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
