I've been kicking it at Tokion's Creativity Now conference this weekend, and so far it's been disappointing. All of the discussions today have been meandering and pointless, with nearly every panelist (apart from Cory Arcangel) seemingly to the oblivious to the explosion of creativity that's taking place online right now, with few insights into where the real energy is today. It's as if the past five years of the internet never happened. Not that there aren't tons of smart, interesting people at the conference; it's just that most of them are in the audience, not up on stage.
One other thing I couldn't help but notice: this is the first conference I've been to in years where there isn't a single laptop out -- no one in the audience is blogging anything that's going on. I suppose that's fitting.
Alright, I can't be the only one who was disappointed with last night's episode of Lost. The first five minutes or so weren't bad, but the rest of the episode was just a meandering mess. I can forgive the occasional drab episode in the middle of February -- it's hard to keep the momentum going for 23 straight episodes -- but they sort of have an obligation to nail the season premiere if they expect people to stay interested and keep watching, don't they? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll pick it up and move the plot forward over in the next couple of episodes.
Just got back yesterday from my trip to Boston and Cambridge, my first in nearly five years.
The next day Jill and I trekked around Harvard Square to visit some old haunts, including my old dorm. Amazingly enough, it turned out this kid Sean Li who came to the event lives next door to my old room!
Next up was a trip to In Your Ear records (a very High Fidelity-esque record store where I used to work - best job I ever had), and then to WHRB, the college radio station where I DJ'd and worked first as the general manager and then as music director.
Later that afternoon we took the T to Kendall Square to meet up with Jamie Zigelbaum, who gave us a tour of the MIT Media Lab. We got a sneak peek at some of the crazy new stuff they're working on, but since it was just an informal visit I wasn't allowed to blog anything. We spent the rest of the afternoon geeking out with MIT comp-sci professor Erik Demaine, who showed us around the new-ish Frank Gehry building where he works and then took us to see that dorm Steven Holl designed. There's a good chance you've read about Erik. Besides being one of the nicest, smartest, most interesting persons I've ever met, Erik's also the youngest professor in MIT history (he landed the job at the ripe old age of 20) and the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant. He's also an OQO user, so you can guess why we got along.