Blasts from the Internet past

       So in posting a review of a new Murakami Haruki book -- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage -- I also went back and cleaned up/updated the links on all the other Murakami-review pages at the site: there are reviews of eleven other Murakami-titles, as well as of two books about him, and an author page. I've ... dusted the older review-pages over the years, as new reviews have been added, but this is the most thorough overhaul I've done in close to a decade (and, yes, it was long overdue).
       It's a dirty, time-consuming, thankless job (yes, yes, I know you appreciate it -- but really, you only notice when the links don't work, and have no idea of the behind-the-scenes maintenance I waste so many hours on), and with this many reviews with this many links (there's lots of Murakami-material out there) it took me several days of heavy drinking and loud cursing -- lots and lots of loud cursing -- to get this done.
       I continue to be amazed by the mutability, fragility, and ephemerality of the Internet (and bless the Internet Archive, which I see as ever-more vital). It's amazing how little seems to be built to last -- or how little that was built is maintained accessibly. Yes, I understand some changes, but, for example, The Guardian changing its URL from the sensible "guardian.co.uk" to "theguardian.com" -- and not redirecting all the old URLs -- is just a giant fuck you to anyone who sees/wants to use the Internet for anything beyond today. (Yes, most of the guardian.co.uk content can be found at theguardian.com -- though damned if I can find some of it, and I put a decent (albeit drunken, cursing) amount of effort into trying -- but I don't enjoy the jumping through hoops necessary to get at it, and I assume most people can't be bothered.)
       Of course, The Guardian's URL switch happened like yesterday (to be followed, presumably, by another tomorrow) but in updating the Murakami links I came across some ancient stuff which I thought I'd share.
       My favorites include the 'hijacked' URLs -- abandoned, they've now been taken up by, of course, commercial interests. Among the great examples:

• Remember when the The Onion's A.V. Club -- now at www.avclub.com -- was, perfectly sensibly, at "www.theonionavclub.com" ? Well, that site is now 'The A.V. Club of Ecigarettes'
• Remember litblog Rake's Progress, at rakesprogress.typepad.com/ (it used to look like this) ? "Rakes Progress - 10 years and still no progress / How I am going to get fit this year with a rowing machine" the site now asks .....

       As always, I encountered Dalkey Archive Press' most misbegotten of their many, many, many misbegotten sites -- the 'Center for Book Culture' at www.centerforbookculture.org (which once looked like this); unconscionably they didn't even hold onto the URL, so poor unsuspecting fools (like yours truly) still click through ... to now find this 'Center for Book Culture' (and, yes, it always makes me feel like: well, I guess that's what book culture has devolved into in our day and age ...). (Much as I love Dalkey Archive, I find their URL- and site-changes close to unforgiveable, and the china always goes flying when I come across yet another www.centerforbookculture.org-link.)
       Other prominent changes I encountered:

• Salon ... oh, Salon, Salon, Salon. Now the easy, obvious www.salon.com, but there was "www.salonmagazine.com", there was "www.salonmag.com"; I was almost disappointed not to encounter the other old standard, "www.salon1999.com" this time around !
• A puzzler: why did The New York Observer abandon the perfectly good "www.nyobserver.com" (now unclaimed !) for observer.com ? (The old URL surely would have been worth preserving just as a mirror-site.)
• And, okay, I understand why the Evening Standard switched from the bizarre "www.thisislondon.co.uk" to "www.standard.co.uk" (and, hey, the old URL points to the new one ! though, sigh, the old page URLs certainly don't carry over ...)

       Of course, the real fun ones are the sites that moved up in the world:

• Remember when infinity plus -- now at "www.infinityplus.co.uk" -- was at "www.users.zetnet.co.uk/iplus/" ?
• When Scott Esposito was publishing the Quarterly Conversation -- now at: "quarterlyconversation.com" -- at "esposito.typepad.com" (really ! check it out) !) ?
• When Critique -- now at: "critique-magazine.com" -- was at "www.etext.org/Zines/Critique" ?

       Of course, some of these links go back to when ... Time could be found at: "pathfinder.com/time/magazine" .....
       Most disappointing, however, is what's (and how much has) just disappeared -- a Flak Magazine at "www.flakmag.com" that once looked like this now a front for what calls itself an Art and Jewelry Magazine
       Yes, it's kind of amusing to see how things have changed -- but also kind of depressing. Especially since so much of what is lost seems to go unnoticed.

       (I have no idea what the long-term legacy of the complete review might be, down the line, but its sheer durability and constancy -- if you linked to a page in April 1999 (and any time after that), that link still works, that page is still there -- seem pretty damn impressive, relatively speaking.)