10/13/00, 10/13/00, 10/16/00, 10/17/00
from Jeanne Heuving and Roberta Sims
Difficulty reaching How2/n4 with search engines: A problem-solving session between Jeanne Heuving and Roberta Sims (HOW2 Webmaster)
10/13/00
JF to RS
I just tried to get current issue of HOW2 off of my computer at home using Microsoft search engine—and using the www address on its own—and each time I ended up with page showing #3 as current issue??? At the University using the same procedures, I get page showing #4 as current issue. I have no idea why this is happening? My computer at university is more powerful—but I have a fairly good computer at home, too—and in both cases am using UW internet services, so. . . —Jeanne Heuvin, U. of Washington (Bothell/Seattle)
10/13/00
RS to JH
Jeanne, I've just tried searching for HOW2 through numerous search engines. One of them (Yahoo!) turned up an archived issue (on the Rutgers webserver). All the other searches turned up the correct one. When I searched through Lycos, I found the current issue when searching Lycos, Infoseek, Northern Light, Dogpile, Google, Ask Jeeves, Alta Vista, Direct Hit, HotBot, Go.com. In all cases How2 appeared within the first page of results, and often it was first or second. This looks pretty healthy to me, so I'm not sure I need to do anything to "fix" it. Jeanne, if there's something I'm overlooking, please let me know. —Roberta Sims
10/16/00
RS to JH
Jeanne, Could you try emptying the cache on your browser? Every time you load a web page, your computer stores a temporary version of that page so that if you call it up again, it will load faster. Your webserver at work might be regularly emptied, but you have to empty it manually at home. If you use Internet Explorer, click on "TOOLS," then "INTERNET OPTIONS." In the middle it says: Temporary Internet Files. Click on "Delete Files," then click the "okay" at the bottom If you use Netscape, chose "EDIT" then "PREFERENCES." On the left side, at the bottom, it will say "ADVANCED." Click on the Plus sign beside advanced. Click on the word "CACHE." Click on the button that says "CLEAR MEMORY CACHE," then click "OK". Now click on the button that says "CLEAR DISK CACHE" and click "OK." Click "OK" one more time. Now try typing in the exact URL http://www.departments/bucknell.edu/stadler_center/how2 and see if you get the currect issue (#4). If this doesn't work, please let me know. —Roberta Sims
10/17/00
JH to RS
Dear Roberta, Kathleen and Ann, It did work. I am sure this has been a factor in my not accessing other current WEB sites, so am glad I know now. Thanks to Roberta and HOW2 for all manner of aid—and now technical service, to boot. —Jeanne Heuvel
4/30/00, 5/10/00, 5/15/00
from Kathleen Fraser and Linda Russo
Is H2 any longer needed? Viable? In synch with the times?: An exchange between Kathleen Fraser and Linda Russo
KF to LR, excerpt
I said when I began preparing for H2 (Fall/1998), that I'd try to create a "template" for this sort of writing conversation and give everything to it for two years and then see if it seemed a necessary proposition and, if so, whether several younger women—active participants in contemporary thinking and writing—had any interest in taking-up the editing job. So far this hasn't happened. But even if it ends after a short run of two years and four numbers, H2 will have provided a model of something that may be needed (and/or may no longer be needed...or never was needed, at this particular moment in history). I truly don't know. But I do see that not very many women are taking advantage of the open space to write in whatever way they wish to about the innovative work that captures them...at least not as many as I'd imagined. I'm quite ready to look at that question....
LR to KF
I've been thinking about your recent comment that "Even if it ends after a short run of two years and four numbers, H2 will have provided a model of something that may be needed (and/or may no longer be needed...or never was needed at this particular moment in history). I truly don't know. But I do see that not very many women are taking advantage of the open space to write in whatever way they wish about innovative work that captures them."
I'm interested in how *this* moment in history differs from 1983, when How(ever) started appearing and building a space, in terms of what women need, and whether "they" now formulate their needs as women, as a category—issues that are coming up in contemporary feminist theory as well. I can't rightly say "we" in that previous sentence. "Women" are definitely a "they" that I approach, but am not at all times "of." Related to that, there's the issue of articulation—what gets articulated among women/between women, and how? where? Does it makes sense to categorize these articulations as "women's"?
How2 can offer space for particularization—does that conflict with its desire to represent a group? Poetry is still very local by nature, but the web is very global; it's placeless in a disconcerting way: you're in Rome (at the moment), Jo Ann's in S.F., How2 website is "at" Bucknell, and then there are particular guest-editors....The silence is perhaps a sign of not knowing how to approach that identity, or that new articulation. New language, is brewing (I hope--but so soon on the heels of the last new one?!). I don't have any answers, just some thoughts.
KF to LR
re. your questions: I have experienced through you/your almost visceral struggle—one of the most profoundly troubled of any of the women connected seriously to the H2 project—a tension and resistance to and worry about being too closely identified with a journal focused on women's innovative writing ...yet engaging fiercely with the issues that continue to haunt and be primary irritants and stumbling blocks for most women in the writing community—the kind of struggle we privilege in these pages. I think this push-pull is where the crux of the dilemma lies. So...
...is it about the next new re-configuring of political consciousness (correctness?), a wanting NOT to be perceived of as part of the dated, negative separatist model—even when H2—& earlier, HOW(ever)—was "never" interested in that stance & did, in fact, get its start as a resistance to that simplistic position? What has led you/others to believe that H2 wants to represent a "group"?
My sole interest in reviving HOW(ever) was three-fold: 1/ to make a space where a more particularized range and number of writers—socially-constituted as "women" due, at least in part, to their gender—would begin to articulate their reading experiences of innovative contemporary and modernist works; 2/ to create discretely different sections of the journal that would invite—rather than negate—as many kinds of in/formal, reflective, collaborative, dialogic response as was proposed while including, as well, recognizably formal critical writings; 3/to open up this sort of network electronically—& thus internationally—to younger writers, scholars, students by making available often privileged information through creating a bulletin board of public conferences; a list of women-edited English language journals and books; and a place for an informal "postcard" exchange among readers.
...Is it wanting to be seen as literarily "sexy," such usage still encountered among those who generally do not find the fierce subtleties of this theoretical moving-target "sexy"?
...Is it a maternal urge not to leave out (behind) the guys you know and love and believe to be consciously working on behalf of women too? [This absence is not required by H2.]
...Is it the conviction that gender issues should not be mixed in with literary production and publishing? That to really be in the avant-garde, one should steer away from any kind of gender distinctions and put one's best energies into the most happening, power-centered journals where this is not part of the question?
I don't know. And I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. But I do think the two desires—one's ambition to be in the forefront, to be taken seriously, as well as to be free to genuinely sort through the thorniest feminist-inflected questions—often come to logger-heads. I wonder if this is inevitable, in the way humans tend to believe that war—or versions of it--is an inevitable biological/cultural phenomenon in men's lives??
Questions for questions....