A Glance at Our Past

A Glance at
Our Past...
1993 Kari and Kate start at the University of Chicago and at the urging of friends hesitatingly acquire their first email accounts ("but what's it for?"). Months pass, and we simultaneously discover Plato, Lemmings, Aristotle, SimCity™, Kant and lynx. Eventually someone talks us into trying this thing called Mosaic, except we can't figure out how to make it go to one of those address thingies with all the :s and //s. Somewhere along the line, we also get signed up on a mailing list revolving around They Might Be Giants. 1994 Franny arrives at Chicago and despite the fact that we don't know her yet and find her so far a slightly suspicious New Yorker-type, Kate and Kari attend their first TMBG concert with Francesca and others in tow. Soon Franny joins the mailing list too, and the list will never be the same...(What was that about "I'm the list SLUT!!"?) 1995 Due to a series of incontrovertably obnoxious postings having no known connection to that band, whoever They are, a friend of Kate's is moved to refer to this phenomenon as "The Kate & Kari Show." Kate and Kari figure, why be insulted when you can be famous, and the Show is born, complete with odd web site, seemingly unrelated to...anything...and sporting a lot of fingerpaints. Hmm. Spring 1995 Around about this time, Franny observes late one night that the universe has exploded around us. We are left with no reality but that which we create for ourselves (and force or betray others into believing in). We roadtrip to New York, get lost in Queens, and realize that reality has a name, and it is Utopia Parkway. 1996 Things went along merrily from there for some time, as our reality eventually expanded to include a mailing list of our own, a web zine with all-new content monthly (more or less), a burgeoning list of subscribers that after the first month or two actually included people we didn't personally know, and most importantly, the firm belief that we thought of all this first. Just when our subscriber list was getting pleasantly unwieldy without us even trying, we got an offer to sellout. A place called ThoughtPort.com (no longer among the living, it appears - yet...we're still here. huh.) decided they would like the honor of making us "wildly popular." This sounded fun, not to mention selling out was one of those things we'd been meaning to get around to for some time. But then, well, what can we say...it took more getting-around-to than we thought...we were so busy feasting on Power Sell-Out lunches that we found the decision-making process harder than ever...Then, there was the Yoko factor... Dammit, guys, we just got busy. Keeping up your own reality is hard enough, but doing it for hundreds of people at a time was wearing us out. Spring 1996 So, we killed the little sucker off. Got down to business on a few aspects of reality we'd been putting off, like school and life and all that. Spring 1997 Eventually Kate and Kari managed to graduate (without anyone finding out -- so far, shh! -- that they never did get that "all grown up" card installed in their respective harddrives...), which at the time entailed losing all their lovely free webspace. Thus the Parkway went into a brief retirement in obscurity. Spring 1998 Franny graduated in her turn, as well, and all the files had to go into cold storage. In that process, a few things got lost, like the original B-School Invasion page, the U of C brochure, and a couple of FAQs and Diners. We've recreated some of this as best we could, and we're still searching, but so far it looks pretty grim. Fall 2000 And thus, by the long surreal asphalt way, we come at last to the present day. And Utopia Parkway's historic rebirth. Er, sorta. There won't really be anything new, other than a few opening-day freebies like the new FAQ and our latest and last sponsor. But we're going to try to keep the archives up and running as long as possible. So, peruse and enjoy. And thank our many generous benefactors who are putting up with the leaded weight of the Parkway AT THIS VERY MOMENT. Drive safe, everybody, and look out for skunk on the right! [ewwww... -ed.]

1993

for

1994

Franny arrives at Chicago and despite the fact that we don't know her yet and find her so far a slightly suspicious New Yorker-type, Kate and Kari attend their first TMBG concert with Francesca and others in tow. Soon Franny joins the mailing list too, and the list will never be the same...(What was that about "I'm the list SLUT!!"?)

1995

Due to a series of incontrovertably obnoxious postings having no known connection to that band, whoever They are, a friend of Kate's is moved to refer to this phenomenon as "The Kate & Kari Show." Kate and Kari figure, why be insulted when you can be famous, and the Show is born, complete with odd web site, seemingly unrelated to...anything...and sporting a lot of fingerpaints. Hmm.

Spring
1995

Around about this time, Franny observes late one night that the universe has exploded around us. We are left with no reality but that which we create for ourselves (and force or betray others into believing in). We roadtrip to New York, get lost in Queens, and realize that reality has a name, and it is Utopia Parkway.

1996

Things went along merrily from there for some time, as our reality eventually expanded to include a mailing list of our own, a web zine with all-new content monthly (more or less), a burgeoning list of subscribers that after the first month or two actually included people we didn't personally know, and most importantly, the firm belief that we thought of all this first.

Just when our subscriber list was getting pleasantly unwieldy without us even trying, we got an offer to sellout. A place called ThoughtPort.com (no longer among the living, it appears - yet...we're still here. huh.) decided they would like the honor of making us "wildly popular." This sounded fun, not to mention selling out was one of those things we'd been meaning to get around to for some time. But then, well, what can we say...it took more getting-around-to than we thought...we were so busy feasting on Power Sell-Out lunches that we found the decision-making process harder than ever...Then, there was the Yoko factor... Dammit, guys, we just got busy. Keeping up your own reality is hard enough, but doing it for hundreds of people at a time was wearing us out.

Spring
1996

So, we killed the little sucker off. Got down to business on a few aspects of reality we'd been putting off, like school and life and all that.

Spring
1997

Eventually Kate and Kari managed to graduate (without anyone finding out -- so far, shh! -- that they never did get that "all grown up" card installed in their respective harddrives...), which at the time entailed losing all their lovely free webspace. Thus the Parkway went into a brief retirement in obscurity.

Spring
1998

Franny graduated in her turn, as well, and all the files had to go into cold storage. In that process, a few things got lost, like the original B-School Invasion page, the U of C brochure, and a couple of FAQs and Diners. We've recreated some of this as best we could, and we're still searching, but so far it looks pretty grim.

Fall
2000

And thus, by the long surreal asphalt way, we come at last to the present day. And Utopia Parkway's historic rebirth. Er, sorta. There won't really be anything new, other than a few opening-day freebies like the new FAQ and our latest and last sponsor. But we're going to try to keep the archives up and running as long as possible. So, peruse and enjoy. And thank our many generous benefactors who are putting up with the leaded weight of the Parkway AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

Drive safe, everybody, and look out for skunk on the right! [ewwww... -ed.]

A Glance atOur Past...

A Glance at
Our Past...