DMOZ, once the Open Directory Project. This curated index of the amateur web, amongst many other things, is exactly what I sought (and what I’d forgotten I knew, embarrassingly).

I’ve been dipping my toe in their home page index for the last few hours. As is usual with anything amateur, there’s a great deal of drivel and broken links. Browsing this index is like browsing record shops in 1977 London; in among those rushed out garage singles (thank you Desperate Bicycles) are un–lied–about delights. Here are a couple of gleams: Paul Kohl’s Vietnam poems; Brandon Harris’s blog (no relation, but I was looking at the surname). I’ve a lot more dipping to do.

I’ve decided to post reviews of interesting things I find on the DMOZ. There are three themes:
 — Online poets;
 — Amateur photographers;
 — Home pages.

Indeed, I so like the DMOZ that I’ve appended a link to most arts & ego pages.