Absenter, Again

My first domain, 26 years on. I bought absenter.org in 2000. It was my first domain, after a few years on Geocities and LiveJournal. The real ones had real domains. Back then, as I’ve written before, the Blogger crew at Pyra Labs shaped my world of publishing online. The name comes from the Jawbox song “Absenter,” the last formal track on their final album, 1996’s Jawbox. I say “formal” because in the CD era hidden tracks were common, and after a long silence comes an amazing cover of Tori Amos’ “Cornflake Girl.” Music has always inspired me. It started as a blog. Sharing my thoughts [1] and linking to others eventually connected me with some of those writers. A few became friends, and I’d even work with some. Several, particularly an NYC crew (rion.nu, brooklynkid, 99000, Laura Holder), kept photo blogs, and I was enamored. Writing well has always been a struggle for me, and images became another way to communicate. I’d long admired photography and dabbled in it, and my first digital…