Just a mouse click on the right Web address conjures up a Daniel Schorr commentary, or a feature about the Illinois reporter whom the mob supposedly buried in concrete, or scads of other NPR offerings that I wish I could have enjoyed when they first aired. I don’t have to bother with tricky downloads of files containing the sound. This happens on its own.
RealAudio sounds rather muffled right now, at least on my computer, as if the technology is a throwback to 1920s radio. But sooner or later it will make FM stereo seem antediluvian.
Consider, too, the diversity of programming from grassroots people who can broadcast at a fraction of the costs of even peanut-whistle stations. Thousands of mom-and-pop sites—unencumbered by the Federal Communications Commission, unless the nanny faction wins out in D.C. and cracks down on the Net—may be online in the next year or two. What happens when unpopular political beliefs spread around this way? Will the Oklahoma City tragedy be invoked to squelch RealAudio and equivalents?
Cheerier possibilities may arise. Someday you might go hiking in the middle of the Rockies and be able to tune in performances and talk shows from all over the world through a net.satellite link; never mind the limits of the local radio stations.
Even video transmission will be routine over the Net or a successor. And then what? When Michael Moriarty, a TV actor, appeared in a public Q & A session on Prodigy, the possibilities made him wonder if network television would go the way of vinyl records. “Television,” he told the New York Times, “might become the 33-1/3 of the visual arts.”
For the moment, however, the Net is Fan Central for television along with other media. David Letterman fans and those of Jay Leno debate the merits of their favorite talk show hosts, while major movie studios preview their megahits with video clips. Elvis is alive and well in an area on the Web. And just when we Netfolks are ridiculing the TV moguls’ dream of 500 channels of Terminator movies, Hollywood has used our Net to ballyhoo Junior—a comedy starring the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. As if that isn’t enough, Hollywood has just released The Net, a thriller with some evil techies; let’s see what the marketers will post on the Web to push that one. Lower on the show business hierarchy, you can find model Danielle Ash replying to questions, in alt.sex.breasts, about her double Fs.
Netfolks with more elevated tastes can dial up the WebMuseum, Paris, or check out the works of new digital artists from Boston or New York or dozens of other big cities. Obviously the Net isn’t the same as beholding a Rembrandt in Holland and gazing into the face of a local man or woman a few feet away. That’s screamingly clear. Stoll, the near Snubbite, correctly notes that “Rembrandt painted real people—their facial features and mannerisms live on today in the Dutch population. Dressed in period costumes, I’ll bet the security guard with his war medals and the young woman tour guide would look as if they stepped out of one of those incredibly detailed paintings.” Moving and true. Imagine, however, the benefits of the WebMuseum to people without the Snubbites’ ability to jet to Amsterdam or Paris. What’s more, the Web brings its own glories to compensate; I can view Artist X’s work, then call up text about the person or the times; if anything the Web can provide more context than do the skimpy handouts available at most museums.
Caviling away, Stoll also objects that computers can’t reproduce the art exactly. But colors and resolution will just keep improving. The Snubbites who rant about lost details remind me of the foes of electronic books; incorrectly, given the ease of digitizing everything, the foes worry that new technology could kill off distinctive type-faces. But we shouldn’t preserve art and literature just by attending to the detail work. Culture also needs a place in the public mind; da Vinci-class art should be free, or close to it, by way of the Net. That is surely the ethos of Nicholas Pioch. An ex-Microsoft intern now studying economics in his native France, he is behind the WebMuseum, Paris, the new name it bears, now that bureaucrats won’t let him say, “Le WebLouvre.”
Within Le WebLouvre[WebLouvre]—there, I’ll say it anyway—I saw such da Vincis as Mona Lisa and Virgin and Child with the Infant John the Baptist and St. Anne. I went on to look at Rembrandts, van Goghs, Cezannes, Dalis, Klees, and Manets, among others, and to read two warnings. “If you think the law prevents you from viewing these exhibits, you should stop now and do something more interesting, such as flying to Paris and touring live!” Pioch wrote. “Some companies may be trying to get a monopolistic grab on arts and culture,” he said elsewhere, “developing a pay-per-view logic, shipping out CD-ROMs while trying to patent stuff which belongs to each of us: a part of our human civilization and history.”
How right Pioch was. Bill Gates has just bought a notebook of Leonardo da Vinci, and let’s hope that like some of the old robber barons, Gates will habitually share his acquisitions with the world. But a major difference shows up here. Andrew Carnegie and the rest did not make their money off art and entertainment, part of Gates’ master plan. For Bill Gates to give away great paintings and manuscripts will be like Carnegie giving away steel. His motives may be the most ethereal, and with a $10-billion net worth, he can afford many a donation; but a conflict will forever arise between Gates the businessman and Gates the philanthropist. Just which side will prevail when he dies? If not in life, then in death, by way of his lawyers, will he have the decency to turn all his old masters loose on the Net for free viewing? No judgments here. Perhaps that day will come. He has already agreed to loan the notebook to a museum.