YxYY, Year One

The seed of the idea
I first heard about a friend
Who thought I looked like I needed it
Came out of disaffection for an event
grown too large
too self-involved
too sure of itself

to have meaning

What if you took all the good stuff
distilled the essence of all the good experiences you missed
and poured that into one place
then told all the people you always hoped you’d run into
to come there,
far away, in the desert,
beyond obligation
Just for a long weekend
a weekend too short

Just to be

Just to be, with others who also wanted to be

To be children again

Away from jobs and titles
Away from business opportunities
Away from striving
Away from fear

Away from the alienation that a hyperconnected world breeds
unaware of its own inherent irony

What would happen if
Only if

If only 5 good women would come together to heal the world
and put on a show
where 400 of their closest friends
(some unknown to them prior)
could come, and share, and just be

And remind us not to forget childish things
And remind us that the being is in being

together

with like-inspired people
each separately minded
with much to share

in a space where magically
there is no fear
there is no other
there is only

intimacy

The intimacy of an old friend

The abilitiy to be naked, without shame, in ourselves as they are

and, just as on a long forgotten playground
we once asked,
“What’s your name?”
“Do you want to play? I’m making a castle.”


Why do we forget?
What is it about this strange becoming we call adulthood
that makes us close to others, to armor
And take those castles of childhood,
the ones we know from fairy tales
And remodel them into fortresses
like real castles are
full of fortifications and battlements
meant to keep out prying eyes
and secure ourselves
in maddening isolation
unsatisfyingly defended
Safe
from any incursion
from any human touch
from wonder

I guess it’s no surprise.
The adult world brings with it struggles for power
struggles for control
struggles for dominance
The day to day struggle to satisfy basic needs

The children we were
The children of middle class affluence
We were sheltered
We did not have to wonder where our next meal was coming from.

But neither do we now.

And yet, we persist in operating in worlds of scarcity that only exist in our minds.

Why do we hold on to our alienation?
Why do we hold onto our fear?

Of connecting…

Why do we construct a world where such fears are warranted?

Here, they were not.
Together we wove a community
of trust
of honesty

Immune to the few who didn’t quite get it, or see what was happening.

Hakim Bey has his model of a temporary autonomous zone.
And in this nutrient rich environment, a new entity flourished,
Through the benefits of a hyperconnected space
Filled with calls of,

“Wait, how can you not know her already?”

“I haven’t seen you in 15 years.
…And it feels like no time has passed.”

“How can you possibly not know each other already?”

“We must do this again. Every day from now on.”

And as the miles stretched out below the jet plane
As we returned to our everyday lives

There lingered…

Something very special.
A newly discovered or rediscovered portion of ourselves.

And a connection shared.


We now must watch and see
How the corrosive forces of quotidian existence claw at us
And whether we truly can hold the space

Between us

I know we can, but will we?

I hope we will.

Another South By

Another South By in the can.

The blur of ethanol, the madding crowd

The alienation of multitudes

Bad music lauded

Good music ignored

        Talked Over

                All to share

                        a banal insight

                        garnered from

                a mediocre talk

        more pitch than provocation

more aggrandizement than analysis

A failure

                of the wisdom of crowds

Or the occasional amazing transformative insight

        from someone who

                against all odds

                        came to share a passion

                        that the panel picker popularity spectrometer

                failed to suck dry

                        or perhaps who

                                at the last moment

                        filled in for a sick friend

                                or was pulled into a panel as an easy mark

                        to provide texture

And instead provided

                                  perspective:

           a point of view

                                  that for once

                                                          pointed

                                                                            Outward.

And whom should we find

        in the trenches

        of hormone warfare

        among the barricades

        of Sixth Street

But

        a friend

        from long ago

        whom we discover

        has been living

        for five years now

        two blocks away, in the mission,

        and walks her dog

                in Precita Park

                        like us

                impossibly, minutely out of phase

Then, in line at the Mohawk

        another

        that same friend we saw

                two years ago at Stubb’s

        when we swore

                to spend more time together

                        back home in SF

And whom

                        we haven’t seen…

but once

        at a conference

                in Tokyo

                        on a panel, which we shared.

There is a reason

                we find our people

        at South By

I think it’s that Temporary Autonomous Zone

We create there

        Together

                Unwitting

The Enterprise Edition of Burning Man

In a desert devoid of cabs

In the corporate gift economy

Of freely flowing booze and banners and branded USB keys

With huggable firefoxes and Curious George

        and the odd Xtra Normal cat

It’s the space find

        at the center of the maelstrom

The space we make

        In our lives

                Unwittingly

To be together

As people

        in an NDA Free Zone

                beyond companies and agendas

Where we set aside four days

        and the hard core come for 6

Just to be

        together

Beyond our obligations

To brand and company