1. What is your name?
Legion.
2. Tell us something about you, your background, and what you've been up to lately?
Father, lover, friend. Theatre rat since the 4th grade; wouldn’t walk
across the street to see a movie, except for John Huston’s “Moby Dick”
and anything starring Annette Funicello. Drafted. Vietnam. Discovered film. Lately:
kicking Agent Orange ass, writing for
dollars, filming for fun.
3. How did you discover Everything, and how did you become a noder?
I think I surfed on in one day when I typed “everything” into a search
box just to see what would happen. I became a noder when I realized the
site had precious little on James Joyce, and I was just the guy to
fill that hole. I have subsequently reconsidered. I submit, however,
that Joyce would’ve loved E2, though the inevitable stupid downvotes
would’ve driven him to (more) drink. My first non-factual writeup was
nuked.
4. What are your favorite writeups -- both your own and from other noders?
My writeups are like my children, lovable little worlds unto themselves,
so I have no favorites, except, maybe, for the pastiches. I
think trying to write like other people, getting FAR outside one’s
comfort zone, can be extremely helpful for an author. Thus, my odd
ducks—
—rather tickle my fancy. As for others' writeups: their authors know who
they are. I cool excellence. With great relish. The following are
excellent, but they're merely the tip of the cliched iceberg:
5. What are your favorite and least favorite memories from E2's history?
Summit in Savannah has to top the favorites list. I was a brand-new
admin, and the whole idea of sitting there (cf. Olympus), watching
that thing happen in real time, with a live audience of at least a
hundred slack-jawed noders (imagine that), after a month of preparation,
was glorious. April Troll’s Day was brilliant iconoclastic fun; some
folks still haven’t gotten over it.
On the downside, the Ush debacle doesn’t even rate a hardlink; a period
of horrible mismanagement; the first time I seriously thought of folding
my tent and stumbling disappointed into the night.
The evolution of E2 as catbox pissing contest continues to be regrettable. I had a martial arts teacher who used to say “Too much talk, not enough do.” Too much soggy repartee and oneupsmanship, not enough WRITING.
Also, I first learned of the 9/11 hijackings when I logged in to the site. That was the second miserable day in a row for us.
6. What keeps you coming back?
Habit. Witnessing the birth of new noders. The possibility that dem
bones will return, like Jesus or Quetzalcoatl, with a lifetime
contract in one hand, a million dollars (in 1999 dollars) in the other,
and absolutely no idea of what to do.
7. What do you hope for E2's future?
Sobriety when appropriate. Adult leadership.
8. What does E2 mean to you?
E2 helped me find my voice as a writer. I had been unhappily composing
incomplete novels and screenplays in my spare time, and the idea that I
could put the effort into—say—something like a short story, ten pages or
so, and get immediate feedback from strangers, was exhilarating. I
began to have fun writing for myself again, after many years of
writing-to-deadline for others.
E2 is a playground. As somebody wisely said, it shouldn’t be taken
seriously, unless someone with a joyless agenda tries to make it
something else that it never could be. The site pre-dates all the
"social networks"; it is the very definition of "internet dinosaur." The
amount of time we've spent collectively scratching our heads and
wondering what can we do to get more users? is, in my opinion, laughable. There are thousands of new venues for writers out there now.
It has been posited that the internet and hi-def video and "virtual
reality"—any "new" media, in fact—means the end of reading, the demise
of writing. I think the very opposite has been proven to be the fact:
any moron with a keyboard can blog to its heart's content. And people
READ this crap and feel compelled to pile MORE crap on top of it. That
it is often angry, ill-informed, misanthropic, misogynistic,
pornographic, argumentum ad hominum crap should give us happy pause: E2
has standards. And goals. We endeavor to make OUR crap amusing and
informative. Somebody has to do it.
9. Who are your favorite noders? Which ones do you miss the most?
People seem to go soft in answer to this question, like they don’t want
to hurt anybody’s feelings, but—really, it’s like the Oscars; it doesn’t
mean all that much and it’s subjective, and I'm sorry if I left you
(and you) out, and my memory is going by the minute, so
let’s just get on with it:
It's an eclectic list, to be sure, and I like each of them for
different reasons, but the commonality, I suppose, is that they are all
mature writers with an experiential point of view. They have something
to SAY. It's best to KNOW things when you take pen to hand/Bluetooth
keyboard to the outhouse.
I miss JohnnyGoodyear and junkpile/jp and
Igloowhite hugely. White threw the only noder meet I've ever attended.
Some drunk wanted to argue with me about "cinema." Goodyear's a genius.
I'd like to marry jessicapierce.
10. Who would play you in the Everything2 movie?
Gwyneth Paltrow
11. Please fill in the blank: "E2 is to the Internet as ___ is to the world."
Santa’s Workshop
12. Any questions that I didn't ask that I should've?
Yes. Do you need any help getting that wall on the plane?
Everything2 Decaversary Interviews
If you have questions or comments, please contact riverrun or Jet-Poop.