filenames

Each node has a title that's visible at the top of your browser window, and it also has a filename that is less obvious, but also visible if you look for it in the URL.

As in rituals and magic, knowing the name of a node gives you power. Names give you the power to read as you want, only conjuring up the files that interest you. This knowledge is hidden, but once gained, you can use it to make the text into what you want it to be rather than relying on the author's links.

Martin's poems often use this half-hidden extra title. The title that speaks to the machine and the harddrive as well as the one for the browser, and the bookmarks. As readers, we see both.

No words (images, data) can be unmarked, untitled, unordered on a computer. Even an untitled folder has a name. Even a picture of nothing must be titled.

The filename Answers.html highlights the yes's and nos' function as answers. Answers must have questions, and so the poems that appear when we choose an "answer" feel like questions, backwards questions read in response to their own answer. And when you've read a question you loop back around to the list of answers again, to choose another answer leading to another question.

The filename in the node titled "Poison" highlights difference rather than the closeness between names and content.