I'm cursed!

[elfs]

Two weeks ago, I reviewed Kate Orman's Walking to Babylon. Curious to see if she'd had any other comments on it I went and read through and sure enough, she had one and labeled the review "delightful." I'm glad to have been of service.

One of her commenters, however, wrote, "Wow, Elf Sternberg. Some of my first experiences on the web involved reading stuff by him."

Grief, why is it everytime my name comes up in conversation the basic thought is, "Oh, yeah, I used to read him. Is he still around?" Or better yet, "Isn't he dead?"

Comments

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

Not cursed. Some of us found you again. You did lapse into obscurity for a while there in the mid 90's.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounded really internet stalkery there. *grin*

[elfs.livejournal.com]

And with the Largo icon, no less.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Which was about when I got onto the net.

I think they were the days when the Web was starting to replace other technologies for distributing archives. I picked up a few pointers to FTP sites and stuff, and found some of your stories. As I recall, they'd come from alt.sex.stories posts.

If it wasn't for search engines, the net would be overwhelmed by obscurity.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, Elf. You're Snake Plisskin. :)

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

You *are* something of an Internet relic. When I told my partner, who is one of the moderators at ssg, that you had a Livejournal, he said, "Is it about anything besides sex?" :P I straightened him out. As it were.

[ysabel.livejournal.com]

That was my reaction on finding you again here on LJ...a couple of years ago? Whenever it was. I hadn't seen anything by you in the intervening years...

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

hey, it weas thanks to your stories that I realised being Bi was no big thing :)

[mundens.livejournal.com]

You mean you're not dead?

Oh wait, that's right this is Live Journal, if you were dead you'd be on Dead Journal!

:)

[scyllacat.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with being a dinosaur. You remember the 'Net when it was cool. I almost gave it a permanent miss after AOL debuted, myself. Difference between you and me: You have fans. :)

[kenshardik]

So... are you still around?

On obscurity...

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps you'll remember sitting down at a table at ConiFur back in 2002 with this guy who noticed your nametag and waylaid you with a tale about how your works had come up in the story development discussion panel? (Or, more likely, not remember -- it wasn't much as conversations go...)

Up until that point, I'd had no idea your stories lived on a website. I'd possibly found them on Usenet, or, more likely, found them as a large .zip file... somewhere. I'd downloaded them, read them, and then gone on to other things as my attention was demanded from a dozen different directions.

Then I met you at ConiFur. I finally had a chance to say "thank you" -- in person, yet! -- for the work you'd done. You told me there was a website and I went to it. Heck, it even had a little mini-blog on it! Your LiveJournal got put on my 'check daily' list of bookmarks.

I'd lost track of your work once -- I didn't want that to happen again.

Man, has it really been four and a half years? Wow.

Oh... and one question: Google Groups (alt.sex.stories.moderated) has Embassy Tales: Flags as 064/0100, but it's 062/00100 on your site. You seem to have a robust system for working on all of this... how did that two day disparity creep in there?

Anyway, thanks again for... well, everything!

Bryan.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Well, I found your works back in 1993, before the dawning of The Eternal September on USENET. Also came to respect you for your knowledge and wisdom on alt.sex.*.

I've been keeping an eye out for what you've been up to ever since, as I hold your ideas in High Regard.

[norincraft.livejournal.com]

I don't think the length of knowing or reading someone isn't all that important when compared to their impact on your life. I've known Elf and Omaha since before they were married, before they moved out West; since it was a plan. Since the old SCA photo (http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=441629250&size=o) was taken. But so what? My impact on them was, I'm certain, low. Their was high enough to get me to search multiple times for them.

[iodama.livejournal.com]

Um *blush* that would be what I thought when I stumbled across you on LJ. I remember you from Usenet in the days before The September that Never Ended. In a real and important sense, you weren't around -- not around ssbb, at least. I was pleased to run across this journal, since I remember you fondly; since I mostly lurked, there is no particular reason you would know me or remember me.