from The Boston Globe Magazine, Sunday, June 2, 1996
p. 34 "Richard Seltzer's home page (Internet address: http://www.samizdat.com/) contains a comprehensive look at the mind of the 50-year-old Digital Equipment Corporation employee and literature lover, who has archived the title of every book he has read in the past 37 years." [sic -- 38 years]
p. 36 "All of us have mental filing cabinets, some long forgotten, others opened frequently. Few people take the time to sort them out. But Richard Seltzer finds such order necessary.
"It's Seltzer's job to proselytize about the World Wide Web as an Internet marketing specialist for Digital Equipment Corporation. Seltzer, however, has deftly merged his corporate duties with his love of literature. His personal Web site publicizes his views as an author and essayist without the delayed feedback inherent in old-style paper publishing. He's also an active supporter of the Gutenberg Project, a campaign to spread free diskette copies of books to schools around the world. [sic -- free electronic texts to all, not "diskette" and not just to schools] And several times a year he sends electronic newsletters on literature and computing to more than 100,000 subscribers, reaching deeply into the many undeveloped countries hungry for discussion about the power of the Net. [sic -- 10,000 direct subscribers, over 100,000 readers] 'With the Internet, anyone can be a publisher,' says Seltzer, who lives in West Roxbury. "And anyone can get to it. That gave me a sense of empowerment. In the cultural sense, there's freedom of expression, and I'm going to do whatever I can to move us toward that.'
"At his Web site, Seltzer has posted essays, screenplays, and novels he has written over the past several decades and a list of every book he has read since seventh grade. By investing so much of himself into his site, Seltzer has compiled a surprisingly complete picture of himself. While the information may be of more interest to him that it is to most other people, the site is a rich representation of his mind's work.
"In some ways, Seltzer's presence on the Web supplies him with the same gratification he seeks in "real life," or RL, as it's know on the Internet. [sic -- I've never heard of that expression "RL"] There's the knowledge that his ideas are heard, that the pamphlet tacked to his door has been read. 'I can get on my soapbox, I can say what I want.' But it's more than that. 'I'm also part of the audience for people saying things back to me. It's individual and social at the same time,' Seltzer says. 'The deeper you go into yourself, the more you're connected to the rest of humanity.'"
Return to B&R Samizdat Express home page .
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