Dear Readers, For the curious...a prior incarnation of the Planet Waves site is available almost in its entirety, for the moment. You can look around at this link to learn more: http://ericfrancis.s418.sureserver.com/ To hear the official Planet Waves theme music, click the link at the very top that says "H.M.S. Pinafore." Here's an archive of vintage essays from that site, going back to 1998 (a typo dates the earliest article as originating in 1999 instead of 1998). http://ericfrancis.s418.sureserver.com/pwessays.html This first link takes you into the approximate shape of the Web page between 2001 and 2003. It was really my first attempt at an organized web page, started in the summer of '01. It seemed like so much time had passed since first going online with Planet Waves, which had next to no organizational structure, in December 1998! In one introduction to the project, I describe the site as the "information bumper cars" rather than the information superhighway. Some of my favorite old pieces (at the contents link above) are a series of four from 1999, under the general heading of Burning Man. The article, "Flashpoints, The continuation of Burning Man" captures some of the energy of the summer of 1999, in the pre-Bush, pre-Sept. 11 world. I'm going to guess that the link below is the oldest document on the site, dating to August 1998, when I began coverage of the Aug. 11, 1999 grand cross and total solar eclipse. In 1998, I did most of my writing for RealAstrology.com, Rob Brezsny's old page. Unfortunately I don't have online copies of a lot of that stuff, mostly written in Germany. http://www.planetwaves.net/thinking.html For a while there was a series called For The Faithful. Here is an example from that project: http://www.planetwaves.net/FTF0501.html Anyway -- a bit of memory lane for you. It would be interesting to hear what you think has changed about Planet Waves and what you think has stayed the same. One thing that's changed a little is the design. Lots of pages used to look like this. I still like that dark, dreamy feeling of the original site -- introspective and late at night. http://planetwaves.net/mainmenu.html For those who want to see the artwork that used to adorn Planet Waves, check a site called http://www.psycherotica.com. It's interesting watching, or perhaps feeling, time go by on the Internet. And space. I've written and for many years designed the site traveling one-way through Germany, northern New Jersey, Miami, Vancouver BC, Vashon Island, WA, Seattle, New York, Boston, London, Paris, Amsterdam, San Pedro in Spain, Bamburg in Germany, with long stops in Montreal and Toronto, and now back in Paris this late night. Lots of practice being here now, though writing this I can barely believe it's true.     e