The Internet Can’t Do Everything

One of the things the internet cannot do is write. Jimmy Wales might disagree with me, but here’s some solid proof. Wiki Penguin is a website put together by Penguin Books. The idea was to see if a group of people could self organize and edit an online novel. Eventually, it came together (not in all respects) and can be found here. VIA

Some choice quotes:

With a word it begins … the sound of clicking keys and the smell of wet fur fill the room. Möbius strips made of banana yellow construction paper and Scotch tape are scattered haphazardly across the floor. The chief monkey, careful not to slip and fall, ambles from desk to desk collecting papers before pasting them slowly and deliberately into a gigantic scrapbook. He scratches himself, enjoying the sensation. If he had been able to read, as he once had been, he would have read something similar, or perhaps completely different, to the following…..

If only he had purchased that popular typing tutor software so many years ago, he would not have this cross to bear.

Perhaps then, if a person could live with the circular structure of this text, if they could truly be at peace with its serpentine narrative devouring its own tail, and its refusal to serve up pre-packaged understanding, then perhaps they were on the path to a meaning that humans, for all their self laudable wisdom, had lost.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day… a swim, perhaps, but not a walk – for Artie was a whale, a humpback whale, to be precise,at least in these moments.

Yup.

And a rather good write up on why it fell on it’s face.