Artifacts of the Lair

The short version of this story is that I, a poverty-stricken and virtually-unknown folksinger in Seattle, dragged Kari's Lair: Home of the Virgo Folkie into the light of day because: a) everyone else and their pet iguana had a website, and I was tired of being left out; b) I picked Angelfire out of a handful of free website hosts because I can't afford to pay for a website; and c) my only other internet presence--my contributor's profile and collection of articles on the ill-fated Themestream.com complex--were history (though I managed to print out copies of my articles before they shut down the site due to bankruptcy). Also, I wanted to do a bit of shameless self-promotion of my music and songwriting, original poems, short stories, and musical tastes, which run mostly to folk and world music. So, on June 21, 2001, sitting in my old Lutheran chapel's library, I declared aloud, "Dammit, I want a website!" Not within earshot of any church ladies, of course. Within minutes of said declaration, I had opened an account with Angelfire/Lycos, and the "Home Lair" was spawned on an unsuspecting cyberspace.

Trouble is, having been spawned, the Lair quickly began growing out of control, an apparent manifestation of my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. From its origins as an instrument of musical self-promotion, the site soon began promoting practically every folk and world music artist and group on the planet. The ones I happen to like, at least. In addition to my own Musician's Bio, there are tribute articles to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, and Jason Webley, among others. Besides excerpts of my own short stories and a still-in-progress collection of original song lyrics, there is an entire page of links dedicated to Halloween/Samhain, and another links page completely devoted to the Irish Gaelic language (one of my personal passions). And so it goes.

In any case, a quick glance at the Lair's Sitemap (and you'll be glad there is one, believe me) will clearly indicate to you that this website is a total madhouse of musical, literary, and left-leaning political miscellany. One feature that seems to interest people is the truly massive LairLinks Directory, which subdivides into collections of links pages dedicated to Music Resources, Freelance Writing Resources, E-Commerce Gigs, and Personal Passions (like politics, progressive online media, the Irish language and women's spirituality). Plus, of course, the Homepage links to our Cafepress shops!

Whew. Whatever. Maybe one of these days, I'll actually find time to sit down and figure out just what this loony Lair was supposed to be focussing on in the first place...