>From: Rowland Ebright III
>Sent: Saturday, October 25, 1997 5:37 AM
>To: ErnieC
>Subject: Re: Generation?
>At 05:24 PM 10/22/97 -0400, you wrote:
>>Hey!
>>You call yourselves GenXers? Let me tell ya: Yer stuff is timeless!
>>I remain,
>>
>>Ernie
>>
>>
>Hey, Ernie! Thanks for what I take is a complement!
>
>Which particular stuff were you referring to? I assumed you've been
>browsing our site. What parts and how much? Is it any good?
>
>Just wondering how you found us, to. A search engine? A usenet posting?
>
>Rowland, Guru of:
>The Ebright Commune
From: "Ernest Clayton Cordell, Jr."
To: "'Rowland Ebright III'"
Subject: RE: GenerationLessX (_genminx?)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 15:27:58 -0400
Encoding: 162 TEXT
Guru Ebright & Communers,
My remark was meant as a compliment: If you want to take it as a
complement, then it is I who should be grateful. Feel free to remind me to
visit again.
Let's see, your next question was "which stuff?" Well, it being a sort of
communal venture, I reviewed it rather in the aggregate -- the next time
you want me to rack up some points on your counters, send me another
message and I'll look at the individual contributions. On the whole, I
really was referring to all of it: It enjoys a certain amount of power just
by virtue of being a group effort; it accrues yet more spark by being a
coordinated group effort. It was nice to have all the navigation banners
throughout the site -- it give you the impression of people who work
together well -- a delicacy in its rarity in our age. The "trademark
symbols" which mark each section and identify them all on the navigation
banners do not tell you "with whom" you are browsing, but they are
avatar-like in yielding a general impression of the "personality" of each
section (in which there seems to be frequent division and remelding).
As far as how much, since some indeterminable moment in the past (I
think), it has been difficult for me to measure time; so I shall restrict
myself to answering how much in terms of extent. Assuming that there is
more than meets the eye (my eye in this case), I would gauge the basic
presentation of all of the areas as one part in seven. I covered this much
and assuming that this would be about 15%, I would guess that I covered an
average lot of about half of your site (let's say 42%, so as to avoid error
in my conjecture), but I did so with the notion of returning and hence with
a superficial eye. Supposing my superficial eye was the one which was met
by your content, I guess we could decide that I gave careful consideration
to about a quarter of your site.
If your question about the goodness of your site is a request for my
personal opinion, I would have to say that the first great testimony is in
that I was attracted enough by the content to remain and peruse; a second
and very excellent sign is that I was compelled to respond, and did in fact
do so on the night in question; so ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I
submit to you that this work, which both attracts and compells, stirs and
motivates can be called by no other name but "art." If, however, you are
asking me whether it fills that void within the human spirit, repairs that
incessant longing so characteristic of our natures -- alas! how am I to
respond? Mercy! Please! I beg of you, kind Sir, have mercy on a poor fool
such as I am: I'm guilty -- guilty, guilty, guilty -- I enjoyed it, and
must therefore confess -- but not without duress, you understand -- that,
yes, I considered it "good." If you are looking for artistic criticism, on
the other hand, I'm afraid this is as artistic as I am capable.
Do you want to know whether you work is an article of public consumption?
Hmm . . . they seem a fickle lot to me -- clinging to your every word
at one moment, but then, in a flicker of the candle -- they are gone.
There was a nice chap, a writer, in the early days of WWI in France --
before the American Involvement -- he was an admirer of Manet. His name
doesn't come to me at the moment, but he loved the delicious exotism of the
paintings of foreign women and sought to capture it in his writing. Given
the circumstances, I suppose we shouldn't wonder, but I diverge. The point
of my rambling is that he called his writing "a lottery ticket to be drawn
in 1934" because he knew that the world would receive it only when its time
had come. Sure enough, almost to the day, early in 1934 publishers
scrambled to snatch up every scrap of his work because it was selling
faster than they could turn up his manuscripts. I don't recall when he
died -- sometime in the late 20s.
Let's see, as brevity is the soul of wit, my wit is yet fit for Polonius,
but I combine the questions "Does it promote the common good?" and "Is it
morally good?" into one single inquiry and refrain from replying. I'm just
not qualified to involve myself in moral judgements. God knows I've tried,
but I can barely manage to make choices for myself, let alone tackle the
responsibilities of determining propriety in the actions of others,
especially considering their tremendous implications in the areas of fate,
kismet, destiny and karma.
As to how I found you, I found you more 'fro than to, but that's beside
the point. When I was at university in quite a state which was then called
Indiana, for which they were said to name the school, I was determined to
find an unusual subject for primitive cinematic exploration. On the advice
of a professor who told me to that I had to be on top of things in order to
cultivate a reasonable perspective, I sought a point of view that was less
than usual. I climbed on top the library building and filmed from there.
I captured a fellow in my lens ambling away below whose aspect was
peculiar. He had a rather triangular bald spot, a forest green sweatshirt
and baggy black pants, the fabric of which either waffled in the stride of
his odd gait or were flailed about by a wind that did not touch me at my
altitude. I lowered the camera and squinted to see him cross a street in
the distance where he suddenly stopped, leaned to one side and before
turning, decidedly raised his arm as though to scratch the pate which I
could now hardly see.
I accused myself of imagining things as he stood there as though trying to
focus on the building I had mounted. Every moment brought me more
certainty that he was looking directly at the spot where I had perched to
shoot the scene of differing perspective. I descended from this precarious
position, not wanting to suffer the awkwardness of quandry in combination
with the tenuousness of my hold.
I trundled the stairs with the pace of youth while struggling to keep my
grasp on the little Bell&Howell, stopping at every landing to peer out the
ancient windows that refused to render a clear view of the world outside.
The guy's features were all obscured by something -- He had long auburn
hair that wrapped about his head in such a way that you'd have to be
standing right in front of him to see him clearly. Although he seemed to
stare directly at the building, his wire-rim glasses with their huge lenses
cast a reflection that hid any features of his eyes. His nose was a small
sharp point from the limited angle of my view and pinched under the glasses
in the midst of a sumptous mustache, it was no identifiable feature. As I
flew by each story in the Cunningham Memorial Library, each window refused
to serve faithful light or angle of the curious man I had seen. What would
I see once I knew? The unkempt beard could be cut at any time to merge him
in with the crowd that would surround him at any given moment in that space
of time.
I was out of breath as I raced outside into the fresh, cool autumn air and
sunlight that so contrasted the dim and dusty atmosphere of the library. I
looked directly down the concrete walkway and through the emptiness into
large bay windows of Holmstedt Hall across the street. He was gone.
A beautiful blonde of astonishing proportion and bearing emerged from the
Fine Arts building, flashing her delicate thighs beneath the fine rim of
her tiny miniskirt. For some reason I lost all thought of the mysterious
man and whatever mechanism or motive moved him to stare so intently at my
precise location in the heights.
What became of the blonde is another story in itself, but on that
particular day, with little prospect of sex, I settled for lunch.
I thought of her again, though, many years hence and returning to campus
on a visit, I took a nostalgic trip to spot where I first saw her. There
had been a lot of water under the bridge and a few knee injuries emphasized
the passing of time as I passed the library. I stood for a moment and
reflected, reliving the moment when she had emerged from the Art building.
Not having achieved any resolution in our relationship at that point in
time, I shook my head and walked onward. As I crossed the street in front
of Holmstedt Hall, a weird sensation lifted each hair on my back and
continued over my considerable hirsuit adornment. I had the feeling of
being watched, and turned to look directly at the library where my demented
imagination served up an image of a lone figure high atop the building
looking in my direction.
I considered the long-since-forgotten memories and decided that my eerie
tremulous feeling was justification enough to make away. I walked
deliberately but not necessarily quickly into the mazes of the buildings
and came out far on the other side, where the nostalgia mixed with
curiosity and I went on to visit old friends and classmates
How did I find your site? I appreciate the notion that you want to know
the source of your audience. I, myself, have a website
and try to discover what brings me most of my audience. Don't look for
anything interesting, there, though. My everyday concerns are rather dry.
But some questions are better left for future discussion,
Ernie
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