this is mikel.org

today, Jerry Garcia died. I was never really much of a ‘Head, though I went to a few shows over the years, but I remember Jerry’s death really clearly. I was working for Arthur and Marilouise Kroker at CTHEORY at the time, in the office we kept at Concordia on Bishop St. Although generally we took August off, for some reason (I don’t remember now), I was at work that day. And when the news broke, it was the first time I remember watching a story develop entirely on the Internet. It was before weblogs existed as such (though there were a couple), but through virtual communities, personal sites, news sites, and fan sites, the news got out very quickly. The diversity of the Internet coverage was so much richer and complete than anything in the mainstream media that it was a revelation of the power of the media. Though I think the whole weblogging = journalism idea misses the point, I trace back my interest in keeping a weblog to that day above all.