Monday, March 12, 2001

March 12, 2001

FROM THE SxSW WEB AWARDS: Take off every zig!! Halcyon, Brad, Abdul, Kottke, Veen, Haughey and all off your favorite avatars in the dance sensation that's rockin' web nation: All Your Base Are Belong to Us: SxSW Edition.

JUST GIVE ME A COUPLE OF MINUTES: I'm just back from my gig at 20x2 and it was an amazing rush! Twenty speakers, two minutes apiece, the question: "What is interactive?" The answers included a game of Twister, giant idea-bearing balloons batted back and forth, Sarah Bruner refusing to do the hula, Joe Nick delineating the old-media/new-media ways of saying "Hidy!", an impromptu music video by Seven Percent Solution composed on a "crappy PC" and, to paraphrase Andy Wang, "I'm a print guy now. I have no fucking idea."

For my part, I took two minutes to talk about really old media: the quilting bee and how it convened an interactive community of women in pioneer days, the ideal of which survives today in the spirit of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and how, in an unlikely confluence of grief and grace, it brought a father and son to common cause. In all, an invigorating way to spend a lunch hour and an event to which I'm already looking forward next year. Thanks to the Austin Interactive Marketing Association for inviting me — a lowly personal content guy — to participate!

Plenty more to tell but so little time right now. It's another full afternoon of panels and evening of parties. Coming up: animation on the Day Stage, the Her Domain mixer, the Internet Industry "Roast" and more. I wish y'all could be here! I really do. (Next best thing: Updates and photos at SXSWbaby!, including my audience with Swami Abdul.)

AND THEN SHE REACHED FOR THE TOWEL... I am far too tired to explain just now, but suffice it to say, in the minds of at least seven SXSW conferees, Katz's Deli has become synonymous with dogged determination, free cell phones, fried bread and no mushrooms, aborted mirror shots, comedy at its finest...and a great deal of moisture.