self-festschrift 2!
10 December 2001
The Waxwing site has just celebrated its five-year anniversary. It has been around in some form or another since December of 1997.
On 10 December 1998 I wrote: "The site began as a small collection of quotes and I have managed, despite a full-time job and the rigors of pursuing an English degree, to turn it into a slightly larger collection of quotes." It's still true. The site grows larger little by little.
Nabokovilia featured 20 authors in 1998. Now it features 43. The site has bulked up to almost a thousand files. It has received countless invaluable contributions from wonderful people all over the world. It's still devoid of frills, though Postcards, the site's most graphic-intensive area, could still be optimized for non-broadband folks.
Waxwing was never designed to make a buck, but it has managed, via commissions and donations, to pay for itself. The site -- in its modest $15 a month way -- is a self-sustaining enterprise, though it is in need of help right now. This viability is a surprise.
Another surprise is that I have managed to update it at least once a month. It's often updated every week -- it has not gone untouched for longer than a month and a half. The real danger for small sites is not lack of funds but lack of interest on the part of their creators. Many fan sites are abandoned.
Waxwing endures -- in small part to my compulsive nature, in larger part to the enduring appeal and mindboggling talent of its subject, Vladimir Nabokov.
thanks
Thank you for visiting. Thank you for having visited before. Thank you for reading this note. Thank you.Thank you for everything.
ahead
There will be more authors added to Nabokovilia, more images added to Postcards, more News to post -- there will be more of everything. Check in often.
summing up
In 1998 I wrote: "I will be graduating in December of 1999. While my life-plans are still in the air (my novel hovering in a kind of electronic limbo, my upcoming status as an English major not particularly attractive to the job market, my student visa (F-1) to expire upon completion of studies, the mother country (Colombia) mired in violence and corruption), plans for Waxwing are fixed: The site will keep on keeping on."I graduated in December of 2000 with the English degree and with a minor in applied computer science. The novel is available on-line and elsewhere. (It isn't great, though it does have good bits -- I'm working on a better one now.) The student visa has been followed by a one-year work visa -- the computer labs where Waxwing began are the same labs where I now work as a manager. That visa will be traded in again (in February of 2002) for another student visa -- though any H1-B job offer would be appreciated: anything stable. The mother country is still a mess. And life here, despite everything, is anything but.
I wake up in the mornings at 6:00 am and do forty minutes of treadmill or biking, and then weights: After years of slouch and sloth I find myself ridiculously fit and healthy and full of energy. I go home and shower and go to work -- I raid my school's terrific library -- I gorge on cable TV and on CDs and on everything else that makes the US the miracle it is -- I'm happy to be here -- I'm thrilled to be here: Yesterday morning the sky was a deep inky blue and the stars blazed.
We'll keep on keeping on. This site, along with everything else so far has been a blast -- it will continue to be a blast.
Cheers,
J.M. Martinez
PS -- The poem mentioned in the first note has still not been added.PSS -- Typos and solecisms still abound.
psst
This note was written a few months ago. While there is not much to add, those of you who remember this site from way back might be interested in revisiting it as it looked in 1997, in February of 1999, in April of 1999, and in January of 2000. (Courtesy of The Way-Back Machine.)Also: your help in sustaining this site is very much needed. Please help out if you can. Thank you.
©2001 Self-Festschrift 2 is the property of J.M. Martinez. Please do not reproduce without the author's permission.
Previous | Index | Next Vivian Darbloom | Home | Index | Books | Resources | Tributes | Contact | Shop