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prior listings

 

• Anne Barnard 12/25/00 
  Description: online showcase of photographic imagery
  Comments: Today's pick features the work of a photographer in France but some of the pieces seem more like fine abstract art than photographs.  She calls those photograms and it's a bit unclear how she does them.  Anne Barnard's site is interesting from the start — the main page has words surrounding the image and at first, they look like links but Anne is playing with words here.  The words seem to describe her orientation towards her art and effectively provoke thought and invite the user to explore.  "Spots and marks, gobs and blobs, tangled up unrecognizable jumble that mumbles and shouts; the edge of a pattern; the lines of a hand; a body as it steals through time: I like the where, what and how of these things."  Anne's visions are quite engaging and the presentation of her imagery is done well.  Damn, I love this "job!"
   
• Cate's Garage Sale Finds 12/18/00 
  Description: Cate's got quite a collection of stuff she's grabbed from garage sales — tacky t-shirts, weird recipes, old romance novels, and not-so-crafty crafts.  She's got a lot to say about these odd artifacts and I have to admit that I find it all rather amusing.  Isn't the web wonderful?  Where else can you find several pages of "Vomitously Overdecorated T-shirts" and a showcase of other bizarre crafts Cate calls "tasteless assaults on the mind?"  Her tongue-in-cheek approach shines through nicely as she takes to you through the piles of junk she's been collecting.  That big pile of old romance novels has inspired Cate to become a novelist herself and all of the "Arcane Knowledge" she's been accumulating has resulted in Cate being quite the social commentator.  Unique content like this could only exist on the web, and you gotta tip your hat to Cate for having the nerve to put it out there.  Well-designed and full of personality, today's pick is the perfect diversion to start the week with — it's all uphill from here, folks...
   
• Schillmania.com 12/16/00 
  Description: Schill's Home On The Web. Experimental, creative design with DHTML; interactive, user-configurable site.
  Comments: I put my heart into this daily CoolSTOP webthing and when a site like today's pick is submitted, I get excited.  Why?  Because joekitty spends tons of time going through sites submitted by people who just don't get what CoolSTOP is about and when a site comes through that the admittedly prejudiced and full-of-attitude little kitty thinks IS really COOL, the little guy starts dancing and his little eyes glow.  Schill is a wiz at DHTML and is as savvy a designer as I've come accross lately — this totally personal, non-commercial webspace will amuse you as you play with the preferences and drag things around as you please.  I like the windows within the interface and the list of "subsections" which showcases previous designs, though you'll need to use your [back] button to get back to Schill's current design.  This, my friends, is the heart of the web as far as joekitty is concerned...
   
• open letters. 12/15/00 
  Description: a daily magazine of first person writing in the form of personal correspondence
  Comments: I first looked at this site last night and the interesting letter, A promise of riches from Lady Stardust, made me think this daily magazine could be today's pick.  As usual, I decided to "sleep on it" as I wondered if they keep up with the daily schedule — I know first hand how difficult that can be in the world of working full time at another job, while maintaining one's daily creative endeavors on the side.  At least, that's how it is in my case, and I wouldn't have it any other way!  So I checked the site out again bright and early this morning and sure enough, the new piece, A bodybuilder's plea to a judge has been posted.  Kudos for keeping up with it all — another day and another interesting slice of life in the form of personal correspondence.  I think people really like this sort of thing, and the creative contributors to today's pick are all very cool people in my book.  Interesting letters for all to read — short vignettes, if you will, in a nicely designed environment of easy to read texts, presented daily.  Indeed!
   
• suiZide.de 12/12/00 
  Description: somewhere between real life, dreams and hope; a point of view, feeling and self-expression
  Comments: "Selfmade" art and photography is the heart of today's pick, the personal webspace of Tobias Ott.  One look at this guy's photo on the "Impressum" page will give you an idea as to how intense he is about his creative work... at least, that's the impression I got from it.  Illustration and art on a variety of media can be found in the "kunst" section, and the "photo" gallery includes people, architecture, and interiors, to name a few (my favorite area, for sure).  On top of that, Tobias also features some original "musik" pieces.  It's all very creative stuff and it's put out there without pretense.  The design is nice, too — the colorful visuals work well with the dark backgrounds and simple interface (in my humble, but consistant opinion).  But, today's pick really isn't as much about the design as it is about the art... Tobias rocks!
   
• makes grown men cry 12/11/00 
  Description: Featuring LMichelle, MGMC Resource Guide, Michelles of the Web, fem • mass: The personal homepages of the female masses, Inflatable Sheep and Other Passing Fancies, and Heartless's Holey Haven.
  Comments: On the web for over five years now, today's pick is the personal webspace of one L. Michelle Johnson.  And if you're interested in how she's evolved, she tells the whole story in "The Journey: 5 Years on the Web."  What a great read!  As you arrive in the present, she explains that this 7th version "is finished and populated with clean and well-lit content."  Yes, indeed.  She also describes her motivation as concisely as anyone could — "My webpages, and the process of creating them, are still about connecting with people whether it's over shared coding or shared feelings. To me that is the best part of the journey."  True spirit.  The site is full of interesting content, too.  "Inflatable Sheep" is an excellent weblog/journal that tells you more about L. Michelle along with tons of pointers to resources, people and fun destinations — one of the best blogs I've seen.  The "resources" section is rich in pointers, too.  Another thing that'll grab ya is the array of 21 photos of L. Michelle, starting with 1952 and progressing chronologically to 2000.  It's interesting how someone's smile stays the same over the years, dontcha think?  This is the kind of personal site that you'll need to visit more than just a few times to take it all in — great design, personality, and content!
   
• Newseum 12/9/00 
  Description: The interactive museum of news.
  Comments: I guess that to experience the full impact of what today's pick offers, you would have to visit it offline, but the excellently designed site does a great job of not only describing what the "the only interactive museum of news" has in its Arlington, Virginia and New York City physical locations, but the "cyber" version is rich in online content that you could spend hours enjoying.  Online exhibits include "Photojournalist of the Month", "Capture the Moment: Pulitzer Prize Winning Photographs", and "Dateline Moon: The Media and the Space Race" just to name a few.  There's also political cartoons and the adventures of a "cyberjournalist" and the user always has a choice of whether to view the content in HTML or Shockwave/Flash versions.  Oh — and don't miss the little artifacts links in the lower right corner.  I'll be re-visiting this site more than once in the near future to take in more of its interesting fare.  Enjoy!
   
• Morgan Henry 12/8/00 
  Description: Showcase of portrait and sports photographer (Shockwave)
  Comments: If you haven't noticed it yet, I'm a sucker for great photography — in fact, if you do a search in the portal cool zone for "photography," you'll come up with a list of roughly 50 sites (about 4% of my total number of picks to date).  Today's pick comes from a professional photographer in Portland who specializes in portraits and sports-related shots and the galleries are rich in content.  With that said, I've got to admit that the Shockwave interface and tasty site design is what really grabbed me.  I won't bend your ear today with details, but if you like top-notch photography and techy presentation, you'll like this one...
   
• rowena dugdale 12/2/00 
  Description: collage & photomontage illustration
  Comments: Design.  It can't always be about Flash and bells and whistles, though it can be.  Sometimes, it's a matter of simplicity.  Clean white backdrop to cool, colorful visuals and easy navigation is the ticket sometimes.  Today's pick is a sweet combination of design and content, in my humble, but always consistant opinion (not to mention, purely subjective and prejudiced) .  Photomontage art is the main attraction and Rowena's uncomplicated presentation keeps the user focused on the content.  Nicely organized — as a user, I appreciate sites like this one... go enjoy!