site of the week

Mical Wilson's Homepage

A Brief Thesis/Multimedia Enterprise on Avant-Garde Visual Aestheticism Trapped within the Decaying Age of the Cult of Pennopoly and Post-Cyber-Death

By JenniferMayFloresEstaris

Mical Wilson's Homepage ***** Features: crazy insane pics

(Please point web-browsers to http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~mcwilson/ to capture the full experience of this dissertation.)

While Penn pages that verbally exemplify the fact that students have too much time on their hands exist by the dozens, it is through extensive research and constant imbibing of grain alcohol that I have come across a homepage which takes the same spoiled leftover teen angst of college students and transforms this asinine emotion into a chef d'oeuvre created through the medium of a simple fundamental principle called Microsoft Paint.

The school of thought surrounding Microsoft Paint apparently evolved from those disillusioned by the unfulfilling rewards of the religion-resembling axioms of Freecell, Hearts, Minesweeper and, most of all, Solitaire. The Paint following is still small, with Web-publishing of the followers even smaller. One of the students is a certain Mical C. Wilson, sophomore extraordinaire.

His early life is as such: Once upon a time there was a little boy who went to a nice normal high school on a farm near Scranton, which is located deep in the left kidney of Iowa. Exit stage right. Enter the University of Pennsylvania. Enter Hill House. Enter the Internet. One can easily surmise the rest of his downfall from there.

A few months ago, I interviewed this artist regarding his metaphysical beliefs in the reasoned doctrine of the Internet and MS Paint. The Barthelme sadness obviously manifests itself in the surreal pictures and unrelated captions. For example, the drawing of two angry hamsters preparing to attack an immaculate candy cane is followed by these touching words: "This page is dedicated to all of my hard working butlers. Without them, this page would not be possible. They bring me orange juice, lemonade, and pretzels, and advise me about Web page design."

Even the Arcadian picture, entitled "Frolicking in the Summer," exudes pure disconsolation, shown by the cartoon man with his arms up in the air. On a superficial level, the man is about to do a happy cartwheel, but three out of four doctors would say that the man (whom experts believe is a crude caricature of Mical himself) is actually throwing his hands up in resignation to the cycles of the world, such as the inevitable winter which takes away the true bliss of enjoying the summer.

An autobiographical sketch is also available, filled with heart-wrenching passages, such as:

"However I'm still grieving the loss of my cup that Greg threw onto the subway tracks."

Believe you me, this man is not in the sanest of senses. He created every picture with a mouse, including the words in the diary. In Camille, death by consumption is tragic. In Mical Wilson's Homepage, life by time-consumption is even more so.

Through Mical Wilson's Homepage, we are constantly reminded of the brevity of life, the influence of the indigenous philosophies, the importance of procrastination, and the beauty of skipping classes. In conclusion, this page is the Pennultimate (use of this made-up word as a noun intended).

Bibliography

Mical Wilson's Homepage, http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~mcwilson/ , edited by Mical Wilson, 1997.

A Barthes Reader, edited by Susan Sontag, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1982.

Philadelphia White Pages, edited by Bell Atlantic, September 1997-August 1998.

Please E-mail StreetWeb@dp.upenn.edu with any questions or comments.