Archives for April 2009

Tell us what you really think. Voting closes Friday!

UPDATE: Though the comments you leave in the “Other” field do not show up publicly, they are being logged. I’ll post those next week when the poll closes.

During one of my first panels here at the Conference on World Affairs, someone in the audience threw out the idea that perhaps society was crawling so far up into our technology that we were losing the ability to interact on old-fashioned, face-to-face terms. Were we doomed? Sounds like a reasonable fear, but considering even just the people I’ve met at this conference so far, in reality nothing seems further from the truth.

Selfishly, I report that I am having an amazing time up here in the mountains of Boulder. From the charming UC sophomore who gamely picked me up from the airport in the middle of the night to the gracious family that has opened their lovely home to me this week, to the scores and scores of amazing speakers and planners and attendees with their insightful, daring questions, this has been an experience I’ll be turning over in my mind for a long, long while. In session after session I’m forced to both re-evaluate what I think and incorporate ideas I would never normally even come into contact with because that’s how these people play “conference panel”. There’s a topic title (no description–that’s open to interpretation) and three or four panelists from all sorts of backgrounds. Then, the moderator shouts go and we are off. And man can we talk.

During my time so far, some over-arching themes have started to emerge. The world is in a great period of recalibration–not only economically, but socially, politically, and technologically. In the technology sphere, media creators (pro and amateur and combinations in between) are evolving in terms of the stories they tell and the many sophisticated methods they can now choose to use to tell them; the consumers are changing their habits and standards right along side them. After a period of happy, shiny gadgetry, we’re also looking more closely at what our technology does and how it can be refined to meet our needs better. Though admittedly it may be a little scary sometimes, everything is in play, and so it is a vital time of experimentation that is best embraced rather than feared–maybe now is the time to take a lesson from the past and not jump to judgment about the evils of evolutionary change. Sometimes we might  leave behind things that are valuable, and we’ll have to learn the hard way and reincorporate what
we find we miss, but we don’t need to let that slow us down. Really, most of us are speaking internet technology as a second language, anyway, and it shows. It’s the generation coming up that will most likely truly teach us what we can do with this rocket ship.

We talk a lot about the shrinking attention span of the audience in a tone of voice that tends to imply “less sophisticated audience,” when what we’re really dealing with is the phenomenal increase in competition for people’s eyes and ears and minds. In response, we’re learning better ways to get our message across–in words, in audio, in video. Long form isn’t dead, even if it’s (arguably) a bit unfashionable at the moment. Where commercial demands force us to sacrifice what we feel is too much (smaller newspapers, commercial radio, Hollywood movies) we move to new venues (often, the internet) that provide what we need.

I’ve also been into deep conversations about the future of radio, the benefits to society presented by the economic fallout, and the evolution of women’s artistic voices, and then observed some of the more heavy-hitting political and religious panels. Strangely, and yet in another way obviously, a certain refrain followed me along: Focus on the real goals at the core of your being or your business, and let the rest fall away when it prevents you from moving towards them; do unto others as you would have done unto you. Good for commerce, good for society, and good for the soul.

Okay, the creative commons/copyright panel is tomorrow. Look out.

After watching this cover of “Creep”, I got a little nostalgic and looked up the original Radiohead video from (gasp) 1992. I listened over and over, clicking for a replay every time the last notes died away.

Part of my fascination was the emotional lockbox I had forgotten I’d left inside music that was part of my high school life. Lots of fun stuff to kick around and blow dust off of in there! But when that was over and done, something was still scratching at me. Sure it helps that Jonny Greenwood has that wounded puppy look on his face that just makes you want to flash your claws and protect him from the world, even while he rakes his own against his guitar. But sonically, the song is all fish hooks, attractive in the most base sense, which isn’t about beauty or cool so much as how it holds itself–immediate and raw and temptingly close. That’s what I heard, anyway. Think back and recall the sounds that spoke most to you when the adult you’d become started waking up inside you.

“Creep” makes a basic and fast and easy connection, and I don’t mean to hold it up as any kind of musical ideal or goal. It’s just what got me thinking. A lot of us who talk about art feel a need to push whatever we presume falls into the entertainment category into the wastebasket, or at least keep it isolated in the junk food drawer. We tend to get protective of the line drawn between because it’s art that’s “teaching us something profound about how to be human”. Great art as Bible or something. “Creep” would not make the cut using the definitions we are taught; it probably wouldn’t for me if I had only just heard the track for the first time today. But whether you’re 15 or 50, you don’t necessarily go looking to the Western canon for guidance. You look and read and listen, and when you’re hunting for some deeper understanding of yourself and your world and your messed up head, you sometimes find it in places like this and discover something that sticks with you for a long time after, making it art in every sense of the word, no, even if it’s only for you, only for a little while?

I’m off to Boulder on Sunday to serve as a panelist for the 61st Annual Conference on World Affairs (April 6-10)! I know! Why the hell would they have asked me?!?

Public speaking makes me incredibly nervous, so usually when people are kind enough to invite me to sit on panels and suchlike, my first thought is how to graciously get out of it. But then I tend to find the people and the topics so damn interesting I just can’t resist (this also explains how I’ve been talked into a few New Year’s Eve parties, but that’s a story for another time).

How I ended up with an airline ticket to Colorado, however, is pretty much the same story writ large. The Conference on World Affairs sounds like summer camp for intellectuals–big idea discussions on “the arts, media, science, diplomacy, technology, environment, spirituality, politics, business, medicine, human rights, and so on.” Plus, once I found out that Molly Ivins used to go every year, there was no way I was going to miss the chance. They said they were interested in me because of the whole “writing and music and internet” thing going down around me. Does anyone smell copyright debate and conversations about new media in the air?

Yesterday, however, I read the bios of my fellow panelists and seriously started to sweat. These are some major league heavy hitters. Will I sound foolish?

Okay, deep breath–enough with the whining. Here’s hoping I can string my words together in an interesting fashion and add something to the conversation. The entire event is massive: some 200 panels, plenaries, and performances. I’ll try and report in while I’m there. If you see anything in the line-up you’d like some vicarious eyes on, let me know. And if you know of any good coffee shops I can hide out in if I embarrass myself, let me know about those, too.