A Memoir In Progress
by Levi Asher on Fri, 01/02/2009 - 01:51
In January 2009 I began writing a memoir of my decade and a half in the Internet industry by blogging a new chapter each week. Here, still untitled, is a life in progress:
Chapter One: THE BREAK

Summer 1993: why I was working on Wall Street; a co-worker alerts me to the existence of the Internet.
Chapter Two: FINDING THE INTERNET

Fall 1993: I hunt down and find the Internet, becoming obsessed with Usenet newsgroups; rec.music.dylan; literature on the early Internet.
Chapter Three: BECOMING LEVI ASHER

Winter 1993/1994: I publish a short story in the first online literary journal Intertext and change my name.
Chapter Four: LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET

Spring 1994: I get an idea for a site called Literary Kicks.
Chapter Five: THE LAUNCH

Summer 1994: The World Wide Web grows more popular; I launch Literary Kicks one quiet summer day.
Chapter Six: ENTER MOZILLA

Summer/Fall 1994: Technological innovations on the web; the first "browser war" begins; life on Wall Street.
Chapter Seven: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE WEB KIND

Fall/Winter 1994: meeting a whole lot of new friends; "creatures of the web".
Chapter Eight: JOB-HUNTING: HOTWIRED, DELPHI AND PATHFINDER

Winter/Spring 1995: a new job market emerges in New York City; I seek out and evaluate various job opportunities.
Chapter Nine: THE BEAT

Spring 1995: the neo-online Beat Generation/literary scene in the early web days.
Chapter Ten: THE SUMMER OF THE WEB

Summer 1995: I begin working at Time Inc. New Media (Pathfinder); Grateful Dead concerts.
Chapter Eleven: IN THE PATHFINDER BASEMENT

Fall/Winter 1995: Working for Time Inc.'s web startup, Pathfinder.com.
Chapter Twelve: LIT SCENE

Winter/Spring 1996: a new literary scene emerges online; organizing the world's first "web writer's reading" in downtown New York City.
Chapter Thirteen: CLICKING THROUGH

Summer 1996: technical challenges at Pathfinder; the emergence of Silicon Alley; early moves in the Internet advertising field.
(First Quarter Interlude)
Chapter Fourteen: DISCONNECT

Fall 1996: a historic opportunity to create a book of fiction and poetry from the web.
Chapter Fifteen: PATHFINDER GETS PERSONAL

Fall/Winter 1996: an amazing disaster at work, Pathfinder's Personal Edition.
Chapter Sixteen: MOVING TARGET

Spring/Summer 1997: turmoil in Silicon Alley; two Beat heroes die.
Chapter Seventeen: GETTING REVIEWED

Fall 1997: Coffeehouse: Writings From The Web is published; we get a few good reviews and one bad one.
Chapter Eighteen: DISNEYWORLD

Winter 1997/1998: Staying sane in Silicon Alley; unhappiness at work; a Dostoevsky project.
Chapter Nineteen: DINNER WITH DOSTOEVSKY

Spring 1998: I direct a digital movie of Notes From Underground
Chapter Twenty: WEBBY VALLEY

Spring/Summer 1998: LitKicks going nowhere fast; dreams of indie publishing
Chapter Twenty-One: MY MOVIE

Summer/Fall 1998: My digital movie of Notes From Underground hits the streets
Chapter Twenty-Two: FRINGE

Summer/Fall 1998: Drifting at Time Warner; more work disasters and literary frustrations
Chapter Twenty-Three: JOB-HUNTING: BROADCAST AND IVILLAGE

Winter 1998/1999: The dot-com stock market begins to peak; I entertain job offers and plot my next move.
(Second Interlude: July Breather)
Chapter Twenty-Four: LIKE IT'S 1999

Early 1999: Why I needed to get rich quick; turbulence at work and at home; the kids; rooftop dreaming.
Chapter Twenty-Five: DESIGN PATTERNS FOR AGONY

Early 1999: Arriving for the new job at iVillage; hesitating to walk in the door; why bad tech projects happen to good people.
Chapter Twenty-Six: WORKING FOR CANDICE CARPENTER

Early 1999: The inspiring leader of iVillage.com; courage and anarchy; work as a character-building experience; a new CTO is hired.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: A LITERARY LIVING ROOM

Early 1999: Why I didn't care about the late 1990s lit scene; poetry clubs of Greenwich Village; performing at the Living Room with David Amram.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: BEFORE THE IPO

Early 1999: Borrowing money for a stock market gamble; chaos and a new boss at work.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: CELEBRATION DAY

March 1999: The long-awaited iVillage IPO is a big success; parties begin.
Chapter Thirty: METAMORPHOSIS

Spring 1999: After the IPO; willing myself reborn; planning a big 5th birthday party/concert for Literary Kicks.
Chapter Thirty-One: BACCHANAL

Summer 1999: The meaning of happiness; searching for my place in the world; iVillage goes to the movies; the Literary Kicks Summer Poetry Happening at the Bitter End.
Chapter Thirty-Two: BREAKING POINT

Late Summer 1999: Transferring into the marketing department at work; confusion and malaise; Pokemon cards and San Francisco; divorce.
Chapter Thirty-Three: SINKING

Fall 1999: Finding a new home; dealing with post-divorce trauma; things go from bad to worse at work.
Chapter Thirty-Four: MILLENNIUM

Late 1999: On "probation" at work; getting my swagger back; Eminem and Kid Rock; becoming a hermit in Times Square; the Y2K scare and the turn of the millennium.
Chapter Thirty-Five: RUNNING THE NUMBERS

Early 2000: Working with the Community team; learning how to develop product proposals; launching member profiles; listening to Springsteen; a quiet peak moment passes unnoticed by all.
Chapter Thirty-Six: THE BIG SLIDE

Spring/Summer 2000: An article in Barron's magazine kicks off the dot-com stock crash; prices plummet; an industry falls apart.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: PICKING UP

Fall/Winter 2000: After the crash, a destroyed industry gathers its resources; mentoring sessions with Candice Carpenter; initial plans for LitKicks 2.0; the Mets in the World Series; a confusing election night; an unexpected turn of fate.
(Third Interlude: Bringing it Home)
Chapter Thirty-Eight: VERSION 2.0

Winter/Spring 2001: Digging into Java programming; dot-com market continues to slide; reinventing Literary Kicks as a community site.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: FALLING OUT

Summer 2001: worrying about getting laid-off; plans for BobDylan.com; getting laid-off; becoming an independent consultant and thinking about e-books; a welcome phone call.
Chapter Forty: TUESDAY

September 2001: scrambling to finish BobDylan.com in time; an all-nighter followed by a strange day; dust in Battery Park, firemen and the primal scene.
Chapter Forty-One: GATHERING

Late 2001: the aftermath of September 11; self-publishing my first novel as an e-book; getting a literary tattoo on my 40th birthday.
Chapter Forty-Two: POETRY AND POLITICS

Early 2002: intense debates about how the USA should respond to Al Qaeda; getting back onto the poetry reading circuit; being unemployed; a new poetry club opens up at the corner of Bleecker and Bowery; the LitKicks Spring Peace Poetry Happening.
Chapter Forty-Three: LUCKY GUY

Summer 2002: a cool new job building websites for art museums; the philosophy of poker; finally getting together with Caryn; climbing a mountain; being in love; farewell to the cool new job.
Chapter Forty-Four: HOW TO GO BROKE

Late 2003: unemployed again; borrowing money from the parental units; searching for business opportunities for LitKicks; another Bowery Poetry Club reading.
Chapter Forty-Five: SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE

Early 2003: breakdown in the classroom; a wayward Sharpie; the invasion of Iraq; message board policy debates; bounced paychecks; reaching an all-time low.
Chapter Forty-Six: CALL ME ISHMAEL

Summer 2003: a new teaching job; learning .NET; a new consulting gig; learning PHP; wondering what to do with LitKicks; not seeing the literary blogosphere; kids growing up; big questions and the eternal search for whale oil in the universe.
Chapter One: THE BREAK

Summer 1993: why I was working on Wall Street; a co-worker alerts me to the existence of the Internet.
Chapter Two: FINDING THE INTERNET

Fall 1993: I hunt down and find the Internet, becoming obsessed with Usenet newsgroups; rec.music.dylan; literature on the early Internet.
Chapter Three: BECOMING LEVI ASHER

Winter 1993/1994: I publish a short story in the first online literary journal Intertext and change my name.
Chapter Four: LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET

Spring 1994: I get an idea for a site called Literary Kicks.
Chapter Five: THE LAUNCH

Summer 1994: The World Wide Web grows more popular; I launch Literary Kicks one quiet summer day.
Chapter Six: ENTER MOZILLA

Summer/Fall 1994: Technological innovations on the web; the first "browser war" begins; life on Wall Street.
Chapter Seven: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE WEB KIND

Fall/Winter 1994: meeting a whole lot of new friends; "creatures of the web".
Chapter Eight: JOB-HUNTING: HOTWIRED, DELPHI AND PATHFINDER

Winter/Spring 1995: a new job market emerges in New York City; I seek out and evaluate various job opportunities.
Chapter Nine: THE BEAT

Spring 1995: the neo-online Beat Generation/literary scene in the early web days.
Chapter Ten: THE SUMMER OF THE WEB

Summer 1995: I begin working at Time Inc. New Media (Pathfinder); Grateful Dead concerts.
Chapter Eleven: IN THE PATHFINDER BASEMENT

Fall/Winter 1995: Working for Time Inc.'s web startup, Pathfinder.com.
Chapter Twelve: LIT SCENE

Winter/Spring 1996: a new literary scene emerges online; organizing the world's first "web writer's reading" in downtown New York City.
Chapter Thirteen: CLICKING THROUGH

Summer 1996: technical challenges at Pathfinder; the emergence of Silicon Alley; early moves in the Internet advertising field.
(First Quarter Interlude)
Chapter Fourteen: DISCONNECT

Fall 1996: a historic opportunity to create a book of fiction and poetry from the web.
Chapter Fifteen: PATHFINDER GETS PERSONAL

Fall/Winter 1996: an amazing disaster at work, Pathfinder's Personal Edition.
Chapter Sixteen: MOVING TARGET

Spring/Summer 1997: turmoil in Silicon Alley; two Beat heroes die.
Chapter Seventeen: GETTING REVIEWED

Fall 1997: Coffeehouse: Writings From The Web is published; we get a few good reviews and one bad one.
Chapter Eighteen: DISNEYWORLD

Winter 1997/1998: Staying sane in Silicon Alley; unhappiness at work; a Dostoevsky project.
Chapter Nineteen: DINNER WITH DOSTOEVSKY

Spring 1998: I direct a digital movie of Notes From Underground
Chapter Twenty: WEBBY VALLEY

Spring/Summer 1998: LitKicks going nowhere fast; dreams of indie publishing
Chapter Twenty-One: MY MOVIE

Summer/Fall 1998: My digital movie of Notes From Underground hits the streets
Chapter Twenty-Two: FRINGE

Summer/Fall 1998: Drifting at Time Warner; more work disasters and literary frustrations
Chapter Twenty-Three: JOB-HUNTING: BROADCAST AND IVILLAGE

Winter 1998/1999: The dot-com stock market begins to peak; I entertain job offers and plot my next move.
(Second Interlude: July Breather)
Chapter Twenty-Four: LIKE IT'S 1999

Early 1999: Why I needed to get rich quick; turbulence at work and at home; the kids; rooftop dreaming.
Chapter Twenty-Five: DESIGN PATTERNS FOR AGONY

Early 1999: Arriving for the new job at iVillage; hesitating to walk in the door; why bad tech projects happen to good people.
Chapter Twenty-Six: WORKING FOR CANDICE CARPENTER

Early 1999: The inspiring leader of iVillage.com; courage and anarchy; work as a character-building experience; a new CTO is hired.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: A LITERARY LIVING ROOM

Early 1999: Why I didn't care about the late 1990s lit scene; poetry clubs of Greenwich Village; performing at the Living Room with David Amram.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: BEFORE THE IPO

Early 1999: Borrowing money for a stock market gamble; chaos and a new boss at work.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: CELEBRATION DAY

March 1999: The long-awaited iVillage IPO is a big success; parties begin.
Chapter Thirty: METAMORPHOSIS

Spring 1999: After the IPO; willing myself reborn; planning a big 5th birthday party/concert for Literary Kicks.
Chapter Thirty-One: BACCHANAL

Summer 1999: The meaning of happiness; searching for my place in the world; iVillage goes to the movies; the Literary Kicks Summer Poetry Happening at the Bitter End.
Chapter Thirty-Two: BREAKING POINT

Late Summer 1999: Transferring into the marketing department at work; confusion and malaise; Pokemon cards and San Francisco; divorce.
Chapter Thirty-Three: SINKING

Fall 1999: Finding a new home; dealing with post-divorce trauma; things go from bad to worse at work.
Chapter Thirty-Four: MILLENNIUM

Late 1999: On "probation" at work; getting my swagger back; Eminem and Kid Rock; becoming a hermit in Times Square; the Y2K scare and the turn of the millennium.
Chapter Thirty-Five: RUNNING THE NUMBERS

Early 2000: Working with the Community team; learning how to develop product proposals; launching member profiles; listening to Springsteen; a quiet peak moment passes unnoticed by all.
Chapter Thirty-Six: THE BIG SLIDE

Spring/Summer 2000: An article in Barron's magazine kicks off the dot-com stock crash; prices plummet; an industry falls apart.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: PICKING UP
Fall/Winter 2000: After the crash, a destroyed industry gathers its resources; mentoring sessions with Candice Carpenter; initial plans for LitKicks 2.0; the Mets in the World Series; a confusing election night; an unexpected turn of fate.
(Third Interlude: Bringing it Home)
Chapter Thirty-Eight: VERSION 2.0

Winter/Spring 2001: Digging into Java programming; dot-com market continues to slide; reinventing Literary Kicks as a community site.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: FALLING OUT

Chapter Forty: TUESDAY

Chapter Forty-One: GATHERING

Chapter Forty-Two: POETRY AND POLITICS

Chapter Forty-Three: LUCKY GUY

Chapter Forty-Four: HOW TO GO BROKE

Chapter Forty-Five: SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE

Chapter Forty-Six: CALL ME ISHMAEL


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