This is the Channels Page of the Cultural Blender. links to websites which provided inspiration, ideas, and images, and/or are just good to visit.
	The Cultural Blender Website began as an idea, like I suppose all websites get started. While visiting some of the sites featured on this page, I started to receive an epiphany in the form of an Osterizer advertisement I glimpsed while on a website which dealt with American Popular Culture. The “image” of cultural icons in a blender, stuck on PUREE, so that every cherished icon we possess would be mixed and blended beyond recognition, was the first “piece” of the website I came up with. This image, to me, perfectly illustrates the copy/paste nature of modern pop culture. Nothing is really original, and as the years advance, the past is borrowed from, and incorporated into the present. Younger people who do not really know the icons and trends of the recent past except as something new in another application, cannot, especially on the web, I fear, get an idea of the big picture. Every thing has equal weight in cyberspace. Eventually, as the content appears, (and each weekend a page or two is added,) then the premise made on the Home Page will make itself clear to the reader. Well, at least as clear as through the glass bowl of the Cultural Blender. I didn’t really come up with the title, and I also include links to websites which deal with the Cultural Blender as a theme.
	The concept of a links page is certainly not new, but I rarely put anything up on AllThingsMike that I didn’t create myself, so since Cultural Blender is a vast topic and one I will probably be working on for years, the links on this page, will be “channels” you can turn to, in the event that nothing’s new on my site, and you can visit some of these talented and prescient people. Most of the links here today, as I put the page up on Saturday, December 1, 2001, are the links I copied into my notepad when surfing for pictures and images for the Cultural Blender icons. I figured I would list all websites which gave me inspiration, and pirated images, as well, but there are and will simply be some great sites which I enjoy visiting, and think you will get a kick out of, if you enjoy the cultural roundelay we live in, and want some answers, or merely want to read the prose of some of the present and future pundits of PoP Cult.
	PopCult In the future, “Pop Cult “ will take the place of what I knew as the study of History when I attended school. (In the dark ages of the early seventies, before widespread use of personal computers and the flood of infotainment they make possible.) History sounds “:old”. PopCult sounds so 21^st century. The study of where our trends are taking us, is the stuff of most of the websites I will feature links to on this page.
	The saying goes: “Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.” In the Pop Culture Blender, history is set on high speed, and is almost unrecognizable, but is repackaged and revitalized for a new audience. Walt Disney, purveyor and grandfather of a lot of AmPopCult, used to rerelease his classic cartoon films every seven years, because every seven years constitutes a new generation.		The naked fairy in the picture above, what could she possibly have to do with American Pop Cultural History????. Stay Tuned
	Our PopCult is what makes us American, and we peddle these icons and images, these advertising slogans and easily digestible sound bytes of American life to the world. “Every body has 15 minutes of fame” said Andy Warhol, American Pop Artist. In the Cultural Blender, those 15 minutes go by so fast you can hardly make out the players anymore. That’s what makes following PopCult so fun and informative, and what makes an old man like me feel young. Enjoy the websites on this page, and come back to push more buttons on the Cultural Blender.		Remember When? A nostalgic look at a skyline which used to define America. Coming Soon
	The Cultural Blender sent emails to the Webmasters of all the sites to the left this afternoon, Sun. 12/2/01.The email was basically a “form letter” but was sent individually (The task took a few hours, even with copy/paste technology.) So far I’ve received one bounce, so I announced my intentions in one of their guestbooks, and one affirmative, from the teacher of the multicultural group of students who put together the Culture Blender site, a tribute to Danish pop culture and constructed in October 2000. I hope that these first ten sites eventually become a long list, as I scour the web with my high impact scrubbing searching bubbles, looking in every nook and cranny for PopCult
This page is being FTP’d on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2001, and as of now, all of the above websites should be linked, and individual email addresses, guestbooks, etc. for the listed sites are accessible through the links. I have attempted to reach the webmaster of each site listed, so that they are aware they are now buttons on the Cultural Blender. I’m aware that I am in essence, “shooting myself in the foot” by linking to some of these sites, which already deal with the same themes, because, I’m posting pages, without finalizing a lot of the “content” in the form of essays and articles, I wish to create on the Blender. MFN 12/02/01
		The great thing about computers is the ability for someone like me, who came to the party fairly late, to figure out exactly what buttons to push and when, and what steps to take, and in what order, in order to accomplish what might seem to the average techno nerd as day to day operations, but to me is a long, somewhat tedious process which does elicit wondrousness as soon as I figure it all out. And when I do, out comes a semblance of art and literature.
Cultural Blender uses images and references to American Popular Culture. So even though, in the interest of science, images and references are used, full credit will always be given, or at least attempted, within the context of this document. On this, the “Channels” page, where links to these sites are being posted, there will constitute a “living:” bibliography , of sorts. If you see a photo., part of a composite, mention of a trend or a feature of American Popular Culture which you do not believe I have documented correctly, please email the webmaster. Cultural Blender is part of the AllThingsMike Webhub These pages are best viewed at 1024 x 768 on a 19” monitor. Fonts on this page are Clarendon Blk BT,, Twentieth Century, Eight Track program 3, and Arial