Given the impressive Curriculum vitae of my esteemed Friend Behr, it seems weird that he’d get so many things wrong about the Everything2.com brand node-by-mail system. Perhaps—and this is a conjecture at this point—there really was a different system of noding by mail in the countries on that side of the Berlin Wall. Here in the American continent it worked differently.

And so, here’s an extensive quote from my extensive library.

(…)

These inaccuracies were replaced by others once the node-by-telegram system was patented and implemented in the American Continent by William S. Balding. The original system he used was simple: a telegram could be submitted as a node to Mr. Balding as long as it had 10 words or fewer and was sent through a special form available in every postal office. For the low, low price of 5 cents, one could send up to 3 nodes per month¹ Given this price, several preachers used the…

Two weeks ago, in what might have been an improbable and random decision, I moved to Corvallis, Oregon. I have been spinning my gears, doing nothing useful, for quite a while, and so I decided to make a move. Despite the situation with the pandemic, I had to do something. What I am going to do, I don't know. 2020 is such a mess that any achievement or movement counts as a wild victory. From March until August, I had not had an in-person conversation with a person I knew of, except my…

the sound of

traffic,  as the night sky surrenders to day and commerce

overwhelms all 

the sound of 

sidewalk musicians,  a benign exchange of coins for

a few moments of heaven 

the sound of 

geese, flying overhead in precise formation

hundreds of wings,  all moving South  …