1)Palimpsest: fascinating, took me a while to figure it out but once I
realized how to maneuver around within it, it was a lot more fun. I like the
actual font, and I like the different generations. I like the idea behind it
and I like the way it plays with the hypertext medium.
2)Mamma poems: even though they're not finished (and I hate to play
favorites), I think that this is my favorite. I don't believe that it's all
done because all of the mamma pictures don't link to poems, but the tea
kettle and Madonna are marvelous. I love the idea and I love it's
presentation. I like the commentary that goes along with it. The whole
thing is new, bright, and fascinating. Terrific job! On a side note, I also
think it lends itself extremly well to the hypertext medium. The
multiplicity of images and mammas and their multiple meanings. Great.
3)Quilted: the theory behind the project and its actualization are
magnificient. The patch concept along with parts of a person's life are so
wonderfully suited to patchwork quilts as a whole...sort of like the massive
AIDS quilt, where each patch tells the story of a particular person that has
died from AIDS. There are some nodes that I couldn't read very well because
the backgrounds and the text colors don't really blend, but all in all this
section is well written, interesting, and presented creatively.
4)Caffeine: I really like the concept and the user interface. They're
suited nicely to hypertext. I loved the one node that talks about
non-smokeing coffeehouses etc. Will they all look like that eventually? Um,
I got sort of stuck in there, which was the effect I wanted with the dream
project, but I actually didn't like it so much with Caffeine. Did I miss
something, or will people eventually be able to leave easier than the way
it's set up now, or is that the desired effect? All in all, I'm looking
forward to more nodes like the coffeehouse one. Great section!
5)Frisk Pant: Bizarre, in a fantastic way. Are those actual quotes from
Harlequin Romance novels, or are you just writing in the form of that genre?
Sexualizing bland language...I mean, what can I say? You pull it off
wonderfully. I never knew that lysol could be so erotic, or tie in so nicely
to a romance novel's description of the shower ritual. The backgrounds and
text colors are perfectly suited to the topic. My only question was the
circularity: I kept coming back to nodes I'd already been at. Is this
intended, or just an unavoidable drawback of hypertext? Super job!
6)Kitten Silencers: Um, simply put this project frightens me. It's
wonderful, it's random, it's ugly, it's menacing, it's painful. I think it
was under construction when I went in there (Thursday evening) but what I saw
was mesmerizing. However, I don't think I could do it any justice with my
rather small pool of vocabulary. Ingenious.
There, phew. Your group has pooled together a fantastic amount of material.
I think all of the sections are wonderfully suited to the web, and the
diversity within the Janus texts is sure to quench anyone's literary thirst.
I wonder how much it's like a magazine, and not more of a collection, or
anthology. This is a massive project that has been wonderfully put together.
Eva N. Juncker
and sorry I went haywire on the superlatives