Originally posted August 6, 1997
Hello, rookery sibs. Welcome to the new home of The Aerie.
As you probably recall, for a short while it looked as if The Aerie was going to be no more. The original creator of the site, Constance "Eilonwy" Cochran, was planning to shut it down for reasons she explained in a previous announcement.
Well, to paraphrase Mark Twain, "The report of The Aerie's death was an exaggeration."
The Aerie was one of the first "Gargoyles" sites I came across when I started surfing the net last year, and it's been a favorite of mine ever since. I just couldn't bear to see it lost forever, so I did something completely insane that I will probably regret for the rest of my life: I wrote to Constance and volunteered to take it over. She was delighted by my offer, calling it "a brilliant and stunning idea," and promptly handed The Aerie over to me, "lock, stock, and gargoyle."
So here we are. Hopefully, things look pretty much the same as they did before I packed everything in boxes, threw them in the back of a U-Haul, and shipped them over from Earthlink to their new location here at America Online. I don't think anything got broken during the move, either, but if you happen to find a bad link hiding under some discarded newspaper somewhere, please let me know.
And don't think that everything's just going to stay the same forever, either. While I plan to maintain the look and format of the site, I'm also planning on having it grow, as well. There will be more poetry and more top ten lists. There will be lots more filk as plans to expand the 1997 Gathering Filkbook into a comprehensive "Gargoyles" filk archive unfold. The links page will continue to grow, and a new "favorite episode poll" will be coming soon to replace the old one.
In short, The Aerie is alive and well. And with a little the help from the fans, it will be growing, too. So send in your "Gargoyles" poetry, your filks, and especially your top-ten lists. And feel free to send in your comments and suggestions for ways to make The Aerie better, as well. As the new Guardian of the Aerie, I look forward to seeing this site become even better than it already is.
Many thanks to Constance for entrusting me with The Aerie, and thanks to all the fans who have supported The Aerie in the past and who I know will continue to do so in the future.
- Patrick Toman
puck@artchicks.org