Archives for November 7th, 2005

Me, in all my transparent glory.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to contribute four stories to the San Diego Reader, an alternative newsweekly that is (according to this)
the largest alternative publication in the U.S. and A.
Unfortunately,
it’s also in based in California, so my reply was: "EAST COAST 4
LIFE, SUCKAS!" While the e-mail was on its way, I also flashed some gang signs
at my monitor. I don’t know if they got those too, but that’s
incidental. The important thing is to stay true to New York, know what
I’m sayin’? But later I remembered the whole Tupac thing, and decided that what the world needs now is peace, not more violence. So I agreed.

The first thing I discovered is that writing without hyperlinks
is more difficult than I remembered. Compare for example, these two
sentences:

1) After graduating from NYU’s school of
journalism, I moved to Slovenia (a small country bordering Italy and
Austria) and immersed myself in its rich culture.

2) After graduating, I moved to Slovenia and immersed myself in its rich culture.

The
second sentence has three kinds of links. The first one combines verb
and object into one entity, trimming the number of necessary words. The
link isn’t meant to be clicked — rather, anyone who is curious can
hover over it, see the address, and know where I graduated. The second
one is, as Mr. Miyagi
says, "different but same." It provides copious background information,
so that anyone who is clueless about Slovenia can simply click on the
link and find out. The third one transforms the very meaning of the
sentence. It also leads the reader to more interesting pages than this
one.

So, anyway, it was slow going. But here’s the final product:  Don’t Call us Slovaks.

 Oh,
and lest I forget: They published the picture in black and white, and
it seems to have lost some of its original transparency. I’m totally
mystified by this transparency, and I was hoping someone here could
explain it. How is it possible that you can see through my shoulder and
body? Answers not involving the word "magic" are very welcome!