The Internet never fails to amaze me. It isn't just the links from text to page. That certainly is amazing enough. I'm amazed by the links to people. I put up pages with text, images, and sound. I throw the things that amaze and horrify me into the void of the web, like a message in a bottle thrown into the ocean. Then one day a bottle comes floating back with a message for me. You mean I am not alone?

Last night and this morning were good examples of that. Derek was over last night. I was showing him the amazing thing called Whole Wheat Radio streaming to us from a 12 x 12 cabin in Talkeetna, Alaska. My LOML Zoe, 15 houses down the street, was also on. Whole Wheat Radio is much more than listening — it's also about talking back. The site has a chat room; it lets the listeners contol what's playing; it even lets the listener draw pictures. And when Jim, the host, the master of ceremonies, the cosmic clown of interactive whatever you want to call this thing because even though some people would call this Internet radio it's not radio since radio only really goes one way and what he his doing goes out comes back in and then goes sideways. A similar thing to what Zoe, Derek, many friends, and I have been doing with TestingTesting

So I'm showing Derek this amazing thing called Whole Wheat Radio that is not radio but some other sort of group performance art thing and Zoe, 15 houses down but also on the chat page, suggets to Jim the cosmic clown of Whole Wheat Radio in Talkeetna, Alaska, that he show Derek how he Jim can catch a TestingTesting stream and route it through his pipe of audio wonderfullness. Zoe suggested he stream the Karin Blaine show we did last July. Derek and I, with Zoe 15 houses down the street, are hearing our show from last summer with Jim improvising on top of it flowing out into the ether of the Internet — a moment from 9 months ago flowing from Whidbey Island to Talkeetna to be augmented by a cosmic clown and streaming out and back in a loop that tickles and connects and amuses and excites from the possibilities of actual people with inexpensive tools to reach out and touch and connect others without even asking the permission of someone that is more concerned with a bottom line and how to maximize shareholder value than with the beauty and passion and difficulty and joy that we call music. Hot damn! We are not alone!

So, while Karin is singing from 9 months ago, Jim posts the URL of the archive page of the show with pictures and someone else notices Zoe's pictures of the feet of the musicians from that sunny evening and then Jim grabs and posts Derek's feet from 9 month's ago on the chat page and another riff begins with Jim Derek Zoe myself and the other 12 or so people listening watching writing including J-Walk.

This is not your father's radio. By this time I've got to get off the WWR roller coaster but then Jim comments in the chat room on my page of dead bugs. J-Walk notices it too and then I'm off WWR and back in meat space with Derek.

This morning I'm drinking coffee and making my rounds of blogs and check out what sort of delightful visual delights that Josh over at Speckled Paint might be sharing. This morning Josh has quite a few wonderful links of visual stimulation including a link that he found via J-Walk — my page of dead bugs. Jim's riff from last night ripples through the Internet from router to router to unknown monitors in dark rooms and then loops back.

Links. Around and around they go. I have no idea what it means but it was all a hoot. End of ramble and back to work and more links.