Meet Maria Wolonski: imomus

Meet Maria Wolonski

Momus: Hello everyone, thanks for coming today. I'd like to present Maria Wolonski, our new... What is your official title, Maria? I forget, despite being the one who made it up!
Maria: Wasn't it "Flexible Information Nexus"?
Momus: "F-I-N". Sounds a bit fishy! No, didn't it have a P in it... not PA, not PR...
Maria: PDA! Personal Digital Assistant!
Momus: Thanks, that'll do nicely for now. So, everyone, I'd like you to meet Maria Wolonski, the new Momus PDA. We're delighted to have her aboard.

Maria: Shall I curtsey? Or do you want to spray champagne over me, like Richard Branson?
Momus: Ha ha, it is tempting! But Richard Branson is a sexist pig. I wouldn't treat my employees like that. I think we should tell people first and foremost to follow your feed.
Maria: Yes! Right. Well, my feed is called wolon, which is obviously short for "Wolonski". It's your highly Portable Information Nexus (P-I-N) for anything and everything related to Momus. Concerts, press appearances, lectures, reactions to events, recommendations. Hey, should I be calling you "Mr Momus"?
Momus: No, no, just plain Momus is fine.
Maria: Should we talk about what we were discussing earlier?
Momus: What was that? Oh, about possible reactions? Okay... You go first.
Maria: Well, it's just that you thought... You thought there was a possibility of dismay. That people would say: "He's winding up Click Opera just to unveil... a Twitter feed?"
Momus: Right. And it's important to stress that this is not a Momus-related Twitter feed. Well, not just a Momus-related Twitter feed. This is Maria, a new person. A new member of staff. In a new office. With rafters.
Maria: You know, I think I will call you Mr Momus on the feed. So cute!
Momus: It is cute, but remember the "Mr" will take up two of those precious 140 characters.
Maria: Oh, I can slip it in there. I'm good at that. Mr Momus on BBC Radio 4's Quote Unquote "deserves to be a massive multi-billionaire" (says nice Dr Ben Goldacre). See? I tweeted all that plus a compact tinyurl. It fits!
Momus: I want to ask you a few questions about your origins, Maria, because I think the readers will want to know some background. But first I just want to clear up this question of the value of Twitter. As you know, I had a piece up in April called The case against -- and for -- Twitter. It was quite damning: "You could easily see the tweet as an inherently worthless form, some kind of spreading weed, replacing meaningful content with something scattershot, trivial, phatic, desultory -- eroding topsoil, decreasing crop yields." But then -- being a dialectical kind of chap -- I saw the plus side: "Couldn't all the important things ever said be reduced to 140 characters? There's nothing more wonderful than seeing a short form given some kind of lapidary perfection." Now, the wolon feed is mostly for information about real-world Momus activities, but I hope it can achieve some of that "lapidary perfection" too. Some kind of beauty.
Maria: That's why you made someone short and perfectly-formed your "flexible information nexus"?
Momus: You're perfectly formed, but you're not short! Come on, Maria, you're almost as tall as me!
Maria: It's true, and you wear high heels.
Momus: Don't tell them that!
Maria: Ha ha ha!
Momus: Do you want me to show them your baby pictures?
Maria: What, that one of me in my birthday suit? When you were down in the lab, fabricating me like the Bride of Frankenstein?
Momus: Yes, that one!
Maria: Well, I certainly don't want you holding the threat to show it over my head and using it to control my freedom of expression. So go ahead, I'm not ashamed. In fact, I think it's good to make my fabrication process clear and obvious to everybody, as if to say "This is how a PDA is made!"
Momus: Okay, here's Maria in the lab, back when she was being fabricated. Isn't she lovely?

Maria: I have a damn good body, I'll say that for me. You look like you had a lot on your hands before I came along. In fact, you had a lot of hands, period.
Momus: That's right, I had a thumb in many pies. I had to juggle everything constantly. I didn't know what to do with all my hands. That's why I needed a new pair.
Maria: Yes, today you're showing a new pair of hands and a clean pair of heels!
Momus: Please don't go on about my heels!
Maria: You like to wear them with spurs while sitting on your high horse!
Momus: No I don't! Anyway, here's a flow diagram of how I hope we'll be working together in the future.

Maria: That's lovely! I'm a penguin! Where did you get the graphic?
Momus: It's a tribute to the Japanese designer Nakajo Masayoshi, a cluster of some of his motifs. He did a lot of work for the Shiseido magazine Hanatsubaki, really nice clear and simple design, but quirky, with lots of personality.
Maria: Is that you in the photo?
Momus: No, it's Harry Smith, but it's how I might look in a few years.
Maria: You have a birthday coming up soon, don't you?
Momus: No.
Maria: Yes you do!
Momus: No I don't! I don't want to talk about that! In fact, let's just end this meeting now, shall we, Maria?
Maria: Okay, you're the boss, Mr Branson! I mean, Mr Momus!

Follow Maria Wolonski on Twitter.

robotmummies

February 9 2010, 15:21:58 UTC 10 years ago

New comment

imomus

February 9 2010, 16:04:41 UTC 10 years ago

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Anonymous

February 9 2010, 15:34:53 UTC 10 years ago

Hey, I'd fuck Maria Wolonski! Way to go my man Momus!

You're all ghastly !

February 9 2010, 16:22:23 UTC 10 years ago

Why are the people angry at Momus? What is angry?

Momus dear boy, do as you please, as you always have and never mind what these rock apes are frittering on about. I can feel your artistic visions and vibrations bright and sparky as ever. They has not been weakened nor undermined by your new assistant twitter thing.

Why must you people torture this man? I hope you haven't taken any of these bitchy comments to heart.

Many blessings.

10 years ago

February 9 2010, 15:56:04 UTC 10 years ago

Momus, thanks very much for introducing us to your personal assistant Maria Wolonski. It was particulalry sporting of you to share some nude shots of her. I was wondering whether you have any more that you could post here? Perhaps with poses that are a little more provocative?

Thanks in advance!

February 9 2010, 16:09:07 UTC 10 years ago

It's all very well having a sexy nude personal assistant, Momus, I guess it's your equivalent of getting a Harley Davidson. But at the age of fifty you may have problems doing anything about it! You may find that delightfully hirsute vagina harder to penetrate than in your salad days, now that your erection lacks the rigidity of its younger self, as you head into the final furlongs of your life. Please stop a moment and consider this point, Momus.

akabe

February 9 2010, 16:32:17 UTC 10 years ago

nakajo is the only japanese graphic designer i like // everyone else is trying too hard

February 9 2010, 17:03:36 UTC 10 years ago

Because trying is for losers.

shadowshark

hairy

February 9 2010, 17:56:13 UTC 10 years ago

Vaginas aren't hairy.

Stephen Parkin.

Funny

February 9 2010, 19:01:23 UTC 10 years ago

It feels good.

In Iceland they say Bless as a salutation.

Bless Bless Momus
Bless Bless Nick

Ryan

http://r-sullivan.com/

eXtreme newcomer

brendan_is_gr8

February 9 2010, 19:34:40 UTC 10 years ago

In the morning I read Momus' blog and wonder how people will hate on his style today.

count_vronsky

February 9 2010, 20:21:21 UTC 10 years ago

So this is the way Click Opera ends?
Not with a bang but a twitter?

February 9 2010, 22:30:22 UTC 10 years ago

Since there's also an element of wanting to write for money rather than my personal obsessions, it could also be a case of "not with a whim, but a banker".

chakra and awe

February 9 2010, 20:33:21 UTC 10 years ago

there's something brilliant about all this. but i still hope you'll do bigger pieces occasionally a la the older imomus essay/photo format.

you've done well, my son. carry on. and let us all remember this time of our life and how we were delighted, inspired, galled and enriched overall.

we've collectively engaged in something strangely karmic and important here; may it continue to spur us all on to our respective destinies; and may you all be blessed with the light and love of the eschaton, the transcendental object at the end of time, the divine, amen, aum, OM.

thomascott

February 9 2010, 20:41:41 UTC 10 years ago

The scourge of the phatic goes phatic?
I will miss Click Opera; do you intend giving up writing longer online articles entirely?

February 9 2010, 21:18:28 UTC 10 years ago

In case I'm not here for the final curtain, I just wanted to say that I've enjoyed your comments over the years Thomas. Take care :)

post-colonial-post-marxist-post-capitalist-post-identitypolitics-post-sexist-post-post

February 9 2010, 20:59:41 UTC 10 years ago

this raises some digital-psyber-cyber questions, though, about your new digital creation/employee; do you own them? do they have worker's rights? bargaining power? digital comrades? what does it mean to have created an employee? the digi-ethics of it all...

Re: post-colonial-post-marxist-post-capitalist-post-identitypolitics-post-sexist-post-post

ztz42

February 5 2013, 01:26:16 UTC 7 years ago

Do you plan to resume this journal?

4 years ago

salyu

February 9 2010, 21:27:17 UTC 10 years ago

essentially, she was hired and is being paid to.... update twitter? ah, if only acquiring jobs in the real world were only so simple !

In a few years, you're the boss.

pay_option07

February 9 2010, 21:30:24 UTC 10 years ago

Does she have an accent?

I'm mean I need some orientation hear!

Re: In a few years, you're the boss.

February 9 2010, 23:54:34 UTC 10 years ago

She seems slightly sinister to me, so she might end up sounding something like this, if she ever turns against her creator:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZMD_eCpEo

February 9 2010, 21:34:27 UTC 10 years ago

no. she wasn't hired. she was "created." now, further questions; does she have the ability to unionize? does she have health benefits? part time, full time? etc. etc.

February 9 2010, 21:36:23 UTC 10 years ago

You mean... you mean .... this is it?

It's all over. No use going on. Goodbye cruel world.

wtf

February 9 2010, 21:39:03 UTC 10 years ago

reed up poast; yr sopose to be enspyerd. karey awn.

may the road rise with you momus

February 9 2010, 23:34:15 UTC 10 years ago

a) It occurs to me that if I could steal your new assistant away from you and get her to marry me, then she would become Countess Maria Wolonski-Vronsky. And that would be cool.

b) you look like Doctor Octopus in the second photo :)

c) You were, are, and always will be my beloved hero momus. It has been an honor and a pleasure. My brain, and my heart, will miss you dearly.

d) So I have been mourning your coming demise these past few months, lighting candles and wearing the long black veil, but I have come to the conclusion that I should probably just accept that Click Opera -- though certainly not forgotten -- is underground forever now, dead and buried. And all that is left to do, is dance on its digital grave! Wearing lab coats!

Re: may the road rise with you momus

February 10 2010, 01:07:05 UTC 10 years ago

Countess Maria Wolonski-Vronsky

Ha, that sounds elegant! I think my favourite name in the whole world is "The Countess De Rola Setsuko Klossowski" (Balthus' widow).

It's been a real pleasure reading your generous and positive comments, Vronsky! I will think of their greatheartedness nourishing some other part of the world now, "somewhere becoming rain".

milky_eyes

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Meet Maria Wolonski

Hello! This is Click Opera.

Having nothing to say, no words but the words of others, I have to speak

What's not to self-love?

Error

You're all ghastly !

hairy

Funny

eXtreme newcomer

chakra and awe

post-colonial-post-marxist-post-capitalist-post-identitypolitics-post-sexist-post-post

Re: post-colonial-post-marxist-post-capitalist-post-identitypolitics-post-sexist-post-post

Re: post-colonial-post-marxist-post-capitalist-post-identitypolitics-post-sexist-post-post

In a few years, you're the boss.

Re: In a few years, you're the boss.

wtf

may the road rise with you momus

Re: may the road rise with you momus

Re: may the road rise with you momus

Hello! This is Click Opera.

Having nothing to say, no words but the words of others, I have to speak

What's not to self-love?