About

Hello.

I don’t regret buying TonyCliff.com. If I hadn’t, someone else would have, except they probably wouldn’t be named “Tony Cliff”, and they’d charge me an arm and a leg just to get it back.

I do, however, feel extremely self-conscious about using TonyCliff.com to host this website. There’s something very… phoney about it. It feels like the inter-net equivalent of buying space in a mall and erecting a big sign over the doorway saying “TONY CLIFF”. When people enter the “store”, I would tell them a bit about myself and maybe show them some drawings. Hosting this site feels as absurd as setting up that storefront would be amongst the other usual mall-trappings. (The inter-net does feature the wonderful ability to easily right-click and steal anything you like, though).

However, such a website name also makes good sense. If I were to meet you on the street, and for some reason I felt compelled to tell you about some animation I did, I would probably say, “go to my website! Here is its address!” Assuming you choose to remember my name, you have also (whether intentionally or not) remembered my website address. Such would likely not be the case if I had chosen a domain name such as “artbrainz.net” or “crayonexcitement.com” or “goodscribbles.ca”. Of course, these examples also prove that I am rubbish at thinking up website names.

Let’s say that when we met I decided not to trust your ability to remember me, Tony Cliff. I write you a note, reminding you to look at my ham-fisted scrawlings. Instead of having to write out my name AND a website address (potentially on two pieces of paper, as my writing is quite large and frequently sloppy), I am able to conserve ink and paper by merely giving you my website address! I think we can agree that sort of conservation is important in these ecologically sensitive times. On the other hand, run-on paragraphs like these — that are composed of inter-net particles — have no measureable impact on the environment, and so I may sprinkle them liberally across this page.

Impostors.

If you have ever Googled the term “Tony Cliff” (as I do each morning), you will have noticed that there is, in fact, more than one person going by that name. Not all of these people are impostors.

In fact, very many of the Tony Cliffs that you may encounter during your lifetime are real, genuine Tony Cliffs. I, for example, am one of them. I occupy three dimensions in Vancouver, British Columbia, and I have parents. I even have a birth certificate showing that the Government of Canada recognizes me, Tony Cliff, to be a human being.

There is one Tony Cliff, however, who is a definite impostor. His real name was Yigael Gluckstein, and “Tony Cliff” was one of a few pen names he used when publishing his Trotskyist literature. This Wikipedia article has much more information.

I am neither in support of nor opposed to any of Yigael Gluckstein’s beliefs or writings in any way. To be honest, I have intentionally avoided learning anything about either. Not that that’s important. What’s important is that he hijacked the Tony Cliff name with little to no consideration as to how it would affect me and my Google PageRank.

Admittedly, I am open to the suggestion that Mr. Gluckstein did not adopt his nom de plume specifically to inconvenience me. Very few people can legitimately see into the future. And if he did have that ability, I am mostly certain that Mr. Gluckstein would have used it to bet on horses as opposed to demoting my inter-net relevance.

At this point, you might be wondering, “How can I help to correct this injustice?” Fortunately, the answer is simple. Do you have a website? Perhaps you could include a link to TonyCliff.com from it. Preferably above the header.

If you don’t have a website, but partake in online forums, you could add a link to TonyCliff.com in your forum signature. Bright, flashy banners are even better. If the forum does not enforce a size limit on banners, I have noticed dimensions of roughly 1920×1080 to be very eye-catching. Animated GIFs are broadly associated with a heightened sense of class.

Most importantly (especially if your surname is Cliff), if you are having a baby or are thinking of having a baby, consider naming your child anything except “Tony Cliff”. “Tony” is generally a unisex name, so if you are planning to have a girl and you absolutely must name her “Tony”, please consider the more appropriate “Toni” spelling form. For both genders, one of my favorite names has always been “Yigael”.

Heads-up!

I would like to thank both Luc Latulippe and John Martz for their all the help they gave me while designing this site!

This website is powered by Wordpress. The template was cobbled together mostly from scratch, though many pieces were borrowed and/or stolen from the default Wordpress theme, Utom’s U4 theme, and Nalin Makar’s HemmingwayEX.

It also features the delicious “FancyZoom” from the delightful and obviously very talented Cabel at Panic Software.