17wings.net

This a review of Jack's Monkeyboy.

Layout

Looks

The photo of Hong Kong is lovely. It makes me want to take my friends up on their offer, hop in a plane, and shack up in one of their Hong Kong pads. But in all honestly, I do not like this layout. I miss your old one. :( This looks like something that I would have expected to see on a site in 2001 or 2002, not so much in 2007. It's not exactly creative, it's incredibly simply, and it's completely lacking in monkeys. Monkeyboy should have a monkey, shouldn't it?

The left side of the HK photo doesn't fade into the black background as well as the right side does—I see its edge. The sidebar text (save the navigation menu) is a tiny bit too small. On my monitor, the lines are only 3mm tall. It doesn't help that the background color is black—I can see myself. But everything is readable, and Monkeyboy looks pretty much the same in IE, Safari, and Firefox.

You also get kudos for you having an easy-to-find navigation menu, a visible site title, a RSS feed, and a search box. ♥

Think about making the blogroll the sidebar's last item or about placing it above Small Print. I think that most people will want to look at all of your sidebar content before they'll want to click on a link that takes them away from Monkeyboy.

Code & Coding Errors

I know that you modified a template so it's hard for me to tell what code is yours and what's not. Either way, everything looks good. It's all well-structured. ♥ Monkeyboy stays afloat when style sheets are disabled.

For the top border of the footer, instead of using a hr with align and width attributes, give the paragraph or div a top border in CSS.

Links · There needs to be a / in the image tag linking mortal thoughts. The WM3 image needs an alt attribute. Some attributes' values aren't enclosed in quotes.

Content

About

About Jack, Long Version · In my 22 years of life, I've read at least 78 autobiographical made-for-the-internet essays—Yours is among the best of them. It figures: you're a writer. But I wonder why people, you included, feel the need to begin with needless paragraphs.

I suppose I should write a little something about who I am now.

I suppose that you should, Jack. ♥ I came here to read about you. I even jumped through hoops to get here—well, I was forced to click through another about page. I don't want to read prattle. Let's get to it. I know that paragraphs like the one quoted above serve as pseudo-introductions, provide a sort of transition, and are popular, but I can't help but wonder if these essays would be better without them.

I’ve got a particular weak spot for the Beats and especially the Berkeley Renaissance, even though they’re kind of obscure.

They're terribly obscure. I'm assuming that you mean Ginsberg &co. in the first case and Spicer &co. in the second, but poetry isn't my thing. I bet that most of your visitors won't know who these poets are, either. Reference links would be amazing.

The paragraph about you eliminating every trace of your so-called gothic [and] overblown crap poetry from the internet made me LOL in the literal sense. I ran a mini guantlet of emotions while reading this short piece. Bits about bad teenage poetry made me laugh while the line about you being defined by a streak of lost-puppy-ness made me aww empathetically. It's great. You cover a lot of ground in your auto-bio: you talk of everything save your physical appearance.

About the Layout, Long Version · The first paragraph is confusing. You note this in the second paragraph, but all of the version number talk in the first one boggles my mind. Is this Monkeyboy's second version, third version, or fourth version? Make an arbitrary decision and stick with it.

This is revisited and much modified version three-ish of my blog, based on the Cutline template ... It doesn’t really look anything like the first version two, either, so I guess I should call it version four.

If it doesn't look anything like the first version two, why shouldn't it be version three-ish (as it is) instead of version four? Why bring version four into this? ;)

About the Website, Long Version · This is interesting. It's informative. I like it. The only thing that's not clear is your connection to mingyun.org. Provide a link to the mingyun.org about page or mention it?

Jack's Childhood &c. · I'm subscribed to Monkeyboy's RSS feed; I've visited several times; I comment every now and then. But I've never done anything more than give your about section an obligatory once-over. I embraced your short versions and didn't get past the index page. I'm ashamed. :(

The subpage titles are cute but wretchedly boring. What's cute: references to yourself as "Jack" (3rd person) and the sprinkling of words like obligatory and useless. What's wrong: the titles are misleading. You come off as humorous—yes—but there's also something seemingly ingenuous about titling your subpages things like, "Jack's Obligatory Lists." I'm naive, so I believed you and made disgraceful assumptions. Because most people's obligatory lists are duller than the tips of scissors made for pre-schoolers, I didn't see much hope for yours, especially considering the titles of your subpages. While you don't say that their content is boring, you don't do anything (i.e. have exerts) proving otherwise. I suggest you add short exerts or descriptions from the subpages on your main one or that you rename them. They're fabulous. I'm sure that a lot of your visitors are missing out because of your amusing (and yet terrible) titling antics.

I really like your "Top Five Elements" list. Fire's inappropriate appearance made me snicker. I'm personally a fan of Potassium (K), Cesium (Cs), and Chlorine (Cl #17). Also, Nutella? Don't lie. Everyone loves Nutella. Nutella on a crepe is one of the best things ever. Anyway, I hope that the lists you list under possibly coming soon are actually coming. I'm curious about "Top Five Superhero Concepts" because that seems interesting, and "Top Five Kung Fu Movies Not Starring Jet Li or Jackie Chan" because you like wuxia and probably know a lot about Kung Fu movies.

And Jack, if it's not too late—♥—you can consider this question for your recent ask-me-a-question blog post: What did you major in? On several occasions, you mention what you didn't major in, so what did you ... ? Also, I don't understand the glider.png (Hack Life) on the about index page. What is that?

Poetry

Before I play poetry connoisseur, I'm going to list a few things that may color my opinion. I want you to at least sort of see where I'm coming from (out of left field). Here we go: I didn't major in English (the thought makes me cringe); I haven't written a poem in ages (I'm only 22 so you can imagine what sort of poems I did write); I love e. e. cummings and laugh at Gertrude Stein; I like poetry. I like your poetry.

You write well. Your poems strike me as austere, as honest, and almost as abrasive: they lack pretty terms and baroque phrases. Your strongest stanza (from "Dragging"):

Taking a hacksaw to your balls
in the pursuit of perfection,
but you still won’t fit
your glass panties.

I don't know how you feel about the stanza or the poem as a whole, but I found it all pleasantly intense. The first stanza (quoted above) made me go "woah." 'Twas a good read. On a similar note, I was equally impressed by the first stanza of "Be Movie."

Your new girlfriend
is a horror film zombie
approaching in slow motion.

The above made me think, "Oh, that's heartless." Heartless, but it's good poetry. Anyway, I read all of your poems. The ones I like the most are: "Be Movie," "Blackbeard's Closet," "James Dean Reincarnate," and "Mislaid" ♥. The line featuring Ikea in "Blackbeard's Closet" is fresh. I love how you indent the lines in "James Dean Reincarnate." "Mislaid" is pure awesomeness.

I don't like all of your poems, though. If I were to be terribly mean and come up with the most damaging adjectives that I think apply, I'd say that they (some of them) were—are you ready for it?—hackneyed and utterly "meh"-worthy. The recipients of this criticism: "Cleaning," "Come Visit, Stay for Dinner," and "Keep Going."

I also don't like "Prayer to Kuan Yin," but I think that's just me. It reminds me of teenage angst, Holden Caulfield, and The Catcher in the Rye—it has me mentally screaming. But the poem is good. I imagine that a lot of people love it.

Even though "Another, and Another" isn't one of my favorites of yours, I really enjoyed it. It's engaging. I cocked an eyebrow at the lines, Trite? Sure. / But poetry should make you feel that way. The following had me mentally crying, "But it's a photocopy!":

If I get it close enough maybe the ink and the passion will rub off on me.

I suppose that whether it's a photocopy or not is immaterial, but to me things like that matter. Anyway, I really like "Another, and Another" because it reminds me of the segment in your about section where you talk about copying poetry chapbooks. I love that you wrote a poem about the experience. Even though I may have it all wrong, I can absolutely picture you in a dark and yet ornate library photocopying Jack Spicer's poems.

Also, why are you spelling the word evocation with a k? I'm not being subtle and hinting at an error. I'm honestly curious. I feel as though I'm missing out on something.

Your poetry section may benefit from some author's notes here and there. I'm not sure if I understood "Ace" or "Holiday Travel" so it would be helpful if for some or all of your poems you wrote a bit about your inspiration, the poem's meaning, or what have you.

Prose

Fiction & Memoirs · Nice. My favorite is "Was It Good for You?" The runner-up is "A Harsh Mistress." "Was It Good for You" is weird, in a splendid way. Where did the idea for it come from? Srsly. Talk about personification... wow. I love it. It's so original.

I like the narrative style of "A Harsh Mistress," the story-in-a-story if you will. It's really good. I have to say that I'm more impressed by your prose/fiction than I am by your poetry.

Articles · Your articles are well-written and rather interesting. "To Shut the Fuck Up" (lovely title) seems to be geared towards a specific religion, but I think that 90% of what you say in the article applies to others, as well. "Methods of Writing" is good. I was just a little disappointed in that you didn't say anything about how NaNoWriMo worked or didn't work for you. "How to be Edited" is just great.

I'm a fan of dates. I love knowing how old things are, and what came first. Dates on your poems et al. would be great.

Blog Entries

To be honest, I haven't read a blog entry of yours that I didn't like, and I've read a bunch. :) My favorites are: "Company You Keep" (I wasn't the one who commented on that, btw), "Productivity for Poets," and "Some Oak and Some Pine and a Handful of Norsemen."

How is the 21 days novel project going? We lost you after day four. :(

Conclusion

3.4 · Celebrate. Not only is Monkeyboy a good site, it's a very good site. I love your poems; I love your fiction; I love the about section. I just don't like the layout. Post more writings. I don't really know to say here. Keep up the good work? I enjoyed reviewing your site; you've inspired me to get working on my own. Thanks. ♥ Write more—I'm repeating myself, but really—write more.

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