound To End In Disappointment!

Thursday, March 8th, 2012

“Amy Hastings” sent me a friend request on Facebook on 12 February 2012. I think “she” had four or five friends by the time I accepted. She didn’t have a profile picture or any other photos up on “her” page. I waited to see what happened next and wasn’t particularly surprised when “Amy” sent me an unsolicited message. Here it is followed by my and “her” replies:

Amy Hastings on February 13: I have some really erotic photoz, but I can’t post them here. Do you have an email or mobile number I can send them to? That is if you want to view them.

Stewart Home on February 13: I wouldn’t want to view them if they contain anything illegal or feature anyone under the age of 21. If you can clarify what these are and assure me that they don’t feature anyone under 21 then I may be interested. Thanks.

Amy Hastings on February 15: I relaly (sic)  am turned on so I put tgoether a page clcik (sic) to http://*************** betetr (sic) sign up clarfiy (sic) you’re 18+ ok giong (sic) to in aasp (sic) my usernmae (sic) is missE934 see u three (sic)

Stewart Home on February 15: Sorry but if this isn’t dodgy can you please answer my questions. Are you able to assure me your pictures don’t feature anyone under 21 or anything illegal? Until I know that I won’t go and look at them. If you don’t answer my questions then I will assume that the material in question is illegal. Thanks.

When after 10 days I heard nothing more from “Amy” I unfriended her. “She” still didn’t have a profile picture but by this time had 50 friends. I haven’t checked out the link “she” sent me as I wasn’t interested in her ‘erotic photoz’: I was just curious to see to what extent ‘she’d’ engage with me – and if ‘she’ had I would have gone on to tell her I found the number of typos in her messages a huge turn off and to insist politely but firmly that ‘she’ needed use a spell checker to sex ‘herself’ up!

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

You Didn’t Read It Here: Summaries of 10 Blogs I Decided Not To Post

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

Many of the posts on this blog originate as ideas sketched out in note form. I work on these ‘ideas’ until I think they are ready to post or else I decide to discard them. Not all my binned blogs reach the stage of completed first drafts – but here is a list of 10 that underwent varying degrees of revision before I decided against posting them….

1. “The First 3 Letters of Espresso Are ESP, So Is Coffee a Psychedelic Drug?” -  I guess I was high when I came up with this blog title. In the cold light of day it didn’t seem worth following through!

2 “Chatham Is Fucked” – inspired by my first trip to that  town in 15 years. It was almost as depressing to write this as it was to visit one of the more blighted parts of the so-called “Garden of England”. A post on this subject would have been way too much of a turn off for my readers.

3. “Bill Ayers: Fake Leftist” – a critique of the former Weatherman explaining in simple terms why he is a reactionary tosser despite the pseudo-revolutionary posturing in his crap book Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist. In the end I preferred not to give this right-wing twit fulsome coverage on my site. It just isn’t possible to take Ayers seriously when he talks about ‘joining’ the working class in the same way as he might join the masons or the boy scouts. Ultimately I figured a relatively short review without direct citations from the book and placed on GoodReads (rather than here) was the best way to deal with vanguardist scum like Ayers.

4. “Synchronicity II at Tiwani Contemporary” – a lively exhibition of African photography running from 3 February to 17 March 2012. I went to the opening and spent as much time talking to Grace Ndiritu (who is in the show) as doing anything else there. While I had fun, the private view didn’t attract your usual London art world rent-a-crowd, so there weren’t enough people about who I recognised for me to be able to write an insider account. Indeed, apart from Ndiritu, I only recognised the likes of curator Caroline Hancock (who has been based in Paris for some years) . Shame as the work is definitely worth seeing, although I was only really familiar with James Barnor’s pictures before I went.

5. “Reading: A Town More Like All The Others I’ve Been To In England Than Any Other I’ve Ever Visited….” – middle England considered as a postmodern simulacrum. At first this idea seemed funny but the more I worked on it the scarier it became! The Stepford Wives can eat their hearts out!

6. Review of “Untouchables: Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard by Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn” – necessary background reading if you want to understand how the phone hacking scandal unravelled into also being a sordid exposé of corrupt relations between the cops and the media. In the end I felt reading the book was a lot easier than providing a summary that covered all the ground.

7. “Chicks On Speed at The Showroom, London: 14 February 2012″ -  a great night but writing about it didn’t add anything to what I’ve already said about COS.

8. “Uncreative Writing, Conceptual Literature & Flarf Poetry” – checking what was online under these headings, I found more than enough information to satisfy me. And so in the true spirit of ‘uncreative writing’ I decided not to add my voice to this discourse. Of course, this doesn’t preclude me from copying and pasting something written by someone else on the subject (without crediting them) at some point in the very near future!

9. “10 Reasons To Be Unfaithful To Your Lover” – in the end I didn’t really feel it was necessary to explain yet again why smashing monogamy is an integral part of destroying patriarchy! And my attempts to come up with laugh-out-loud lines floundered at point six.

10. “Why I’m Even More Bored With Facebook Now Than I Was Last Year (If That’s Possible)” – like point one, this never got beyond me typing up and saving the title. Facebook proved too boring to contemplate!

In many ways blogging has been superseded by the status update and the tweet. Information just keeps getting more and more compressed. But shrinking 10 potential blog posts down into one – as I’ve done here – is one way of keeping the superannuated form of blogging relevant! Back in the 1980s your typical postmodernist hack made an academic career of disappearing up his or her own arse. Web 2.0 has taken us way beyond postmodernism and the academy. Our turdy tongues have passed through our own guts and re-emerged from our mouths; enabling us to really shoot the shit in style!

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Occupying my future, reclaiming my past!

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

Asserting that ‘we are everywhere’ is probably more convincing than the claim that ‘I am everywhere”. Nonetheless it doesn’t take much suspension of disbelief before I’m able to convince myself that indeed “I am everywhere” – after all, I’ve been billing myself as ‘an ego maniac on a world historical scale’ for years! Recently I stumbled upon someone on Goodreads with my name who has been promoting my books rather energetically over there – unfortunately this Stewart Home can’t possibly be me since he joined the site in July 2007 (whereas I joined yesterday) and he’s based in the USA. My author profile at Goodreads is here.

When I read what other people write about me it can often seem like I’ve been even busier than I actually am. Reviewing my recent White Columns show in the New York Times on on 18 November, Roberta Smith wrote: “A brochure written by Mr. Home explains a lot, if not everything. For that, there is his lavishly detailed Wikipedia entry, which also appears to be his handiwork.” To me the entry in question has an inconsistency which makes it obvious it is a collective effort rather than mine. I suspect that some of the imbalances in the article are the result of other people using Wikipedia to promote themselves. For example, while many of my books and exhibitions are passed over without discussion, there is a bizarre passage about the Evening Falls nightclub (including the fallacious claim that I didn’t read there). Likewise, when I last checked, no one had updated my list of exhibitions on this Wikipedia page to include my recent White Columns outing.

Moving on, I’ve also seen some nutjob using web 2.0 comment facilities to allege that I write my own Amazon reviews…. of course they offered no proof, and had obviously missed the fact that I just don’t take the user generated content on that site very seriously. As you’ve probably gathered by now, way too many of my leisure hours are spent reading about myself for me to have the time to write reviews of my own books for Amazon. Likewise, it will come as little surprise to most of my readers that one of the things I love about the web is the way it allows everyone to turn over their own past – and in some cases rediscover material they’d pretty much forgotten. I didn’t have any images of the Anon exhibition I’d been a part of in Luton back in 1989 until John Wynne posted some photographs of it on his Facebook profile. I immediately snaffled those featuring my contributions and added them to my Flickr photostream – where they look absolutely fantastic in an utterly weird eighties appropriated post-pop art kind of way. Likewise, earlier this year I finally got around to putting an image of my ‘original’ Art Strike Bed onto Flickr, done several years before Tracey Emin attempted to recuperate this particular assault of mine on the sensibilities of the London art establishment.

I could use this piece as an opportunity to write about how I’m attempting to replace the planking fad with a craze for photos of people standing on their head – there are currently a dozen pictures of me doing headstands on my Flickr profile (see if you can find them all). However, rather than banging on about my topsy-turvy online presence, I’m now going to get even more self-referential and obsessive. What I’d like readers of this blog to do is tell me in the comments below whether I used the best possible title for this post, or whether I should have reversed it so that it ran: “Reclaiming my future, occupying my past”?

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

In New York Paranoia Is Just A Heightened State Of Awareness!

Monday, November 14th, 2011

I arrived at the Heathrow Virgin Atlantic bag drop late. I was told I’d missed my plane and to go to desk 13 to discuss whether I could be transferred to another flight. The next person I talked to said that since my bag to be checked was well below 10kg, I could take it as hand luggage on my original flight, but that I’d have to run to the gate. I got through security in good time and made it to the plane by sprinting all the way. I was pleased to be the last passenger on-board and having avoided hanging around – all that queuing is such a drag!

I checked the in-flight entertainment and since all the film and music selections were complete and utter wank, decided to read Barry Graham’s new book The Wrong Thing instead. This turned out to be a smart move since I really dug Graham’s noir-style prose which was finely crafted and engrossing. A Mexican-American boy called The Kid who isn’t loved by his family gets into drug dealing, finds love and in loosing it winds up dead. All the trademark Graham interests are present too – from boxing to the unnecessary cruelty of capital punishment. On one level the book is a narrative essay illustrating how the law serves the rich and screws the poor.

Returning to my flight, I was travelling economy and since I’d last taken a transatlantic jaunt on Virgin they seemed to have introduced three classes of travel. I guess you get what you pay for and in premium economy they had more and larger toilets – the rich don’t just shit like you and me, they do it on a grander scale! The attendants got very pissed off with economy passengers who went into the premium economy bogs – they’d have probably had a heart attack if we’d tried to use the first class karzai! It wasn’t exactly service with a smile – when tea and coffee were being offered around and I asked for water, I was told I could only have a hot beverage. So I had to say I wanted a black coffee but to hold the coffee, so I ended up with a cup of hot water. Why I couldn’t just have a glass of cold water beats me… Likewise all the pep talk to passengers about safety is obviously absolutely nuts when Virgin make their female flight attendants wear high-heels. I saw one stewardess fall on her arse and I’m sure she wouldn’t have tumbled if she’d been wearing flat shoes.

Remembering I wanted to go for a heightened state of awareness on this trip, I decided to develop my paranoia and assume the guy in the seat next to me was an undercover cop. We didn’t say much to each other, although that may have been because he spent much of the flight asleep. I like to stay awake, not just because it seems safer when you’re simulating paranoia but also because it’s a way of easing into a new time zone. I finished Barry Graham’s book and had to move onto another less interesting one. I was pleased when we landed at JFK and I got to immigration. At first the immigration officer gave me a bit of a grilling, but when he asked what my job was and I told him novelist, he became very friendly. I always say novelist at immigration because it is both true and generally seen as less contentious than if you say you’re a writer (you might be a subversive journalist) or an artist (in which case you’ll probably be suspected of making porn).

I didn’t have to wait long for the express bus to Manhattan. I got off at 42nd Street and crossed the road to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It was a short hop to Hoboken. On the way I checked the voice mail messages that had come in on my US cell phone while I was back in London for twelve days. Two of them were a regular series of bleeps – probably just random attempts to send spam faxes, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t pretend to be paranoid about them. When I arrived in Hoboken I saw immediately the place had undergone a massive change. The town looked nothing like it had when I’d last stayed there back in the eighties. It was Friday night and people were partying on the street as if having a good time was about to go out of fashion. Instead of local stores and down market chains like Domino’s Pizza, it now boasted branches of Footlocker and American Apparel, as well as a lot of trendy bars.

Tom McGlynn’s apartment building was now an anachronism, it looked as run down as when I’d first stayed there more than twenty years before. Going through the hallway and up the stairs there were still blaring TVs and shouted conversations in both Spanish and English. Tom has a rent controlled flat and he’d been doing it up, so it looked much smarter than when I was last there. We chatted for a couple of hours – mostly about Occupy Wall Street – and then crashed out. Tom’s take on OWS was really interesting because he was designing shelters for protesters to sleep in, so he was involved in some very practical discussions about how to keep the movement growing. But he was also keeping a close eye on the various elements involved in political discussions around the occupation.

Saturday morning was just a question of acclimatising to the hood. Last time I’d been in Tom’s flat there was a view of the Hudson River from one end, but new and expensive apartment buildings had completely hidden the water. After lunch it was time to head to Manhattan. We took the PATH rather than the bus. We got off at 9th Street and went to St Marks Books, which is still the best place to pick up texts in New York. From there we moved on to Bullet Space, an artists collective on the Lower East Side. I sat in on Tom’s meeting with Alex Rojas and Andy Castrucci about a group show they were including him in entitled Mob. When we exited Bullet Space we ran into Carlo McCormack on the street outside the gallery.

I hadn’t seen McCormack since 1989 and we chatted about our mutual friend Jon Savage, as well as the Billy Childish opening that I’d missed since it had taken place a couple of hours before I arrived at JFK. Tom and I headed up to White Columns so that I could check in with the gallery and see how my show there had been going. When we arrived we were told we’d missed Billy Childish and Steve Lowe by minutes – they’d been in together to see my retrospective before heading on to the airport. From there we moved around the corner to Snice for coffee and burritos. After our refreshments, we made out way to Murray Guy on West 17th Street for the opening of Ann Lislegaard’s show TimeMachine. A cartoon creature projected onto mirrors stuttered segments of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells… It grooved us and I’m sure it would appeal to the kids too!

When Tom headed back to Hoboken, I made my way to White Columns for an Eileen Myles reading of prose, poetry and a long extract from an essay she’d contributed to the SF MOMA catalogue for The Air We Breathe: Artists & Poets Reflect On Marriage Equality. I’d been to see Myles read at Apexart two weeks earlier, but had to miss her performance because she was on last and the event ran late. White Columns had bought me a yoga mat for my performance there a couple of weeks earlier, and since it was still in one of the offices, I decided to take it away so that I could practice my headstand reading in comfort. I quickly discovered that in New York guys use yoga mats as ‘babe magnets’. On the subway four girls aged about twenty started to hit on me by initiating a conversation about yoga. Once I was safely back in Hoboken, Tom introduced me to two Canadian friends who’d come to visit him – Mary and Larry. I’d only been away from the US for twelve days but during that time the clocks had gone back an hour in the UK. Now I was in the east coast for the weekend when the clocks went back there…. It seemed like I was in a time slip.

Sunday morning was a chance to run through the stuff I was planning to do on Thursday for the Performa live art festival – including my headstand reading. After lunch I headed to Brooklyn… I took the PATH to 14th Street in Manhattan, changed onto the L train and then changed once again to the G train. I’d heard the G train was really infrequent but I caught one quickly and arrived early at Tim Beckett and Charlotte Jackson’s pad a couple of blocks from the Bedford Nostrand subway stop. You could see the area was being gentrified but it still had more of the old time vibe than anywhere else I’d been since I’d arrived in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area.

Next to turn up at Tim and Charlotte’s was Ron Kolm. As more people arrived – including Carl Watson and Maggie Wrigley – it became an old school East Village writers meet with me as the overseas guest of honour. When Darius James walked in with Norman Douglas, it was great to see DJ for the first time in five or six years. When I complimented Charlotte on the music she was playing – a lot of Model 500 among other things – and asked her how she had picked a bunch of my favourite tunes, she told me that this was easy to do, since she’d been checking the links I posted on my Facebook page. That really helped raise my state of awareness by making me paranoid that every intelligence and police agency in the world knows I like sixties soul tunes and old school house!

Shortly after this John Farris arrived and he had real presence. I’ve not read his novel The Ass’s Tale but will try to make up for that omission in due course. I ended up sitting with Darius, Norman and John for a long time: and rather than trying to give a flavour of the conversation here, it’s easier just to direct you to an online interview of Norman’s with John. Following much chat, chow and drinking, everyone settled down to watch a rough cut of the documentary about voodoo that Darius was scripting and presenting. The movie went down a storm, with everyone impressed by the classy cinematography… and the way Darius explained some of the finer points he was wanting to get across as the footage rolled… After the screening most people split, and once again I had no problem getting a G train. I was back in Hoboken by 11.30pm.

Monday morning was another chance to hang in Hoboken and practice for my performance… At lunchtime I headed into Manhattan to meet with Darius, Tim, Tom and Mary in The Old Town on East 45th Street. Tom and Mary had gone into town with Larry ahead of me – but Larry then went off in search of famous baseball sites in Brooklyn. I was travelling alone and everyone else arrived late. I had a bet with myself that Tom and Mary would arrive before Tim and Darius, and when they did I took out the 100 bucks I had in my left pocket and placed the notes in my right pocket. The Old Town was a traditional bar with booths and ultra-retro toilets (or maybe they’d just never been refitted). We talked about writing and the stuff Darius was doing, so voodoo was on the agenda too. Tom and Mary left before me, so Tim and I walked Darius down to Grand Central Station well after dark, then went our own ways. I’d planned to go to to both Occupy Wall Street and MOMA that day, but ended up spending all of it in The Old Tavern before heading back to Hoboken. After eating everyone at Tom’s settled down to a Roger Corman produced piece of trash in the form of a DVD of Sharktopus… I was laughing so much at the movie that I forgot I was supposed to be paranoid, so that rather blew my attempts at heightened perception for the day!

Directed by Declan O’Brien, Sharktopus is one of those “so bad it’s good’ movies that came out last year. Corman has nice cameo as a mean spirited beach walker, and Eric Roberts looks like he was method acting being a drunk. We were speculating on the dinner conversation between the Roberts family when they meet up, with Eric’s more famous sister Julia talking about her latest A-list Hollywood productions, and Eric announcing he’s in Sharktopus. The monster isn’t in the least bit scary but there are plenty of laughs and girls in bikinis – including a group of ‘babes’ doing yoga sun salutations on the beach as the half-shark/half-octopus creature attacks….

Tuesday was another morning of hanging in the hood and working on my act. After lunch I went to Manhattan to meet Mark Bloch on the Lower East Side. On the way I dropped in on This Is What Democracy Looks Like  – an Occupy Wall Street themed show in an NYU building on Washington Place. There were handmade signs and printed ephemera from OWS. When I hooked up with Mark we rapped about art and politics, in terms of the latter mainly OWS. After coffee and a snack we moved on to the Billy Childish show at Lehmann Maupin’s 201 Chystie Street space. Billy’s canvases have got bigger as he’s got more successful but otherwise his painting hasn’t changed much in 30 years. The clean white cube space and uncluttered hang also signalled that 30 years of hard graft have finally paid off to make him an ‘overnight success’. Upstairs there was a nice display of Billy’s records and publications… The layout was not dissimilar to my current White Columns show, which perhaps isn’t surprising because Matthew Higgs curated both exhibitions.

With Mark I moved on to the NYU Grey Gallery back in Washington Square to see Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life… There were lots of familiar works but the tight curatorial categorisation seemed to work against the original iconoclasm of the movement. The curator Jacquelyn Baas has a reputation as being the hippest young expert on Fluxus and related currents, so I guess a lot of people like her methods of interpretation, but I didn’t go for her division of works into categories such as ‘change’, ‘danger’, ‘death’, ‘god’, ‘love’, ‘nothingness’ and ‘sex’. To undermine the conceit each category had a question mark after it – so I guess that’s an admission it wasn’t going to work for everyone, and for me the theming just got in the way of the work. Downstairs there was a selection of time related New York art to contextualise the Fluxus material. Between rapping and seeing two shows, Mark and I had used up most of the day… and when my old Neoist/mail art pal went home, I wandered around downtown in the dark. I’d intended to go and see the Fluxus show at MOMA that day after not making it the day before, but I was fated to miss it…

After hanging in Hoboken on Wednesday morning, I took the PATH train to World Trade Center rather than along the 33rd Street branch. Going into the station amongst the construction on the Ground Zero site felt eerie, although I guess you’d get used to it if you did it all the time. For me it provided a stark reminder of the stupidity and futility of terrorism – and let’s not forget that terrorism is always vanguardist and thus always anti-working class, regardless of who is responsible for it. I headed on up to Broadway and while there took another look at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration. It almost felt like I hadn’t left since I was last there nearly three weeks earlier. I had my luggage with me – including the yoga mat for my headstand reading – and a woman engaged me in a conversation about where I did yoga classes. Because I was getting hit on rather than participating in political debates, I split. After leaving OWS I checked into Hotel 91 on East Broadway, then rushed out to visit noted Ray Johnson expert Bill Wilson at his Chelsea home. Tom McGlynn had got there before me – after coffee and a long conversation with Wilson about Johnson and his playful aesthetic, the two of us headed north to call on Ben Morea. Among other things Tom and I talked to Ben about OWS. His take seemed to be that we weren’t yet in a revolutionary situation and so right now we shouldn’t act as if we are in one – the important thing was to push in that direction.

Tom and I moved on to the Sherrie Levine and David Smith opening at the Whitney. Smith’s sculpture made us think of Cy Twombly on acid. The Levine show was a great hang and a real time trip back to the eighties. I liked both exhibitions but the opening party left me cold – like so much museum hospitality these days, it seemed aimed at trustees and businessmen who like the illusion of moving in the art world but wouldn’t want to do it for real. The opening had attracted mostly suits and very few artists. A swift exit and a walk of a few blocks enabled us to hang with Nicholas Towasser of Dissident Books at Mid-Town Bagels. After drinks and a chat, Tom and I headed south again – me to East Broadway and Tom to Hoboken.

Thursday at noon I had to check in at Westport, the former strip club that was hosting my reading that night. I carried my yoga mat there without incident – I guess women don’t hit on men in the streets of New York that much in the morning. We ran through the technical requirements of the night and everything was sorted in an hour-and-a-half. The venue was still laid out as a strip joint and all the readings were taking place from a catwalk with multi-coloured spot lights. I tried to make a meet with Lee Wells but our timings were out, so I wandered around downtown before going back to Hotel 91 to shower and rehearse before my show…. I got a call from Lynne Tillman who said she’d had to take a friend for emergency admission to the hospital, so she wasn’t going to make the reading.

I left the hotel just after six and got to Westport on Clarkson Street before seven – having walked from one side of Manhattan to the other. With Performa curator Mark Beasley we had a hurried rehearsal of Lynne Tillman’s text More Sex, with Sadie Laska from the band Joe and Sadie’s Trip reading it. She sounded good and it looked funny with Mark holding up a laptop for her to read from. We didn’t have a printer so this was the only way the story could be accessed. Tom McGlynn and Ben Morea turned up early, so I chatted with them – and sorted out the reading order with my fellow performers Jarett Kobek and Ken Wark when they arrived.

At eight – and not a minute before – people were allowed into the venue. It quickly filled with hipsters and I shredded one of my novels, then stood on my head to give a recital from Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie – I always work from memory rather than with copies of my books. Jarret followed with a storming reading of a new piece and a section of his most recent novel Atta. He says it’s difficult to read from his Semina novel Hoe #999 (edited by me), so he didn’t do any of that – much as I’d have liked him to do so! Ken was up next and read from some of his expansive writings on the situationists, then ended with a great call and response piece about Occupy Wall Street. Sadie read Lynne’s story from her new collection Some Day This Will Be Funny – with Mark holding the laptop. She was even better in front of an audience than on her run through. I finished off the readings with more party trick pieces – a passage from 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess with my ventriloquist puppet Mister Dog, and several pages from Defiant Pose (with OWS in mind). Then Joe and Sadie’s Trip played raw and loud psychedelic music…

People seemed to have a good time, and a couple of women engaged me in conversations about yoga, since they’d seen me stand on my head – although I kick up with more force than a yogi would use…. The Performa crowd left for other places and by ten-thirty Westport was filling with a  different breed of hipster – the type who were regulars at the bar. My plan had been to move on to Ear for drinks – but that was closed for renovations, so we ended up at Milady’s at 162 Prince Street. I’m told this is one of the very last regular bars left south of Houston, and that it gives you more beer for your dollar than plusher places. Tom McGlynn, Tim Beckett and Charlotte Jackson got there before me – they’d called me on my cell to say Ear was closed and had already decided we should go to Prince Street instead. I arrived with Jarett Kobek, Eve Blackwater, Ken Wark and Christen Clifford. Lee Wells and Katie Hofstadter Winton came later. There was much drinking and talking – and, of course, Occupy Wall Street was among the subjects covered….

I walked back to Hotel 91, buying falafel on the way. As I waited for the lift to my room a woman asked me where I’d been doing yoga – she was with a friend and both were about my age. I told the two women I’d been doing a reading standing on my head on the catwalk of a strip club, which was why I had the mat with me. I don’t think they believed me but they were obviously amused by what I was saying, and seemed disappointed that I got out of the lift before them without suggesting we go to my room or for a drink somewhere nearby…. I took the yoga mat back to White Columns the next morning and left it there. Matless I found myself left in peace by women looking to meet a new boyfriend.

On Friday I went for lunch with Lynne Tillman at Snice. Lynne’s sick friend had improved in the hospital overnight. Lynne herself was on top form, talking in an upbeat way about her writing and her recent visit to Japan. I was really glad to catch up with Lynne – who I’d first met at a post-opening party for Susan Hiller when I’d been in New York back in 1989. Having done my gig and met up with Lynne, I felt my current mission in New York was accomplished. We had so much ground to cover in our conversation that I didn’t even get around to talking to Lynne about Richard Nash – whose innovative approach to publishing seems to have done a lot to raise her profile. I’d invited Nash to my Performa reading but he told me he was out of town that night….

Next time I visit the Big Apple I’m gonna make sure I’m not carrying a yoga mat around with me. Being hit upon by around a dozen women who didn’t know me from Adam because of my yoga mat – it’s like a sign saying you’re a ‘sensitive’ man – rather ruined my attempts at raising my state of consciousness through self-induced paranoia…. I just didn’t feel lonely and alienated enough after being flirted with to get into the proper noir mood! Oh well, here’s to me actually achieving a heightened state of awareness next time I’m in the city!

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Web 2.1 – A Revolution in Plumbing?

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

My impression is that I’m not the only person to have found that Web 2.0 is proving less interesting these days than it was five or six years ago. I don’t think this is simply because for my social (networking) circle the novelty has worn off. It has more to do with the fact that the web is less chaotic than it was and corporations have learnt how to better use and control social networking. Friendster fell out of favour because it kicked out fakesters (those that refused to use their ‘real’ identities) and it was continually crashing due to lack of server capacity. MySpace allowed people to adopt any online identity they felt like taking – so it appealed to the fakesters, among others. One of the things I liked about MySpace was its willingness to jump on any and every online fad going, which made it more of a culture clash than most other parts of the web – and I particularly dug the blogging features. I’ve detailed my use of MySpace in an article on the main part of this website – http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/praxis/myspace.htm.

MySpace had lots of faults but it was fun for a while. The platform being bought out by Murdoch’s News Corp (via the Fox subsidiary) led to MySpace suffering a slow death, since its old media purchasers had no understanding of what they’d acquired. That didn’t stop the fools at News Corp from messing around with their new toy. Facebook took up the slack, after initially appealing to over-privileged college kids and other conservatives who couldn’t stand the anarchic nature of MySpace; and partly because one of the central features (alongside photo sharing when that was introduced) was the status update – which required less effort than writing a blog. Twitter took the status update and transformed it into pretty much the only feature on its site. Facebook quickly became a place to do little more than post links when the company made attempts to claim ownership of any original content distributed directly from its severs. No one in their right mind would want to give FB CEO Mark Zuckerberg anything too interesting to claim as his ‘copyright’. Facebook’s current revamp looks a lot like a tail-ending of the failed MySpace. Facebook is now being promoted as a place for sharing media. Zuckerberg’s site for college squares and their post-degree clones has always been uptight and preppy, but in recent months the boredom factor there has definitely increased.

I know I’m not the only person in my social networking circles to try out other sites in recent years. I’ve found the take up at Identi.Ca too low for it to work very well for me – although I’m still posting: http://identi.ca/stewarthome. VK might have turned out better for me if there hadn’t already been a number of Stewart Home fakester sites on their servers prior to my arriving there: many users assumed that I couldn’t possibly be running my own profile on ‘their’ site (a corporate Facebook clone but with more than a few toes dipped into the darkweb). VK is most popular in Russia and since my books sold very well in Russian translation, I’m well known there. So I’m plodding on with VK too: http://vk.com/id121464913. I’ve been working with Diaspora alpha but initially went to a pod that didn’t suit me. I’ve just switched to another pod that seems much better: https://diasp.org/people/36032. Fingers crossed that Diaspora takes off once it goes fully public, the potential for something really good is definitely there. I’m at many other places – including of course Google+ – but to take just one example, I can’t even remember the last time I logged in to my LastFM account: http://www.last.fm/music/Stewart+Home. I have managed to post new material at YouTube quite recently (a public reading from one of my books which I give standing on my head): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z70hEvWbaWg. I hope to update my Vimeo profile at some point in the future: http://vimeo.com/stewarthome. The same goes for my site on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewarthome/.

Instead of waiting for a social networking platform that I find viable to either appear or reach its potential, I figured I’d return to blogging here – albeit on a more sporadic basis than in the past. This is in part because I’ve found the current Guardian newspaper series on “How to build a profitable blog” by Andrea Wren completely vile.  Rather than opening up the possibilities of blogging, Wren’s series is all about closing them down and reducing web 2.0 to a narrow focus. Viz, her desire to turn ‘creativity’ into money. Wren and her mentor Craig McGinty may or may not make a fortune from their blogs, with some added help from the Guardian series that is boosting them – but most of their foolish followers won’t get a pot to piss in from setting up online sites. It is only by moving away from an obsession with monetisation and hits that blogging can become in any way exciting. Search engine optimisation is so last decade, and I’m still of the opinion that content counts, alongside the quality of interaction between a site and its visitors. I’ve never focused on a single subject to the exclusion of all others either here or when I blogged on MySpace. Unvarying subject matter may or may not deliver a target audience to advertisers, but it is also the road to unadulterated tedium.

Finally – and just in case you’re interested – the revolution in plumbing (and many other areas of design and engineering) is allegedly coming to us all very soon via 3D printing rather than web 2.0. And in recent days as I went through a slew of old social networking sites I’d joined, I found that some had wiped my profiles, but many others remained just as I’d left them when I’d last logged in two or more years ago. That said, the entire Twine platform had disappeared and when I typed their url into my browser I was redirected to the Evri site (who I understand have both bought out Twine and wiped my account from the site they’ve merged into their own). Meanwhile, I was excited to discover my Tumbler profile could be be updated from my new Diaspora account. Other places I’ll start updating again – mostly with links to here – include Stumble Upon, Digg and Delicious (the latter two had both ‘lost’ my old profiles but I set up new ones). As for my WordPress site blog, Live Journal, Blog Spot and Bebo profiles (among many others), I’m curious to see how long they’ll stay up if I never log in again, let alone update them…..

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Peter Plate and the off-line ‘revolution’…

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

San Francisco based novelist Peter Plate came up in conversation the other night. I was at the launch of the Sara De Bondt and Fraser Muggeridge edited tome The Form of the Book at Art Words new Broadway Market shop, where I ran into some people I hadn’t seen for a while and we started rappin’ about mutual friends. None of us had been in contact with Peter Plate for a year or two and he became the focus of our conversation. While we were still in touch with him, he refused to do anything on the internet: he seemed to see it as a vehicle for police surveillance. Although it can be and is used in this way, it also has other functions and possibilities. So what happens when a contemporary writer not only refuses to use social networking platforms like Facebook and doesn’t have their own website, but won’t communicate by email? Does this give them an overview of the world as it is today, or leave them out of touch with their contemporaries? It’s probably impossible for us to judge that objectively right now, so I’ll leave it hanging… Without forgetting, of course, that Plate may not be ‘in love with today’, and might believe that being out touch with the contemporary world makes him a better writer!

What I can say is that a web search for Peter Plate didn’t turn up too much of interest: a page about Plate and his books on the site of his publisher Seven Stories, the odd review and the inevitable web book retail operations selling his stuff (plus a lot of results for other individuals who share his name). So Plate hasn’t quite disappeared, but he looks like he might join the ranks of the reforgotten. That said, I’m sure I could get a message to him via his publishers and I could almost certainly get his current home address and phone number from someone I know in London, but he isn’t easy to locate and right now doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry. That said, there are other authors with several books to their name who are active on social networking sites and elsewhere on the web, but who aren’t currently represented on Wikipedia (such as Barry Graham whose entry was deleted in September 2009 for being ‘self-promoting’). My own view is that both Plate and Graham merit Wikipedia pages, but then we all know that particular platform works in mysterious and often non-rational ways….

I haven’t read Peter Plate’s more recent books, but I admire him for his hardcore stance against the net. One thing this certainly does is provide him with is more time to concentrate on his fiction. That said, personally, I enjoy engaging with the twenty-first century world and I appreciate the new horizons the web opens up, while simultaneously recognising that in its current form it certainly has some serious downsides. Does anyone know of anyone else currently active in the culture industry who has never used email or the internet?

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Volatile Dispersal: Festival of Art Writing

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

On Saturday night I read at Volatile Dispersal, a festival of art writing held at the Whitechapel Gallery. The event proved so crowded and popular that it was hard to take very much in. I found this ironic because after I’d used my FaceBook account to remind people about the event (I list all the public events I’m doing initially on my homepage), among the comments I garnered were the following:

“I like the idea of ‘art writing’; its the best phrase I’ve ever come across (Barry Watten?) to describe the efforts of those of us who spend anywhere between 5 to 50 to 75 hours on one text, which is little more than a page, only to have said text become tucked away appropriately in a ‘slim volume’ which no one in their right mind will pay 10 dollars for when all is said and done… go boy!” Volker Nix.

And: “Yeah Volker, writing that nobody will read, not even if you put it online for free…I used to see that as being somehow radical (and I still kind of do)…but now I think the only real reason for engaging in these practices is simply because you enjoy it (is that somehow radical?)” Robert Chrysler.

There were various events going on in different parts of the Whitechapel Gallery, I was programmed to read in a small upstairs space alongside a whole host of other ‘art writers’, and this segment was curated by Francesco Pedraglio. Since I was on last, I was more focused on getting into the mood for my reading than paying attention to what other people were doing. That said, it is decidedly amusing that some of those engaged in ‘art writing’ are clearly unaware of experimental poetry by the likes of Bob Cobbing, so they are able to cover old ground as if it is fresh (and I guess it is for them, if not me).

What I found particularly curious about the event was that a number of people were participating in Volatile Dispersal who I knew but I managed not to meet on the night. I was able to hear Sally O’Reilly read because there was a speaker system relaying the sound from the room in which I also performed into the adjacent bar – but the event was so packed that I was unable to get into this small gallery for the majority of sessions before mine. I looked out for Sally afterwards but it was so busy it was easy to miss people, and I didn’t ‘see’ O’Reilly at all that night. Others advertised as being present who I failed to clock at all included Babak Ghazi (whose downstairs event clashed with mine) and Laura Oldfield Ford. Yet more, such as Mike Sperlinger, I spotted across crowded rooms – but in most cases was unable to attract their attention before they disappeared.

Among those I did manage to speak to were Crow, Bridget Penney, Bridget Lowe, Katrina Palmer, Maitreyi Maheshwari, Gavin Everall, Jane Rollo, Nick Thurston, Anthony Isles, Jonathan Allen, Benedict Seymour, Maria Fusco, James Brook, Chris Horrocks, Jeremy Ackerman and Hilary Koob-Sassen. I also had a reasonably extended conversation with Rob La Frenais about Toshiba ripping off Simon Faithfull in their current ad campaign. Nothing wrong with plagiarism of course, but Toshiba and the ad agency they used initially claimed this blatant steal demonstrated the commitment of both parties to innovation. Ho ho! La Frenais was telling me corporations can’t get away with this kind of rip-off in the world of Web 2.0 because tweets, blogs and comments on sites like YouTube and Facebook have spread the story around the world and forced Toshiba to backtrack – so they’ve apparently paid Simon Faithfull some wedge to say nothing, and are now claiming the ‘innovation’ was not launching a chair into space using weather balloons (as Faithfull had five years before them) but in using this for an ad! Doh! If that’s Toshiba’s idea of ‘innovation’ then I think I’ll stick to using consumer electronics made by Apple, Asus, Panasonic and Sony (among others) and avoid Toshiba (unless they send me some nice freebies). And BTW, why so few mentions of The Association of Autonomous Astronauts in regard to all this too?

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Friends Reunited or 500 words on the inside of a ping-pong ball….

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

How long most people will continue to put up with corporate web 2.0 platforms when they could be controlling their own sites using similar software is anyone’s guess… What we do know is that while a platform like Facebook has many users, it is not necessarily profitable. That is not, of course, the only reason why the financial value of web services that rely on user generated content ping-pong, but it is definitely a contributing factor

One corporate operation that is clearly well past its sell-by date is Friends Reunited, which ITV bought for £170 million in 2005. Attempts to sell the platform have been ongoing for most of this year – in August DC Thomson put in a £25 million offer (£145 million less than ITV paid for it), but the sale has been blocked until April so that the Competition Commission can conduct an inquiry. It will be interesting to see whether DC Thomson – or anyone else – want to pay £25 million for Friends Reunited next spring.

Friends Reunited always struck me as a platform with limited appeal. The idea was that individuals registered as having attended specific schools and were thus able to locate their former classmates. If you want to reconnect with your schoolyard chums, having done so there seems little need to use Friends Reunited to stay in touch – email, Facebook and actual meetings are obviously a more opportune means of doing so. Likewise, as time has passed it has not only become much easier to find people online at places other than Friends Reunited, the pool of those who actually want to find old school friends has greatly dwindled.

I left school more than thirty years ago and have singularly failed to keep up with the kids I’d known up to the age of sixteen. I have no desire to get back in touch with them or find out what they are doing. What would we talk about? Institutionalised cruelty might be one topic of conversation… I think our experiences of most punishments were fairly similar – detention, the ruler, the slipper, the cane, lines etc. – but the one that in retrospect most excites me probably wouldn’t be much of a talking point.

I’m amused that I should have been punished for something, I forget exactly what, by being ordered to write a 500 word essay ‘on the inside of a ping-pong ball’. I enjoyed the exercise, it was rather Hegelian, an attempt to go back to philosophical first principles and build something from nothing. Of course, I didn’t think of it like that then, but I knew intuitively it was something with which I could demonstrate the full depths of my insolence…

I remember other kids talking about how they planned to complete this task. One thing on which we all agreed was that the inside of a ping-pong ball is filled with air. Of course, this statement isn’t true in outer space, and I was possibly the only kid to realise that such a qualification would help me fill up the essay I’d been assigned as punishment.

The kids from the local children’s home who went to my school sometimes called me Brains, and they definitely though I was being a bit flash when I told a couple of them that the inside of a ping-pong ball was concave, and I’d contrasted this with the outside which is convex. I’d done this is maths but the kids I told about it weren’t in the O-level maths group (the vast majority of kids were in CSE or non-exam classes), and I guess they’d studied something different. The punishment had been assigned by a PE teacher for some infraction during a sports session, and was dished out to an assortment of boys from different academic classes.

No one else seemed to understand why I enjoyed stringing together an essay on the inside of a ping-pong ball: “The inside of a ping-pong ball is filled with air, except in outer space. Air consists primarily of oxygen and the air inside a ping-pong ball contains exactly the same amount of oxygen as the air immediately outside it…. etc. etc.” I wish I still had the essay, but since it was done as a punishment it wasn’t returned to me. I doubt it was even read, the idea was to humiliate us, the teacher probably just wanted to see that we’d filled out a couple of pages with something.

I wasn’t humiliated, I felt like I’d triumphed, but that clearly wasn’t the case for most of those who found themselves assigned this task. Their failure to understand why I perceived shit like this as a victory over an oppressive system, is one of the reasons I’ve never used a platform like Friends Reunited to get back in touch with them.

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Let’s burst the web 2.0 commercial bubble & instead get really funky!

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

The commercially driven nature of Web 2.0 has been stressed by many commentators, for instance Tim O’Reilly in his influential essay of September 2005 “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software“. Thus when I first looked at MySpace a little before O’Reilly published that text, rock bands clearly knew how to promote themselves to a new (as well as their existing) audience via this site, but writers and artists on the whole didn’t. The later two categories of would-be culture industry ‘professionals’ tended to use the internet as a means of advertising (largely ineffectively) what they were doing, rather than integrating their activities into it. Since MySpace made streamed sound central to its platform, musicians found the site was tailor made for them, and it didn’t require much adaptation on their part to benefit from it.

There were and still are very few professional artists on MySpace with notable exceptions like Martin Creed and Jane Pollard/Ian Forsyth; most of the art profiles are either for complete amateurs or run by fans of dead iconoclasts like Duchamp and Warhol. The majority of artists I encounter in London don’t seem to like the web very much (among other things it doesn’t allow them much control over the way their work is viewed and who sees it, which is why they prefer galleries), but Facebook attracts them as a networking tool. On Facebook gallery artists fit in very well alongside suit wearing culture industry professionals and corporate managers with their spreadsheets and calculators. If gallery artists have work they want to sell and that really is their bottom line, those artists working on the web (and doing more than simply publicising upcoming shows and reproducing catalogue essays) are more likely to have something to say or at least formalist concerns they wish to explore. Strangely beyond those involved in genres such as conceptual literature (Kenny Goldsmith is the most prominent figure in this field) or perhaps cyberpunk, even fewer writers than artists show much interest in the internet as a creative tool, despite the fact it is language based and offers enormous scope for ‘social sculpture’.

Moving on, the developmental model many Web 2.0 businesses work with is offering a service either cheaply or for free in order to mine data from their users. Web business ‘guru‘ Tim O’Reilly doles out advice along the lines of: ‘leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web…  For competitive advantage, seek to own a unique, hard-to-recreate source of data… The key to competitive advantage in internet applications is the extent to which users add their own data to that which you provide…. Involve your users both implicitly and explicitly in adding value to your application…. Set inclusive defaults for aggregating user data as a side-effect of their use of the application…. When benefits come from collective adoption, not private restriction, make sure that barriers to adoption are low. Follow existing standards, and use licenses with as few restrictions as possible. Design for “hackability” and “remixability.”… Don’t package up new features into monolithic releases, but instead add them on a regular basis as part of the normal user experience. Engage your users as real-time testers…“

In recent years networking theory has made much of the notion of weak ties. The pioneer in this area was Mark Granovetter in the 1970s and by the late 1990s his work had been combined with Stanley Milgram’s research into how many links separate people from each other (the so called six degrees of separation) by mathematicians Duncan Watts and Steve Strogatz. These ideas were later popularised in mass market paperbacks like Mark Buchanan’s “Small World” (known as “Nexus” in the USA). A completely ordered network (where every node is tied only to its neighbours) is inefficient in terms of its degrees of separation: but when some long distance ‘weak ties’ are thrown in these massively reduce the number of moves needed to get from any one node to any other. Thus from the perspective of networking theory MySpace is superior to both Facebook and Bebo since it encourages weak ties as well as networking among established friends (Facebook and Bebo actively discourage users from befriending people they don’t know). That said, those ‘virtual’ communities that go beyond ties to a single platform and that aren’t committed to capitalist business practices are infinitely superior to anything MySpace can offer.

Web business ‘gurus’ like Tim O’Reilly recognise the strength of collective activity, but they attempt to recuperate it for individual gain. Their world is one in which everything revolves around a bottom line; their outlook is essentially behaviourist, web surfers are enticed to click through links and to buy something (anything). Business data miners are interested in what makes someone click through links and make purchases, not why they do it. Thus what doesn’t gain clicks is either discarded or placed so far down search lists that few surfers will find it. This is a pseudo-meritocracy in which whatever is already popular has its position constantly reinforced, and what isn’t popular is buried under a mountain of celebrity trivia in a world that is currently ruled (‘ironically’ of course) by the likes of Lady GaGa. Nonetheless, social networking trends are constantly shifting and while both advertising and data mining on platforms like MySpace are now slicker than 3 or 4 years ago, that particular site is still not exactly generating a huge profit. Indeed, last year saw a small downturn in MySpace and Facebook usage in the UK (see “Is Facebook going out of fashion” – you’ll need to roll down the page on The Guardian site to see this).

So trendsetters, perhaps this really can be the year in which millions more groovers and bloggers break with the digital establishment by embracing a WordPress freakout. The easiest way to do this is to set up a blog on the WordPress site, but I’d prefer you all to be more dispersed and for as many of you as possible to use your own domains…. And let’s start using our sites to really play with the web, to spread myths and confusion, create false identities, disorientate the authorities, and inauguarate communal situations that overflow all the barriers between the so called ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ worlds! Oh and a few backward glances at how we got here wouldn’t go astray either… so if you’re not already familiar with them, look up the Luther Blissett Project, neoism and mail art (the ‘original’ pre-web paper net). “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ – you know it makes (no) sense!