Tag: Life is a fountain

 

As soon as I figure out how to send email newsletters from here at Life is a Fountain, and settle into a way of doing that regularly, Clerkmanifesto is likely to become just a sleepy backwater of my vast Internet Empire. 

But learning how to send Newsletters from Life is a Fountain, refining its content, and packing it to the gills with baubles and snacks, is all having to wait in line, and for scraps of attention, behind my current obsession, image combining. This is where I take fictional characters and put them into my real life. These are very time consuming to do and can even occasionally overwhelm me. So sometimes I have to ask myself what makes them so compelling.

I think I have an answer. 

They simply don’t work out that well about 80 percent of the time. Also I can’t really tell whether they do work out until they’re done. So there’s the gambler thing going on in it- the idea that this next one is really, this time going to finally, finally be fantastic. And as any gambler can tell you, once or twice a day it actually does come through. It is fantastic! There’s something about getting Linus into the library I work at, sitting on a chair in just the right way, that is so utterly satisfying to me. It somehow makes the world feel more like my world.

 

 

 

 

Also, new materials and ideas are everywhere! I work at a library! This afternoon I was shelving and came across a kind of picture book of The Fire Next Time. Immediately I had to do a mash-up with James Baldwin! I took some pictures of a couple of the more likely pictures of James Baldwin. I carefully masked out just James Baldwin. Then I started trying to match him with the increasingly large numbers (but never enough!) of pictures I now have of all our desks, seating areas, and counters at the library. It matched up okay, but I needed to do another layer to put in a computer wire that the masked cut out of Baldwin had blocked. But when it was all together, the black and white source picture of James Baldwin was a bit of an off match. So I applied a whole bunch of filters to try and bring it together, and…

It was okay. Not a great one.

 

 

 

Oh well.

But maybe the next one will be amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonus picture because you’re reading this in the right place and deserve something special.

 

How about…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With this blog post below I am officially opening the door to Life is a Fountain. The piece below the pictures is pretty much as it was published on Clerkmanifesto, which is what I am now thinking of as the previous iteration of Life is a Fountain. It is thus geared for that audience. Hopefully most posts going forward, which will be simultaneous on both sites, won’t be so specific to one or the other! This one is, but I have spiced it up with three pictures for you in case you are coming over to check things out from Clerkmanifesto and already read this.

 

 

 

 

Life is a Fountain

 

My new website isLife is a Fountain. 

It occurred to me that the Internet has no competition.

Because it has no competition it sets all the terms. It has monopolized the discourse. It lords it over everyone! It has become BOSSY.

So I have decided to create another Internet. 

It is called Life is a Fountain!

The Other Internet.

It’s not quite as big as the Internet you’re familiar with. Actually it’s quite a bit smaller.

You can’t buy stuff on it.

There aren’t any maps and it won’t tell you if your local café is open.

It does not hold a vast wealth of scientific papers or the literatures of ancient peoples.

You probably can’t share with your friends on it, or make travel plans, or find a recipe for every dish in the world, or diagnose your illness, or translate languages, or find a job, or date anyone, or see what movies are out, or conduct business, or play a game, or learn how to play the clarinet.

But,

And I say this with full humility,

I think Life is a Fountain is way better than the regular Internet!

Actually, that might not be full humility. 

It’s probably like two or three percent humility.

Whatever.

Just, check it out. Please.

It’s called Life is a Fountain. It’s at www.lifeisafountain.com.

As I write this no one has ever ever been there!

I consider it the inheritor and evolution of this blog you are reading now, clerkmanifesto. 

Life is a Fountain will be in what is known as Early Access for awhile. That’s a time for me to iron out it’s roughest spots and develop its basic ideas, and for you, if you would only be so kind, to leave your input. There are lots of forms and comment places on Life is a Fountain, and it would mean a lot to me if you left your thoughts on what you like, or don’t like, as I go forward with it.

Life is a Fountain will run concurrently with Clerkmanifesto indefinitely. The posts here will also largely be carried on the BLOG page of Life is a Fountain. But my main energy will be towards Life is a Fountain, and it will be, going forward, the more articulated version of what you see here.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoy the more Carnivalesque Life is a Fountain.