Tropic Magazine, The Miami Herald, October 25, 1998
OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE
By Paul Levine
Thanks to the marvels of the Internet, over an endless weekend in a luxury hotel, I learned that (a) the letters of Monica Lewinsky's name can be rearranged to spell "insane milky cow"; (b) I can go bust playing blackjack without leaving my room; and (c) a 230-pound professional body-builder named Nicole will wrestle me to submission for $300 an hour.
I gathered these nuggets of cyber lore while imprisoned in the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton under instructions from the sadistic executive editor of this magazine to derive 48 hours of entertainment and sustenance solely from the Internet. I am to feast on life life only in byte-sized morsels from unseen mainframes.
I am forbidden from watching television or dipping my toes in the ocean. I am not permitted to dine in the hotel's mahogany-paneled restaurant, a quiet place with the atmosphere of an English gentleman's club, where the aged beef is thick and juicy and the martinis clear and cold. I am not supposed to shop downstairs in the elegant gallery of stores where a Judith Lieber purse costs $4,000 and is large enough for one tube of lipstick or one roll of lifesavers, but not both.
No, I am not seeking sympathy. I realize my incarceration is not as dramatic as "The Man in the Iron Mask," "Papillon," or even Miami City Commissioner Humberto Hernandez. Besides, I have been permitted to bring along my sweetheart, Renee, because there are just so many deprivations a man can take.
Paul & Renee
Here, then, is the tale of my life as Prisoner of the Net. Grass fires to the north have moved into Palm Beach County. Outside our hotel room, smoke curls around the royal palms and floats over the mission bell towers like clouds hugging a mountaintop. Inside, I am getting my daily military briefing, delivered each morning by e-mail from www.militarycity.com. The Serbs of Kosovo are fleeing while ethnic Albanians pour into the region to battle government troops. I click out of the military news and into the Hollywood Reporter to check with poisonous envy which screenwriters have sold hamfisted scripts for a million dollars cash the day before. Next, I skim the broadcast.com newsletter for today's entertainment. What will it be? Willie Nelson's Fourth of July concert or the Texas Rangers versus Seattle Mariners on Real Audio? Horse racing from Belmont or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra?
Or...I could sneak out of the hotel tonight and catch a fireworks display, but that would break the conditions of my house arrest at the ritzy Ritz. I am determined to honor the rules of engagement. Accordingly, I made reservations on-line (www.ritzcarlton.com), and I have cut myself off from the real world to partake of life in virtual bits and pieces.
So Renee and I sit, cross-legged on the king-size bed, propped up on pillows with our dueling laptops. She is sending me naughty postcards from www.kinkycards.com, and I am considering the philosophical implications of depriving oneself of real pleasures for virtual ones. With all the hype and hoopla about living on the Net, can you really exist on-line? Can you satisfy your needs for human interaction, for communication, for entertainment? And what about dinner?
I begin typing and massaging the mouse, determined to find out. I am banging away at the keys, the clicking and clacking the only sounds in the room. Next to me, Renee's fingers fall on her keyboard as softly as dew on roses. Within the hour, I have peeked at the menus of swank Palm Beach restaurants. (www2.gdi.net/~ihk/take-out.htm) I have considered and rejected the idea of ordering food on-line as the only place I discover that will deliver from an e-mail order is Papa John's Pizza. (www.cybermeals.com) I virtually visit the island of Elba (www.elbacom.it/) and the Elbow Room in Fort Lauderdale. (www.theelbowroom.com) I read The Miami Herald (www.herald.com) and USA TODAY (www.usatoday.com), and I skim the titles of several new novels available for immediate shipping. (www.amazon.com)
There are more personal pleasures available. I forego making an appointment to wrestle several Amazonian women, one of whom promises to break my ribs with her famed scissors hold, if I so desire. (www.wb270.com/frames.htm). I have no need to search for my soulmate on America Online (keyword "love"), but I briefly join a chatty newsgroup to complain about the legal system (alt.lawyers.sue.sue.sue) and another to discuss the wit and wisdom of Dave Barry (alt.fan.dave_barry). The lawyers' site bristles with barbed exchanges between men angry at their ex-wives, referred to as "feminist sluts" and women who call the men pigs. Some of the men are pushing a movement to repeal women's right to vote, proving it does not take a three-digit IQ to log onto the Internet. Dave Barry's site is a much friendlier place, with fans trying to write their own Barryisms and failing miserably.
Clicking over to alt.elvis.sighting, we learn that Elvis was spotted driving a bus in Manchester, England. At alt.circumcision, there's a debate over the advantages of snipping. Often, questions are posted on the newsgroups. At alt.fashion.crossdressing, a fellow concerned about his appearance in stretch pants asks for advice in hiding his male equipment. One response suggested using a samurai sword, which come to think of it, should have been on the circumcision site, too. Another more thoughtful reply suggested a technique called "tucking" which required pulling and stretching the "toolbox" south, then and using adhesive tape as if patching a Louisville Slugger. Ouch!
Yearning for a higher plane, I surf through a few recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. They're all here, every single one, from the founding of the Republic right through the last term. (http://oyez.nwu.edu) Feeling the need for inspiration, I listen to President Kennedy's inauguration address on Real Audio (www.hpol.org/), then skim the index to speeches by famous women from Eleanor Roosevelt to Hillary Rodham Clinton. (http://gos.sbc.edu/) For a novel I'm working on, I skip to a site that explains all about Santeria and related religions (www.orishanet.com), then hop over to Miami's upcoming Super Bowl. (www.superbowlxxxiii.org/)
Next, landing on Andy's Anagram Solver (www.ssynth.co.uk/~gay/anagram.html), I plug in "Monica Lewinsky," and the electonic wizard rearranges the letters into the aforementioned psychotic bovine. If President Clinton had done the same, maybe he would have saved himself some trouble. Now believing in the anagramic accuracy of names, I type "Donald Trump" which turns into "rump and dolt."
Emboldened and feeling adventurous, I next place bets of dubious legality with an offshore casino that consistently gives me very young cards instead of royalty when I double down and takes money from my Visa card in English, Spanish and German. (www.starluck.com/)
By now, my eyes are squinty and my fingers cramped.
"We could watch virtual fireworks on the Net tonight," Renee says.
"Why would we want to?" I say, standing up and stretching.
"Because we're stuck here."
Right. But we don't have to be. The answers to my questions are coming clear. Why would anyone be content to sip the tepid tea of the electronic demi-life when the real thing is a bracing shot of ice-cold vodka? Life is too short to be taken in artificial bytes. Sure, you can take a virtual walk on the beach by viewing shoreline photos snapped every few minutes. (www.video-monitoring.com) But that is as close to the real thing as reading a travel guide is to strolling the Champs Elysees.
Three hours have passed, and I'm feeling restless. I have surfed the Net for psychic and edible sustenance and I'm pathologically hungry and terminally bored. I am listening to the Kingsmen sing "Jolly Green Giant" on a "forgotten favorites" program. (www.discjockey.com) There are reasons, I conclude, why some favorites ought to be forgotten. I have taken a quiz, trying to identify the first lines of novels. I nailed, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again" and "All children, except one, grow up." But I missed, "'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' grumbled Jo, lying on the rug."
I'm not telling. You can look them up. (http://pc159.Ins.cornell.edu/firsts/) I have skimmed magazines at Electronic Newsstand (www.enews.com/), plotted a road map to Blowing Rock, North Carolina for an upcoming trip (www.mapsonus.com/) and checked the weather in Canberra, Australia for no other reason than it can be done in just a few seconds. (www.cnn.com/WEATHER/)
What I haven't done is leave the room. I haven't gone to the gym, the clay tennis courts, or the golden sand beach. Smoke from the brush fires slips into the room through an open window on a feathery breeze, and Renee is sneezing and complaining about her allergies. I am growing depressed and claustrophobic in this palatial chamber with a an ocean view, a refrigerator stocked with treats, towels thick as comforters, and a price tag of $775 per night in high season.
And why not? A recent study at Carnegie-Mellon University concluded that Internet users experience higher levels of depression and loneliness and have less interaction with family members and friends. (http://homenet.andrew.cmu.edu/progress/)
"What are you doing?" I ask Renee, at the height of my boredom.
"Sending you e-mail," she says, sitting close enough to touch.
"Let's talk," I say.
"Uh-huh. Let me finish this first."
With its predictable headlines, "Downloading is a Downer," the Carnegie-Mellon study has stirred a hornet's nest of controversy. The research firm Activmedia disputes its findings, contending that another study shows the Internet actually expands people's interactions and enables them to express themselves with greater ease. (www.activmedia.com) "Overall, the Internet is improving social networks dramatically," says Jeanne Dietsch, Activmedia's founder.
Maybe she's right. Maybe the Internet doesn't depress people. Maybe depressed people flock to the Internet.
I am mulling this cyberian Gordian knot when Renee says, "I'm ready to climb the walls. Let's get out of here."
I'm ready to go, too. I don't want to become an Internet addict. Another study claims that one in ten regular Internet users becomes addicted. (www.elsevier.nl/locate/addictions98) All-night on-line sessions lead to frayed marriages and lost jobs for "pathological Internet users," according to the study.
Moments later, we are lounging in the Club Suite of the hotel, a quiet place where food is served virtually all day long to guests staying on the Club floor. The food, may I say to my accountant and editor, is absolutely free. In the morning, there is smoked salmon, Danish and fruit. There are sandwiches and lunch, potatoes with sour cream and caviar. It now is late afternoon and tea is being served with delicate pastries, and yes...I'm cheating.
Unwilling to order pizza via the Internet, having drooled over the menus for various restaurants only a mile or so away, having found a gourmet grocery store that delivers but unfortunately is in San Francisco, we have sneaked out of the room.
I plug the computer into a phone jack in the Club Lounge. The couple at the next table are discussing their last stay at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco. That stirs memories of the crispness of the air in that glorious city, the exhilaration of walking up Nob Hill, of hearing the fog horns on the bay, of feeling the cold salt spray on a ferry ride to Sausalito. Is there anything on the Internet that can compare with real life?
What is it that draws us to the Internet? There are five million people in this country who have placed their personal websites on-line, including me. (www.booktalk.com/PLevine/) I try to fathom the significance of this information. Some seek romance or simply a connection to others. Many, I suppose, want to be noticed, want a signpost outside the crevice they inhabit in the communal ant farm in which we all live. Some live in high-rise apartments in cities and feel cut off from the neighbors whose names they don't know. Others may live in the countryside where there are insufficient like-minded acquaintances. What is it in the human psyche that needs human contact, and how on earth does this mute communication fill that need?
Day Two, and the smoke has cleared, but we are doing penance, staying in the room, our fingers dancing over the keyboards. It isn't working. After a room-service lunch, I am ready to bolt, but not without checking my e-mail. There's a note from Renee. It's a sweet and sassy message that begins, "To my paramour, my petit four, my metaphor."
Suddenly, I'm struck by romantic notions, but instead of reaching across the bed for her, I instead lean over my laptop and begin typing. Yes, typing instead of kissing! In a moment, I'm sending her an Instant Message on AOL.
I love you when you smile and tease,
I also love you when you sneeze;
I even love you when you choke,
At the Ritz that's filled with smoke.
"What's this?" Renee asks, scanning her monitor.
"I'm feeling poetic," I say, and continue typing.
Only I have found the chart,
The secret passage to your heart;
I make you laugh, I make you sigh;
You make me your apple pie.
"You're hungry, aren't you?" she asks.
"Shhh. I'm on a roll here."
I want to spend my life with you,
When you're happy, when you're blue;
Love's eternal, don't you see?
So I ask, will you marry me?
"Is that a virtual proposal or a real one?" she asks suspiciously. She is, after all, a trial lawyer. "Are you asking me to marry you because it's a good way to end your story? Am I just material for your work?"
"It's real. Really real."
"Then shouldn't you ask me in person?"
"I'm not sure my editor would approve."
"Is there a diamond that comes with this?" she wants to know, sharpening her cross-examination.
"It's a holiday. The jewelry stores are closed."
Renee gives me a soft, silky smile. "So?"
She's right, of course. The Internet is never closed.
"Let's see what they have at Richard's," I say, logging onto her favorite jewelry store in downtown Miami. (www.richards-diamonds.com/)
"I'd love an emerald-cut main stone with three roads of invisible setting princess-cut diamonds," she says, with such alacrity that I think she must have been considering engagement rings when I was more concerned with the Dolphins' running game.
But now, I close my eyes and see it all clearly. I picture three bands of white gold sparkling with diamonds like stars in the heavens while a stately emerald-cut stone floats above them like a glittering cloud.
If the Internet cannot compete with reality, I conclude, it is certainly no match for my imagination.
