Links about... Jackie O.

Reinforced by a media frenzy of florid phrases and treacly sentiment over her 1994 death, zipping through cyberspace in search of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was, as they say, a trip. Sadly, I did not find what I was hoping for: tacky websites dedicated to Jackie devotion. Actually, let me re-phrase that: tackiness abounds in many of these places but none of it as campy as I hoped.

The bulk of the links I surfed were pretty bland -- umpteen copies of her will are circulated, and the most interesting place I found it is on a "Wills on the Web" site where you can also read what Walt Disney bequeathed to whom (and maybe discover who "William Beadles" is). There are also several biography pages on Jackie, including an official White House puff piece as well as A&E's short history on her.

Videophiles will note that a video cassette of A&E's "Biography" series segment on the former First Lady can be purchased for $24.98.

Predictably, Jackie's estate auction at Sotheby's garners the most references. You can browse have the entire roster of collectibles, while USA Today also runs a complete auction list. Time magazine muses over the meaning of it all in "What Price Camelot?".

Sotheby's is not the only selling Jackie to the public, though. San Francisco's Gest Jewels would like you to view Jackie's pearls; New York real estate listings apparently place a high value on property with proximity of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir (!); collectors hawk old issues of LOOK magazine with the Kennedys on the covers; and you can even buy some of those grainy paparazzi photos of Jackie swimming topless off the isle of Skorpios. Of course, when it comes to putting a price on Jackie, no one did it better than a little girl named Elizabeth, whom Jackie befriended and with whom she corresponded. No sooner did Jackie buy the farm than Elizabeth turns around and sells off her stuff. After reading that page, the less self-serving titled "Dead People Server" site at seemed positively noble, which sort of makes up for the baffling two-paragraph page on Bouvier dogs.

The books reviewed in this week's Chronicle article are also available through their publishers' sites: USA Today covers Jackie Under My Skin but Simon & Schuster's All Too Human site really hits paydirt. Not only is the site well-designed but the links are great! Assassination buffs will want to jump to http://users.southeast.net/~cheryl/jfk.html and then link to http://www.thuntek.net/~rharris/shot-2/article.html for Zapruder stuff, bullet entry diagrams, and more. There are also graphic photos of John Kennedy's bullet wounds from the autopsy. Thank you -- I believe this is just the site to make me quit!

The best part about searching for websites, however, is the ones rejected when looking for a particular subject. While looking for info on "Jackie," I turned up a page from the American River Natural History Association on "Jackie the Fawn" and on an elementary school student named Jackie Kerber.

The entire text of Jackie Kerber's page is as follows:

Hi my name is Jackie. I live in Arlington-Green Isle. I go to Sibley Elementary School. I have one brother and one sister. I have brown hair and eyes. My favorite subject is Math. I want to be a secretary when I grow up. In the summer I go swimming, but that's not very often because I live in the country. I like writing about stuff that makes people get very excited.

Kinda warms your heart, doesn't it?

-- Margaret Moser