XOXO made me go to Portland for the first time ever. After seven years in the Bay Area hearing how Portland is supposed to rock, my actual knowledge of the city was pretty much limited to having watched every episode of Portlandia ever. Which is both a whole lot and very little.
Let’s start with the most futile of things: the weather. We were prepared for a week-end of good weather and were told this was unusual but it turned out absolutely fantastic. Not a cloud in sight, temperatures in the 90’s and evenings warm enough that, unlike SF, you can comfortably walk around without carrying a light sweater (wink if you recognize where this reference came from).
I’ve been paying regular visits to Trouble Coffee in the past few months and I find there are some troubling similarities between Judah and Portland. Fewer people in the street, a generally calm and soothing environment, older and shorter buildings, odd commerces and, in the case of Judah, a poorer population than the rest of SF. Judah has always felt to me like it’s refused to play catch up with the other neighborhoods in the city.
Portland kinda felt the same – as if it had stayed stuck between the 70’s and 2020. It’s spread out, very green, the homes appear large and comfy. XOXO could not have happened in an evironment like SF, it’s really at home in Portland. The stereotypes are what they: very true and not quite accurate at the same time. But I wouldn’t say I found the city weird. It’s not entirely welcoming either but I think the fact that we pressed to go to as many places as we could in a limited time contributed to that feeling. I want to go back and take the time to spend a few days exploring the city on a bike.
Either way, it’s still nice to find a town in which there is a real old-school arcade. It almost felt like I had to steal yet another dollar from my father’s wallet to play TMNT. Also worth a visit: a book store so big that you can lose yourself in it. Restaurants and food places are plentiful and we made the best of it:
It’s a little hard to explain XOXO to the people who ask you about it before you’re headed there. This year was my first and I realize I’m not any better at explaining what it is after having attended it. Luckily, Casey Newton does it better, so I can spend a bit more time explaining how it felt:
There are those times and places where all the things in the universe align and you leave with a blissful high and the hope that it will happen again. The ALC is one of those things that I’ve experienced before – people call it the ‘love bubble’. XOXO is like my non-cycling love bubble, and I’m starting to get withdrawal symptoms just two days after it ended.
- Erin McKean talked. She just talked and nothing more was needed. Only listening to her was enough – her words picked meticulously, her phrasing to the point and impeccable diction. She talked about her parasite son and how it’s possible to tell people to go to hell and still get them to enjoy the ride.
- Justin Hall talked about his past 20 years of having a personal website where he writes about his life and how the increasingly broad distribution and his relationships have changed the way he writes and the content he shares.
- Rachel Binx talked about the financial and mental toll of being independent
- Darius Kazemi spent 20 minutes fucking up with everyone’s brain, then did it again. He wins the conference part of XOXO.
- Anita Sarkeesian’s was the one I expected the most and the double standing ovation it received from the crowd made me quite cheerful.
Much of my time in the evenings was spent hanging out at Holocene. Pomplamosse put out a mad show – a lot more raw than I expected it to be. I mistakenly jumped on stage at what I thought was a request from Jack Conte, jammed there for half a minute then quietly stepped down in shame. Nerf Herder played the Buffy theme, which they only did because everyone expected them to and which lasted all of 45 seconds. They retweeted me, and the bass player started following me, and now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go and try my luck seducing Rosemarie DeWitt.
The Andys were very clear that XOXO isn’t meant to naturally repeat itself. This isn’t a tech conference, this barely is a conference. If I had to define it, XOXO is a deliberate attempt at getting incredibly talented and somewhat introvert people to spend as much time as possible waiting in line for their breakfast sandwich, and hoping they will start chatting. By that definition, it was a full success.
Drawing an honest map of Louisiana is proving more difficult than ever before. The state is essentially sinking: it has lost 1900 square miles of land over the past 80 years, and is projected to lose another 1750 in the next 50:
“Louisiana has perhaps the most complex coastline of any state in the union. It’s not just a coastline but a coastal zone that has many inland lakes that are part of coastal change,” said Snead. “Any map you make of the Louisiana coast is obsolete the day you make it. It’s an exercise in futility.”
Louisiana Loses Its Boot by William Widmer is a remarkable deep dive into the world of cartography in the wake of the global sea-level rising and the transition from paper to digital media.