March 17, 2006

• Wayback Post: Rosemead High Virtual Pantherama

  

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  The following entry was posted about a year ago on this blog. It received 9 comments, and I think only one or two of those readers are currently reading the blog.

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  Let's set the wayback machine to 1968-1971, the years I attended high school in Rosemead, CA. In 2001 I created one of my "internet endeavors" which failed drastically, but was embarked upon with great spirit and my usual attention to detail. A veritable high school reunion had been occurring on Classmates.com and then that service started charging for membership. So I created the "Virtual Pantherama" (Pantherama is the name of the yearbook for the school.) Besides the Poetry Group I run on Yahoo, I also have a group on Yahoo called "Virtual Pantherama". To compare why I feel VP is a "failure", we have over 500 posts a month on the ElectricPoetry group and only 160 or so posts in the entire history of Virtual Pantherama, founded in 2001. There are 40 members on the poetry group and almost 100 on the high school alumni group. Just for kicks, I post a letter every now and then on the alumni group to try to get things "going". I'll post some excerpts from two of those letters here. First the one I wrote just last night, and then one I wrote in 2003. (The photos below are mainly culled from the Virtual Pantherama website, which hasn' t been "updated" in many years, because I tend to keep active only with those endeavors that stay active, like this blog.) Clicking on the photos will open the full size images in another browser window.) Date:  Mon Mar 14, 2005  8:32 pm Subject:  A very infrequent letter from the guy who founded the group. Dear Group members of rosemeadhighalumni, Hi, I'm Michael F. Nyiri, Class of 1971, writing one of my very infrequent letters to this group, which I founded in 2001 after two other failed attempts in 1999 and 2000 to try and establish some sort of web community for alumni of Rosemead High School. I had attended the 1999 50 year anniversary of the school. Back in 1969 I had edited the 20 year anniversary edition of the Panther's Tale Newspaper, and I wanted to try to make a place where the people who were already using Classmates.com (when it, and most of the internet were free, you know, "back in the day".) It became a pay service, and I and four or five other alumni, some of which might even be among the group members here, tried to get some sort of reunion/website/sharing service together. Since I knew more about computers and the internet, and had all these lofty dreams in high school of owning my own island, I figured I could find a way of reuniting everyone for free. I had one other message board before this, and nobody joined. Then I got this one and nobody joined. The messages from 2001are still in the archive, and nothing ever became of the group as a group. There are other alumni sites that have since tried to replicate Classmates.com in the early days, and I've joined a few of those, but to no avail. What happened for us in the late 90s on the internet doesn' t seem to be going to happen again. I did try late last year to inspire interest in this group, which has 87 members listed. I come by occasionally just to weed out the advertisers. People are joining this group all the time, but it was mainly intended as a place to share photos back when nobody was really providing that service. Now that digital photography is ubiquitous, there are photopost places all over the web. If you have only seen this part of the site, please visit the "Virtual Pantherama" Since I graduated in 1971. I had the original dream to create a whole "webcommunity" and started on Homestead . There were little Pantheramas you could click on and then each section was to have an "editor" and they would create virtual worlds within the site. Then Homestead pulled their collaboration feature and the next thing you know, theirs was a pay service. Date:  Wed Sep 24, 2003  9:54 pm Subject:  A strange thing happens. I felt the warmth of nostalgic/prescient regard, Created websites online, in the far old free last days of my century, that dear old twentieth. I posted poems, photos, prayers, promises, and regrets, I enjoined humanity to answer, I am here, we are all connected. At only a few years till my fiftieth birthday, at 46, so long ago, now it seems, I created my ultimate personal website, http://www.allthingsmike.com and filled it with a renewed sense of art and literature. For a small while, I felt energized, renewed, exciting new virtual worlds awaited. I expounded, expanded, and delighted my psyche with virtual connections all over the world. For a while, I gained false fathomless friendships with all kinds of faraway, nearby, separated, and conjoined souls, a veritable history of my life, my existence, my love of humanity, online. Then the storms of commerce washed over the collective seas of internet freedom, and the bills began to insurmountably mount.   CAPTION: ME ON THE RIGHT, WITH NEWSPAPER I EDITED Now, over 250 dollars a year for a website on which, since computers took over the workplace, and steal my real life from me ten hours a day, I rarely create anymore, I rarely even turn on the DSL connection which once was going to be my conduit with which to communicate my extant feelings and purpose to all of humanity, but now only serves to make me remember the countless virus cleanings, unfeeling computer crashes which destroyed art and literature without regard to the fact that we are humans who interface with this sorry machine, and now I rarely even log on anymore. Then, like tonight, bravely navigating the waters of the internet of the 21st century, awash with unwanted popups created by the programmers of the software designed to destroy them, dodging the unwanted spam emails, and the unneeded pleas from unknown forces which always seem to want to stretch my penis whenever I'm online. CAPTION: ONE OF MY EDITORIAL CARTOONS. I WILL DEDICATE AN ENTIRE FUTURE ENTRY TO MY CARTOON CHARACTER "ARNOLD" WHO WAS CREATED "BEFORE" ZIGGY BY TOM WILSON (WHO I MAINTAIN STOLE MY CHARACTER, BUT THAT'S ANOTHER LONG STORY). And I navigate to my old (2000, three years ago) Virtual Pantherama, and I see the entries, although few, which beg me to believe that online life still goes on, and photos are added to my dream of a photo site for alumni of Rosemead High, my old alma mater, and the artistic dreams I still have, online, in perpetuity, as long as I can pay for the privilege of maintaining my 250 dollars a year site, and on sites like my Virtual Pantherama "group" which goes on, in my absence, as I had envisioned, even though I am absent, and souls from later decades, which meld the past with the present, and in my dreams and hopes mold the present with the future dreams I hold, and the future dreams of humanity. Even the somewhat smallish yet searching humanity whose words I just now read in the few but meaningful posts created here. Hallo, fine folk, wonderful breathing, bellowing, calling, pleading, folk, Hallo. A fine hallo, a greeting from a dreamer, who wants to begin again, but finds that personal internet freedom was replaced by catalog searches that I use at work. A sad irony. But hope always exists. It just needs a nudge now and then. This reply to all who ask: Is there anybody out there. We are all out here, alone together. Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher,fool Rosemead High School class of 1971 editor of the student newspaper 1970 commissioner of student faculty relations 1971 cast member of two all school plays almost graduate of USC 1974 dropped out when my parents died now over fifty, I'm a "tweenior", nearly a senior, looking at the time gone by, the time I spend now, and the time yet to spend. Greetings to all who have taken the time to write. I hope to continue online, sporadically, spouting philosophy and writing verse, as I did so long ago as highschool memories wash over my reality like a soft breeze of familiarity..... CAPTION: THE SCHOOL AS IT LOOKS TODAY, PHOTOGRAPHED IN MID 2004

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