Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 10:19:36 -0500
To: David Balcom
From: John Tolva
Subject: Re: apartment
>what
> happens when the word
>
>does not appear?
There it is. You've done it. A stroke of brilliance. Let's submit it to
Kairos right now.
J
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 20:05:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: David K. Balcom <dbalcom@cc.gatech.edu>
To: John Tolva <jntolva@artsci.wustl.edu>
Subject: Re: butterfly.net
On Wed, 24 Apr 1996, John Tolva wrote:
> I managed to effect client pull (not hard) and I've taken your suggestion
> about how we go into the piece [is this a joke ...]. I put together a
> animated .gif of the word hegirascope -- it jiggles around and won't keep
> still, but I don't know if we will use it.
>
> Anyway, I'm writing right now on the notion of the temporal link and on
> Wallace Stevens. What are you doing?
starting microsoft word
X-Sender: jntolva@peach.wustl.edu
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 20:12:33 -0500
To: "David K. Balcom" <dbalcom@cc.gatech.edu>
From: John Tolva <jntolva@artsci.wustl.edu>
Subject: Re: butterfly.net
X-Status: A
>starting microsoft word
Good start. Now that you've been candid let me tell you what I am really
doing ... I'm listening to an entire album that has been coded in RealAudio
and which is being distributed worldwide on the net for 24 hours. The CD
comes out in four days. Very cool. The connection is stable and the sound
quality is good.
Have you seen the inline RealAudio plug-in in Netscape 3.0? Slick. If you
are interested shoot over to http://www.channel.co.uk/orbital/insides_24hr.htm
On second thought, don't. Only one of us should be slacking at a time.
J
Return-Path: <dbalcom@cc.gatech.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 20:17:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David K. Balcom" <dbalcom@cc.gatech.edu>
To: John Tolva <jntolva@artsci.wustl.edu>
Subject: Re: butterfly.net
On Wed, 24 Apr 1996, John Tolva wrote:
> On second thought, don't. Only one of us should be slacking at a time.
you're absolutely right.
get to work!
d.
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 02:24:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David K. Balcom" <dbalcom@cc.gatech.edu>
To: John Nathan Tolva <jntolva@artsci.wustl.edu>
cc: David Balcom <dbalcom@cc.gatech.edu>
Subject: i'm fading
X-Status:
fast ...
is our goal total integration tonight, or a swapping of tales? i'm
happy to find our tales, then integrate tomorrow. my words need cleaning
as well
i could use your suggestions
d.
X-Sender: jntolva@peach.wustl.edu
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 02:38:06 -0500
To: "David K. Balcom" <dbalcom@cc.gatech.edu>
From: John Tolva <jntolva@artsci.wustl.edu>
Subject: Re: i'm fading
X-Status: A
... and I am too.
By the way, "margin" isn't the right word here because it implies (as does
"footnote") a kind of subordination. What I want is a dialogic text -- you
vs. me or you/me or you:me. Actually I've seen some books that do
annotations this way. Instead of footnotes or endnotes there is just an
extra wide margin where notes occur. They line up horizontally with the
text that they illuminate. Feed on the web (www.feedmag.com) does this too
and uses links. Perhaps we could imitate.
Go to sleep. I'll send you a note tomorrow. And keep the stuff coming as
you get a chance to write it. As Michael says, what is important is not
length of attention span but multiple attendings.
J
Return-Path: <db@butterfly.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 19:12:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Balcom <db@butterfly.net>
To: John Nathan Tolva <jntolva@artsci.wustl.edu>
Subject: what else
if i had to talk about what we were doing with the review, i may say
something like this ...
we're making our complicity in the narrative apparent, and we're making
our own creation of narrative available. instead of simply *reviewing*
hegirascope (where "reviewing" means you say a bunch of things about it,
but not a lot about your own presence in the work, saying without saying
that the work is not you, and you are not the work, you're simply a
"reader" of it). i think we're moving beyond a review and into more
interesting, and maybe more relevant, territory. by inscribing ourselves
into stuart's hegira, and obviously in our own (and in each other's),
we're formally taking on _hegirascope_'s call to click and watch. by
doing so [i think] we make clear the tension that _hegirascope_ so
brilliantly evokes: do we watch and clap like seals, or do we write
ourselves into the story, and in doing so, write another story [x2, x4,
xwhatever]?
what's at stake here?
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 18:27:37 -0500
To: David Balcom
From: John Tolva
Subject: Re: what else
>what's at stake here?
Immediately at stake is the happiness of the Kairos editorial board. They
may not like our take. Certainly none of the previous reviews had such an
incestuous relationship with what they were reviewing. But we shouldn't
worry about this.
We *should* worry about myopia, about letting our critical guard down in
the rush to assimilate.
In part we are continuing a tradition in hypertext criticism. The
tradition is that one reviews a hypertext by talking about what it is like
to read it, that is, what the experience of reading is, rather than what the
hypertext is about. (This solves the insoluble problem: how does a class
talk about a hypertext when there is no guarantee that the students have
read the same text?) We know, of course, that Hegirascope is in part
*about* the experience of reading it -- so we come out ahead.
I feel very good about what we are doing. We seem to be able to let go of
the Romantic notion of the Author so why not that of the Critic? Why is
there so little collaborative criticism in the Humanities? I'm not sure,
but I do know that its absence is not a good thing. Ours is a messy
polylogue -- like what we are reviewing. So, if nothing else the reading
experience of our review approximates the experience of reading what we are
reviewing. Such reflexivity I would think is good. If you don't like what
we are doing, well, that's probably a sign that you won't like what we are
reviewing. Kinda like Siskel and Ebert making films as reviews.
Well, enough of that.
J
Return-Path: <db@butterfly.net>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 00:13:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Balcom <db@butterfly.net>
To: John Nathan Tolva <jntolva@artsci.wustl.edu>
Cc: David Balcom <db@butterfly.net>
Subject: edits
i'm not sure i can provide edits until [gasp] i print your stuff. until
then, they're just loose comments. maybe tomorrow evening after I get my
wisdom teeth yanked and i'm all doped up on painkillers i can get your
stuff so i can print it and get a fast edit to you.
i'd offer to compile my bits of code into a fuller (though still
fragmented, of course) "narrative", but i'm pretty sure i won't be able
to, unless you can tell me different about codeine
i'm *really* bummed about this -- i'm way into this grooving we're doing,
and i feel terrible about being on good narcotics while you'll be putting
my pieces together. humpty dumpty's fat ass will never walk again
think you can make some sense of what i've given you? why don't we plan
on talking on the phone tomorrow night -- that way we can sort some
things out if they need it
cool?
i'm going to sign off after i get your reply
d.
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 23:35:28 -0500
To: David Balcom
From: John Tolva
Subject: Re: edits
>i'm going to sign off after i get your reply
Sorry it took a while to respond. I was on the phone with my loved one.
I'll be in all night tomorrow and can call you if you want. You probably
will be in no shape to talk, both because of the drugs and because of a
swollen mouth. Getting wisdom teeth pulled was a horrific experience for me
so I will understand if you are out of commission. Why don't I mock this
stuff up in HTML, unedited, then call Kelly tomorrow night. If she says
that you are not feeling well, I'll just edit it myself and contact Kairos.
You have to admit that there is something deliciously right about the very
final version of this review being written while you are on drugs. What was
that about Guatamalan hashish?
Talk to you tomorrow (maybe).
John
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