The Spider's Lullaby FAQ:

What is the point of this whole thing?

As I've said, it's up to you to figure out its relevance to you!

Who is King Diamond?

King Diamond is the stage name of Kim Bendix Petersen, founding member of the two heavy metal bands Mercyful Fate and King Diamond. Widely acknowledged as one of the most creative minds in the genre, KD is known for his sense of theatre and complex story-cycles in his music. The Spider's Lullaby was recorded in 1995. Its theme is NOT madness.

Those two faces on the second page look familiar...

She is: Winona Ryder (Susannah Kaysen from Girl Interrupted)

He is: Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal Lector from The Silence Of The Lambs)

Now why them in particular? Hmmm....

The poetry isn't very good, is it?

As mentioned before, much of the uncredited poetry is taken straight out of The Spider's Lullaby album, rearranged of course. Remember that it was written to be sung, and is more theatrical than literary. Some other material (non-poetry) was written by myself from scratch.

If you're the creator of this piece, why isn't your name more obvious?

The whole point of this work is to undermine authorial intention. It wouldn't be fitting to splash my name on the title page.

Why aren't your links in the story more obviously shown in blue underlined words?

Blue underlined words spoil the mood of the piece. I hate them. Period.

This web is supposed to be about hypertext and authorship. Why aren't there more cross-links and threads?

It's about authorial intention again. It's a constant struggle for authors to get their point across, especially if you're going to be as difficult a reader to please as Barthes.

Also, I believe that the misconception when dealing with Barthes and hypertext is that the term 'links' is taken too literally. The Writerly Text emphasises mental, and not mere textual links. Textual links provide a limited number of ways around a text; mental ones achieve that plurality Barthes was looking for. Readers will always remain readers as long as they're afraid to think on their own. It was a decision to allow you to make mental links yourself, rather than just spoonfeeding you with physical ones. That's more writerly than that blatant blue stuff isn't it?

But what is the point of this whole thing?

Oh, all right. The idea was to examine the Barthesian concept of author vs. reader, by taking two alternate readings of a single fixed piece. Essentially composed of the same material, the alternate readings differ from, even directly oppose the original in a variety of ways. By simply dropping a text into another medium, and altering its structure slightly, the concept of Foucauldian author function is questioned and reversed.

Another factor at play here is the ability of hypertext to provide several different readings depending on reader-choice, while at the same time appearing to be linear and concrete in each reading. By following a specific series of links, the reader is 'fooled' into understanding the story in a certain way, much like network servers providing a unique environment for each user. (In this case, the page with the two houses was the fork in the path).

Finally, the concept of schizophrenia proved to be thought-provoking during the construction of this work. It puts into question the validity of an individual's perception of the world, in a way echoing the idea of Barthes' Writerly Text: the world itself is the prototype of this multivalent, infinitely plural body of information.

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