Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.intercon.com!udel!news.sprintlink.net!news.world.net!guardian.up.edu!sequent!uunet!dockmaster.phantom.com!blam1 From: blam1@mindvox.phantom.com (Eric Swenson) Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom Subject: BLAM! Hypermedia Mag for the Mac!! Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 21:43:13 EST Organization: [MindVox] / Phantom Access Technologies / (+1 800-MindVox) Lines: 286 Distribution: all Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: mindvox.phantom.com Keywords: blam! cd-rom magazine Originator: blam1@mindvox ******************************************* BLAM! Digital CD-ROM Magazine for the Macintosh ******************************************* Mail order: $25.00 plus $2.50 p/h = $27.50 NYC: available for $25 at St. Mark's Books Tower Books, J&R Computers & Printed Matter A NECRO ENEMA AMALGAMATED PUBLICATION ****************************************** To order by phone, call The Voyager Company @ 1-800-446-2001 ****************************************** ****************************************** **Necro Enema Amalgamated **P.O. Box 208 **Village Station **New York, NY 10014 **internet: BLAM1@MINDVOX.PHANTOM.COM **VOX: (212) 979-2445 **FAX: (212) 979-6052 ****************************** BLAM! "Punk rock porn for kids!" ****************************** "This is insanely original work! BLAM! stands as a MAJOR contribution to the evolving vocabulary of digital expression!" -- Bob Stein, The Voyager Company ****************************** "BLAM! is to electronic magazines what Shannen Doherty is to pop culture!" -- Ben is Dead Magazine ****************************** "Using technology to embody the essence of integrative thinking, BLAM! is an endlessly enthusiastic search for meaty, multifaceted, multiperspective content." -- Andrea Rosen, Andrea Rosen Gallery, NYC ****************************** These are the end times and we're playing in the streets! But do you know what happens when you play with your back to the traffic? Hint: think quick! BLAM! Are you just going to stand there and get run over? BLAM! is born at the point of impact. You provide the meat, we provide the speed freaks, the motor mavens, the gypsy cab drivers, the habitual drunks, the little old lady from Pasadena, and other regulars on the DMV's most-wanted list. BLAM! will manipulate you into colliding with explosive material. Our editorial philosophy? Devil's Advocacy. "But the Devil needs no advocate," you say. Look, we wouldn't sign a contract to represent anybody exclusively. Demons are different from gods, because gods have fixed attributes, properties and functions, territories and codes: they have to do with rails, boundaries and surveys. What demons do is jump across intervals, and from one interval to another. -- Gilles Deleuze That's the idea. We are not dogmatic dogs from Hell. We have a profound aversion to reposing once and for all in any one view of the world. Ideologues are prisoners of their own minds. God is in the details, but the devil is at large. BLAM! cultivates a thousand zits of information on its own face. Do any two zits oppose one another? A binary opposition is a by-product, not a goal, of Devil's Advocacy. Why not connect three zits or a hundred? Why not try to see things in a complex light? The lovely thing about hypermedia is its multiplicity. Concrete Dualisms are for reactionaries. Each issue of BLAM! will feature a unique, elegant interface which propels the user into the boisterous bowels of BLAM!: For example, in BLAM!2 the user will be confronted with the disgusting, acne-ridden face of a teenage transsexual! Various pores and orifices invite the user/explorer. Inside, the user will have to explore various ducts, orifices, and organs in search of enlightenment and pleasure. A suave group of controversial, known, unknown, naughty, fun authors will allow the connoisseur of the outlandish, the dilettante of destruction, the pontificator of elegant etiquette, and reactionaries of all political spectrums to excrete pleasure freely within the body of BLAM! Like Linda Lovelace, our clitoris is in our throat. NECRO ENEMA AMALGAMATED ******************************* NECRO ENEMA AMALGAMATED (NEA) was founded in 1992 as a hypermedia design and development studio. Our first product is an interactive, hypermedia journal called BLAM!. The few hypermedia journals or magazines that already exist are boring, insubstantial rags designed for digit-heads. NEA believes that BLAM! will do for hypermedia what St. Paul did for Christ, what rats did for the plague, what Edie Sedgwick did for the miniskirt--bring it to the masses. In order to appeal to a polymorphous audience, and also to exploit the schizophrenic linking potentials of hypermedia, each issue of BLAM! will bring together a contrived group of high-impact, popular (yet sometimes controversial) authors, artists, physicists, perverts, etc. For instance, contributors to the premier issue range from Howard Rheingold (author of Virtual Reality [published by Simon & Schuster] and editor of the Whole Earth Review) to Jim Goad (creator of the sickest, most hateful magazine ever published, ANSWER Me!), and Th. Metzger (author of This is Your Final Warning! [published by Autonomedia]), from Kim Gordon (of the post-punk band Sonic Youth) to Tom of Finland (the late, great, and very queer graphic artist--"graphic" in every last sense of the word!).BLAM! is not just hyperactive, it's interactive, too. We do not expect the user to read BLAM!. We expect him/her to participate with it. Because BLAM! is a hypermedia publication, we have been able to design an interface which is personalized and intelligent. The first-time user is greeted with a questionnaire designed to ascertain key elements of the user's psychological profile. This allows the BLAM! decision-making engine to create a personalized, narrow-cast advertising venue for the user, as well as a unique schedule of visits by agents representing specific hypermedia articles within BLAM! itself. Advertising will be essential to the propagation of BLAM!'s existence. In accordance with our advocacy of the deliberately disparate, ads will be solicited from a variety of areas: book publishers, music companies, software companies, computer hardware manufacturers, beverage companies, the tobacco industry, pizza chains, smart drug manufacturers, health food distributors, online information services, hypermedia product designers, prophylactic manufacturers, eyewear manufacturers, cosmetic manufacturers, public service organizations, and the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. The premier issue already features ads for art magazines such as Artforum and Publicsfear, highbrow publishers such as Zone Books, and lowbrow phone-sex numbers. And just how do we deliver a punch? The first thing we do is build up our own muscles. We give BLAM! its own unique physique. When we design an interface, we do not use standard Macintosh interface elements like dialog boxes or pre-packaged button icons. We do not want BLAM! to look "computery" (meaning: boring, geeky, and generally distasteful). Flaubert once said that an author should be in his text in the same way that God is in nature. Most hypermedia publications look as if Apple is their God. Apple permeates them from the first pixel to the last. Well, to heck with that. We're not on Apple's payroll. We're the Devil's Advocates. We're not on anyone's "payroll," but we do thank both the Time Out Trust and The Voyager Company for their generous assistance. CURRENT CONTRIBUTORS ******************************** The following lovely rounds are currently being loaded into the BLAM! matrix: *Bob Casey and Tom Ryan, "Screw" An insider's view of the Bridgewater State Mental Hospital, the same institution that inspired the long-censored film Titticut Follies *"Manuel DeLanda on Speed" The author of War in the Age of Intelligent Machines talks about artificial life, simulation clip art, and birds from mars *Sarah Morris, "A Project for BLAM!" This controversial NY artist punches the user in the face with an audio-visual exploration of the psychotic expurgations and insinuations of a society fed on milk of megalomaniacal cult guys with big dicks, lots of semen, and a penchant for burning people. *Sheila Glaser, "What Is There Left to Say about Amy Fisher?" An editor of a big NY art mag investigates the hubbub surrounding the Long Island Lolita *Rita, "Fever" Hungarian artist chick with the voice of a satanic angel sings sobbing love songs with her mouth and seduces the user with her visual art. A stunning, boner-popping, vagina moistening experience for all the world to see!! *Jim Goad, "The Underground Is a Lie" The creator of the sickest, most hateful fanzine ever published, ANSWER Me!, delivers the definitive anti-alternative rant *Kim Gordon, "I'm Really Scared When I Kill in My Dreams" The moving force behind Sonic Youth applies her analytic powers to the nexus of the club and art scenes *Janice Johnson, "King Tooth" A young Village writer explores the conjunction of dental school and murder! *"Lydia Lunch: On Success" The pre-madonna pontificator and author of Incriminating Evidence tells BLAM! all about success -- how to get it, how to keep it, how to throw it away. A performative, recycled interview!! *Th. Metzger, "This is Your Final Warning!" This infamous, hyper-controversial ejaculator of brilliant, absurd raves, rants, and roguish prose shares one of his most gut- wrenching, hair-splitting, thought-provoking works ever!! *Howard Rheingold, "A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community" The editor of the Whole Earth Review, author of Virtual Reality, and pioneer of the online service, the WELL (Whole Earth 'lectronic Link), tells us about life in his electronic Mayberry. *Eric Swenson, "Tom of Finland Sucked Nazi Penis" This dynamic vomit factory of vitriolic cultural criticism tell us all about Tom, the most graphic post-mortem artist of all fagdom! *The Masked Avocado, "Portable Hacking" Avocado, a contributor to 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, details how to hack nomadically by using notebook computers, payphones, and telephone poles. *Peter Girardi,"Conflict" Co-founder of Funny Garbage studios manipulates the user into a bedpan of disturbing yet laughable confrontations with devolutionary constructs. Bowel-breaking hillarity! *Georges Bataille, "The Cruel Exercise of Art" A very, very cruel piece about -- the cruel exercise of art -- by the infamous dead French philospher! A BLAM! exclusive translation! Very cruel!! *Necro Enema Amalgamated, "Ode to Interactivity" Hear just how gosh golly great we think interactivity is! See exciting close-up pictures of anal pruritis and bestial sex! Feel the desire to point and click like you've never felt it before! Experience the happy-go-lucky aesthetic of the hypermedia production studio that will bring you the first ever INTERACTIVE SNUFF FILM by Christmas of 1994!!! **Visual Artists featured in the premier issue of BLAM! include Christa Blackwood, Brian Cross, Peter Girardi, Sarah Morris, Kellie Obosky, Rita, Erect Scumson, Kreepie Sewer, Sophia Tsanos, and a whole lot more! AND SOME SECRET SURPRISES!!! BLAM! is a CD-ROM for use on Macintosh computers. Requires: System 6.0.7 (or higher), Hypercard 2.1 (or higher), 4 MB of available RAM. To order, send a check or money order for $27.50 ($25 for BLAM! itself plus $2.50 postage/handling) made out to: NECRO ENEMA AMALGAMATED P.O. Box 208 Village Station New York, NY 10014 (Please allow 2 weeks for delivery) ***************************************************** To order by credit card, call the Voyager Company at 1-800-446-2001 ***************************************************** BLAM! is produced by Necro Enema Amalgamated, a Devil's Advocacy group and entrepreneurial innovator of manipulative software, subliminal semiotics, and coercive advertising. *********************************************************** "We do not believe in *total empowerment* for the user. We will not hide our will and our desire to manipulate behind oxymoronic *politically correct* dogma. Unless the user comes in his/her pants or vomits violently -- we have failed. -- Swenson & Seward *********************************************************** ----------------------------------------------------------- Eric Swenson Co-Founder of Necro Enema Amalgamated P.O. Box 208, Village Station, NY, NY 10014 Net: BLAM1@MINDVOX.PHANTOM.COM FAX:(212)979-6052 Look for BLAM! at St. Marks Books and soon at other fine retail outlets, or order direct from NEA -- or ask for BLAM! the next time you order from The Voyager Company. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!