Goodbye Austin: End of SXSW
Wherein we discuss my future with this event…
Space Shuttle Challenger: 22 years ago today
Today is the anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. On January 28, 1986, NASA’s 25th space mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In the crew of seven astronauts, 4 were women and minorities and for the first time, one, a New Hampshire school teacher named Christa McAuliffe, was to be the first civilian in space.
73 seconds after takeoff, the craft exploded over the Atlantic Ocean. There were no survivors.
That evening, President Reagan was to give the State of the Union Address. He instead went on television from the Oval Office and spoke of the tragedy.
There’s a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." (full text)
Two years ago, on this day, I wrote this essay. It was a great honor to me that it was published a few days in the newspaper that had given me my first job, the Baltimore Sun.
It was 20 years ago this week that my generation, the Xers of slacking, hip-hop and dot com foolery stopped being children. Many of us, including myself, were in junior high, others still played in sandboxes on that freezing clear morning in January of 1986. But just as my parents had seen the promise of their generation “born in this century, tempered by war” cut down by gunfire in Dallas, my own had seen the hopes of President Kennedy’s “new frontier” extinguished in a horrific plume of flame off the coast of Florida .
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster served the first memory of national mourning for those of us born too late for Vietnam and Kent State, too young to remember President Nixon’s resignation. I wasn’t sent home from school early, as my mother was in November of 1963 but did spend that day, as she did, in front of the television with my family. Later at school and for weeks afterward, any discussion of the Challenger began with the same question: “When were you when you heard?”
We use that question not only find comfort in collective grief but to pinpoint a generation’s understanding of itself. “Where were you when” makes us both witnesses to history and characters in a chapter of its passing. It forces us to accept our own story as part of a larger national tale, where children raised on the space-bound dreams of Star Wars can see a real life launch go horribly wrong and where a school teacher, just like ours, can touch the sky with her whole community watching and never come home.
Looking back, Crista McAuliffe and her crewmates were a window into the social concerns of our future. Over half the Challenger crew were women and minorities, paving the way for our national dialogue on diversity. McAuliffe’s presence, a civilian representative on a government mission hinted at later struggles over what levels of participation and accountability citizens would expect in national affairs. Most of all, the destruction of the Challenger rang a symbolic death knell on the fundamentalism of the Cold War into which we had been born. It showed that even our nation’s largest achievements could be undone by something as mundane as an “O-Ring” and that we, like the Soviets, like everyone, were both human and flawed.
It’s possible to accept that generational divides are both the invention of marketers and useful tools in distinguishing the disciples of Lil’ Jon from those of John Lennon. They also stave off our own feelings of irrelevancy as we become the adults mystified about "kids these days".
At their best, generation do the same work as maturity: To help us feel part of a history larger than our own.
It would be years before America would mourn collectively again, years before Oaklahoma City and the death of John Kennedy Jr, before Columbine and September 11. By then, my peers were in their 20s and 30s, ending school, starting careers and families. I remember where I was on each of those days, just as I remember the Space Shuttle Challenger and 7th grade Spanish period. Our teacher, well known around school for not speaking English during class, tried to explain what had happened, making imaginary plumes of flame with her hands, drawing a fireball on the chalkboard, hoping the barrier of language would lessen the impact. But when she broke down and told us, it was too late. We had grown up anyway.
Last Post of 2007:
In reading my last post of 2006 just a few minutes ago, I noticed how battered I seemed this time a year ago, proud I was still standing, but not eager to repeat any part of the previous 12 months. Not one day of it. I had hoped and predicted to 2007 would be a year of "bold aventures, impending opportunities, limitless possibility."
And so it has been. This year I started a company, wrote two book proposals, traveled far and saw much. I deepened relationships with old friends and family and made new ones. I learned about classical music and theater, about what my city and country can and will do to shape its destiny. I ran eight miles without stopping. I fell in love.
I am never sad to see a year go because, if I’ve done my job living wisely and well, it will have prepared me for the year to come and I have no regrets. But as I write this, after watching an achingly beautiful sunset, my woman across the table from me on her own laptop, I feel just a little bit sad. Because in a decade or so, I will have looked back at 2007 as the year where so much of what now treasure was first born.
But that’s for then. Tonight I will spend a quiet night at home enjoying the last bundle of hours of our joint vacation. Next week’s for laying out the 2008 game plan, reflecting on new possibilities and second chances. Then it’s back to work, a new president, new projects, more ways of looking at our world. A new year.
I believe we are in fact offered this every day if we choose to take advantage of it. New Year’s Eve is just the global reminder that such redemption exists, and belongs to each of us.
So goodbye 2007. Thank you for what you have shown me. In return I promise to use it to guide me forward into 2008 and see the bounty of this past year with wisdom, respect and profound gratitude.
Straight on ’till morning….
Pac Man Meets Super Mario Brothers:
Word has it that this video was put together, all 691 frames of it, one frame at a time. That’s like stringing beads blindfolded (via Coin-Op TV).
R.I.P Homework…
I care what this article actually says. I’m interpreting it as homework is a relic of an educational past. I’ll be keeping an eye out for schools with a similar philosophy when my future kids (if they exist) are ready to be placed in school.
Any parents out there? What do you think?
A little about Mr. Dressup:
I was thinking some about Mr. Dressup today and came across the video below. It’s silly but actually quite sad.
Mr. Dressup aka Ernie Combs passed away in 2001, after 30 years of entertaining kids (including this one) on his eponymous show.
Life’s Little Nihilisms:
Ever wish you were whom you used to be?
A “Whole New Generation”
When I was 10, I had no idea I was "a whole new generation." But I think that idea’s pretty cool.
10 Things I Learned at SXSW 2007:
Background: I’ve been attending the South by Southwest Interactive Festival since 2000 and as a featured speaker since 2003. This year I decided to go to my ninth conference just as an attendee. South by Southwest was held March 9-18 in Austin, Texas.
Here’s what I learned….
1. In the Hall of the Giants: Rumor has it South by Southwest Interactive has grown 200% in attendee population in 2005, outselling the SXSW Film Festival for the first time in their collective histories. Each official event and most of the off-schedule jamborees had corporate sponsors and an always-on tap of free drinks. The after-parties had after parties. Panels were held on Being John Malkovich floors of the convention center I never knew existed. It took three hours to get a table at lunch.
Forget having to explain to your friends back homethat South by Southwest Interactive isn’t the same as South by Southwest Music. Them days are over. SXSWi has arrived. Its now the Sundance of New Media.
2. Which alters the attendee experience, probably forever. SXSWi is no longer one conference where everyone largely attends the same pool of events. It’s now a swaying mobile of mini conferences where you hear a week later that your mother attended and played Legos with Wil Wright, but you’d have never known because you never saw her. Panels scattered about the convention center means everyone doesn’t file down the same hallway to make lunch plans. Competing night events means you may go to one party and stay simply because you’ve lost your convoy. Most sadly, agendas now seem to be set by the tagline on your business card. Designers stick with designers, coders with each other, the rest in floating huddles. It seems like the only way to get a handle on the enormity of it all is to seek out familar faces. Surprise and spontaneity are a luxury now.
The frontier has closed, the west has been settled. How long before there’s a geek version of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, complete with and 56K modems to romanticize an era long gone?
Keynote speaker Kathy Sierra began her presentation by asking the audience to group itself into three categories: Designers, coders and money people. As one of the “others” I stayed in my chair and shrugged. SXSW was formally a conference of “others” where engineers learned from english majors after drinking with lawyers and arguing with artists. That still exists, mostly in groups of friends who already knew one another, but it is an increasing rarity. Now reasons attendees come to Austin are practical: To network, get funded, to hang out with old friends, to drink.
3. I’m not bitter. No, really. You want what you love to succeed. And I have loved SXSW for the better part of a decade. Demanding it remain exactly how I first enjoyed it is selfish. Change is inevitable. The people I admire most accept change, evolve or don’t but make a thoughtful decision and don’t rag on yours. Asking for nothing to change then whining when it does is being a spoiled brat. And my mother raised me better than that.
Now that doesn’t mean I was all higglety pigglety about everything. On more than one occasion (usually after getting stranded in the rain or waiting 2 hours for a plate of migas), I was ready grab the next flight back to California. But that’s a child’s instinct, running home with my football because I didn’t get to play quarterback. Instead I drew on how I felt last summer, standing for 9 hours in the Chicago sun, during Lollapalooza.
“You chose to do this,” I told my aching feet and sweaty eyebrows. “Being momentarily uncomfortable does not make it a bad choice. You’ll only enjoy the rewards of your choice if you accept it and go from there.”
4. Hard choices. I discovered by about day 3 that a) It’s impossible to see/do everything that sounds interesting b)Even offered the choice to do everything is a kind of paralysis and c) Personally, I’d rather have meaningful interactions with 10 people than shallow 2 minute conversations with 100. This means there are people I love, attending the same conference as me, with whom who I cannot spend time. That sucks. It means I’ll be spending even more on airfare this year to see them all. Which doesn’t suck so much. It just is. It means that a giant media-rootie-kazootie is not perhaps the best place to link souls.
5. Where to look. Keep your eye on online video (Thank you gabillion dollar YouTube buyout), green technology (thank you Al Gore) and politics (thank you 2008 election) as spaces to watch for the next year. I’m sure there was more but can’t see how to document treeing my accessibility or pimping my GUi or kerning my Helvetica or whatever else you smarter people do, will effect the larger world in the same way.
6. Into the Heart. The soul of the conference, for me at least, remains the activities I do year after year (without Fray Cafe and 20×2, without dinner at the Castle Hill, plan on finding me at Coffee to the People next March) and the quality time I spend with people I admire and respect. I may not leave with a fabulous new idea every year but warmth of the interaction (including family) more than makes up for it.
It helps that Austin, even after moving away seven years ago, feels like a second home. I’d like to make a point of coming back at least one more time during the year.
7. Three ways. For the first time, I felt as though SXSW was three conferences. I had friends in town for just Interactive, just Film, just Music and several combinations I hadn’t considered. Each is its own experience. The days I enjoyed most are when I had a plan to do everything, did a little bit of everything that felt natural and gave myself time in between to eat, talk and get talked into doing something else.
8. Spore is going to set the world on its ear. It may be the excuse I’ve been looking for to upgrade iMacs.
9. Coming Home. Plan of action for all future Home-From-SXSW Re-Entries: Bring home as little media as possible, use available tools for exploring things missed at the festival, return emails and phone calls quickly, tell friends and family have arrived home safely, get good night’s sleep and non-Hush Puppy accompanied meal asap.
Re: Stack of magazines, Tivoed shows and podcasts the height of a city bus, declare bankruptcy.
10. Everything changes and nothing does. I was 25 when I started coming to SXSW, a bored, lonely graduate student with too much time and nowhere useful to put it. The Internet had hit its first stride. Google was a baby. Podcasting, vlogging and World of Warcraft were like flying cars.
I’m 33 now, a published author, a home and cat owner, less tough but happier now. I probably can’t hit 6 parties in an evening and know I don’t want to. That’s ok. I might have my kids to tend to one year like my friend Mike did. I’ll adjust and still make room for the things that matter most: Learning, growth, time with people I love and spring in a place that’s grown on me the longer I’ve been away.
This year was about acceptance. SXSW is bigger than any of us old timers had imagined it could be. That isn’t going to change. But this once intimate now enormous conference isn’t saying “go away” but rather “find your place.” The joy is no longer in collective experience but the one you make for yourself. That isn’t any less valuable, just different.
Beyond that, if you want to know why I keep coming back to Austin the second week of March every year, look at the masthead of the World Changing blog. It says “Another World is Here.”
Every year at SXSW, I live in this message. The future we not only dream of but want is attainable. In many ways, it’s already here. And it’s not being decided in corporate board rooms or the halls of Congress but here, amongst smart people with laptops who believe that good ideas can live without excluding good values or making a good living.
Isn’t that the adult world we dreamed of as children? One where work wasn’t necessary druggery but both allowed us to live comfortably and aid in the coming of a better world? One that wasn’t either or but both?
There is such optimism in Austin every spring. Despite the crowds, the noise, the gigantism of it all, the hope I feel sustains me for months afterword.
I had my doubts after 2006 whether I would be back. But when I am honest with myself, I can’t imagine being anywhere else in March of 2008 and beyond that. Even if it’s only for a few parties and a late night plate of migas, I will be back next year.
See you then, if not before.
Goodbye 2006:
2006 has been one difficult year: heartbreak, loss, professional reevaluation, family health scares. It’s also been one of bold aventures, impending opportunities, limitless possibiltiy and friends old and new. In spite of that mixed blessing, I am not sad to see it go.
But ya know what? I’m still here, battered, wounded but wiser. Ten months ago, all I could think about was how I would whether this enormous loss and still be me. Today all I can think about was how I did. Tonight I’ll be in the company of friends and loved ones. Tomorrow is, as a wise boy and tiger once put it, a “big white sheet of paper to draw on…The world looks brand new…A day full of possibilities.”
I’ve got big plans for it which I’ll discuss later. For now, I’m thinking about that phrase “when the student is ready, the master appears.” The other day I heard a song which grabbed everything I’m feeling in 4 proud minutes.
“Please don’t ask me how.
I’m doing what I’m doing now.
It just all makes sense somehow.
Let’s go back and start again.
Where you going, where you’ve been?
Seats for the wall flowers and their friends.
Who turned out angels in the end.”
–“Angels in the End” by The Good Sons
Welcome home 2007. I’ve been expecting you.