The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 203

I Internet www.smh.com.auiconnet.html I A SPECIALIST'S SITES Jon Casimir Driftnet 10HN TRANTER Interest: writing. Used Internet for: A year. How often: 10-15 hours a week. the I In the online change room, you can't keep a good man down. 'HE Web is a mecca for pop culture junkies.

Whatever is happening in film, television, rock music and the rest of the "low arts" (I love the way that opera, ballet and classical music buffs fool themselves into believing that being a minority and being special is the same thing) is immediately reflected, refracted, retooled and regurgitated online. But to think of the Web as a medium that simply reflects popular culture is to do it a disservice. It also creates it. The virtual world is just as much a home to trends, fads and pop phenomena as the real one it's a cultural playground. What is a virus hoax but a piece of digital folklore, an urban myth recast for a new world? What are e-mail Christmas and birthday cards, if not the latest toys? All around the Web, ideas spring up and take hold, generating their own momentum, replicating like cells as the meme spreads.

The first time I really noticed this happen was in 1996 when, suddenly, certain areas of the Web found themselves in the grip of the (if you're a dainty reader, turn the page now) Ate My Balls craze. Yes, you read that right. It began humbly with the Mr Ate My Balls Page, a site built by Illinois University student Nehal Patel. After a bolt of inspiration during a game of corridor football, Patel tracked down photos of Mr and added crudely drawn pictures and speech balloons to them, constructing a narrative, much like those True Romance photo stories, in which the former star of The A Team displayed an uncontrollable hunger for 'nads. And that was it end of joke.

Somehow, the site found an audience the history of mankind is dotted 2 OET John Tranter has travelled widely, making reading tours of the United States and Europe. He has received senior fellowships and other grants from the Australia Council, has published 12 collections of his own poems and four anthologies of other people's writing. Jacket, the free Internet literary magazine he started last year, has had more than 6,000 visitors from around the world. It's at www.jacket.zip.com.au Literary Kicks A site devoted to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation, set up by fan Levi Asher in Brooklyn. Lots of photos, anecdotes and tall tales of beatnik glory.

Open a bottle, kick your sandals off and relax! http:www.chann.net-brooklynLitKicks.html The Saint My hero when I was young. I always assumed that his creator, Leslie Charteris, was as tall, slim and blue-eyed as his creation. Not so: his photos show him as remarkably like a stocky version of Lee Kuan Yew. No wonder Leslie Charteris was born Leslie Bowyer Yin in Singapore on May 12, 1907, and changed his name in 1926. He died in England in 1993 at 85.

This site tells you everything you ever needed to know about Mr Yin and his alter ego, Simon Templar. http:www.saint.orgwel-come.htrn SOzLit Anyone interested in Australian Literature will enjoy this site. Has news about local prizes, readings and conferences, with links to writers, magazines and other resources, and a huge searchable books writers database. vicnet. net.auo-zlit The Electronic Poetry Centre Based at the State University of New York in Buffalo, this site is devoted to innovative contemporary poetry, with an emphasis on so-called "language buffalo, eduepc Web Del Sol A US-based Webzine with hundreds of links to other literary sites.

Quirky offerings, multi-media longings and strange cul-de-sacs off the back alleys of the Web. (They must have good taste Jacket was on their list of top sites for December 1997.) http:www.webdel-sol.cotrtsollwme.htm Overland magazine Once a magazine of the "old Overland plunges into the next millennium with a new editor and a taste for postmodernism. It covers the Australian cultural landscape with fiction, essays, poetry and art. http:dingo.vut.edu.auartscalsoverland E3 Gleebooks A bookstore noted for its knowledgable staff and its huge range of poetry, fiction and cultural studies tides, both new and used. For more than 20 years, free readings and book launching parties have been held on the premises.

gleebooks. com. an Booksmith Bookstore 644 Haight Street, San Francisco CA 941 17, just across the street from my favourite bar, Bruno's Zam Zam Room at 1633. Booksmith employee Thomas Gladysz also edits an Internet poetry magazine on this site. booksmith.

com Send your enthusiast or professional sites to suesmh.com.au direction. The company calls itself The Institute for Testicular Consumption and has the Latin motto "Veni, Vidi, Viti, Teste" (I think you can work it out). What does all this prove? Absolutely nothing. But it fills in time. And isn't that the point of the Internet? Next to the Transformations fad, the Ate My Balls phenomenon seems positively enthralling.

This one is based on Web sites that promise to change you somehow. You click on a button and, hey presto, you're changed. 65 History is dotted with moronic ideas that have with unbelievably moronic ideas that have worked. And though Patel's page is no longer with us in much more than spirit, its legacy lives on. And on.

More than a hundred people so far have thought the joke good enough, or bad enough, to build on it, adding their own take. A visit to Apparently. Yeah, I thought that was funny too. The Page That Turns You into A Cabbage asks: "How many times have you stared mournfully into the coleslaw and thought to yourself, 'Gee, I wish I was a cabbage'?" It allows you to choose to be an ordinary cabbage, a purple cabbage, a Chinese worked. silent, a sample file for Character Studio, a software animation package from US company Kinetix.

Babycha, as it was known, was posted on the Web in 1996 by Ron Lussier, one of the three animators who worked on the project, a man wholeheartedly sick of what his actions have brought; he says it "has become tiring as is, and needs to evolve or Lussier could not have seen how much kerfuffle his posting would lead to, what a flurry of Web activity it prompted, as countless home animators took up the challenge to build on Baby's funky beginnings, modifying its code, offering variations, enhancements and replies. They started out fairly innocent and simple, with Macarena Baby, Bossa Nova Dancing Baby, Shake It Baby and the like. Since then, they have become consistently weirder. Drunken Baby saw the little one staggering around with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette dangling from its mouth, urinating on the floor. Car Crash Baby ran over the dancer with a Volvo.

The result of all this activity is something like a continuous Dancing Baby Film Festival, with dozens of sites catering to the people who display their version of the dancer. The Unofficial Dancing Baby Homepage offers 13 baby animations to choose from, as well as the obligatory free screensaver. The Incredible Dancing Baby has collected links to 35 baby movies, from Gunfighter Baby to Psycho Baby to Acid Baby. If you fancy taking part, you can purchase Official Dancing Baby Products, but why not go a little further than that by downloading the original source animation and having a go at making your own Dancing Baby movie? And if you're looking for inspiration, might I suggest (and I am frankly amazed that no-one has thought of this already) a "Dancing Baby Ate My Balls" theme? casimirsmh.com.au Yahoo's list or The Ate My Balls Mega-Page offers a sanity-draining array of choice. In between Aliens Ate My Balls and Yoko Ono Ate My Balls, you can find the likes of: David Hasselhoff Ate My Balls.

The Heaven's Gate Cult Ate My Balls, Mr Bean Ate My Balls, William Burroughs Ate My Balls; and, for the kids, Thomas The Tank Engine Ate My Balls and The Teletubbies Ate My Balls. Spins on the idea include: Trainspotting Ate My Bollocks, Titanic Sank My Balls, Bill Gates Bought Our Balls, Jesus Resurrected My Balls and Mike Tyson Ate My Ears. There is, of course, an AMB Web ring. There are places you can vote for your favourite AMB project. There's a site that offers instructions on how to make your own page.

There are screensavers. There's even a chat room, for people who have nothing better to talk about. So popular is the fad that a Web site hosting company has registered the domain (www. atemybaUs.com) in the hope that anyone wanting to build such a site will be lured in its cabbage, a cauliflower or a brussels sprout. When you click on the "Turn Into A Cabbage it brings up a page with a picture of a cabbage and the assurance that you now are one.

Laugh? I coughed up mayo. The Page That Turns You Into A Cow does pretty much the same tiling. So too do The Page That Turns You Into A Triple-Layer Raspberry Creme Gateau, The Page That Turns You Into An Alternate Universe and The Page That Will Make You A Sandwich. The most interesting pop culture fad to hit the Internet to date, though, must be the Dancing Baby. It's also the only example I can drum up of a Web trend that has broken the boundaries of the medium Baby has appeared twice this year in episodes of US drama Ally McBeal (soon to premiere on Seven).

The Dancing Baby is not real. It's a computer-generated vision of an expressionless, nappy-clad infant grooving, frugging and gyrating to a soundless beat. Its original version was eight seconds long and El BOTTOM LINE All the Internet sites and addresses featured on this page are hotlinked for you at www.smh.com.auicon icon 11 SMH MAY 30, 1998.