Big Conference on the Silicon Prairie
I’d rathered have been in the Silicon Hills or on the Silicon Range, but last Friday found me galloping instead from the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport toward the Hyatt Regency Dallas for the annual PBS Showcase meeting.
Determined to promote his fair city, the taxibus driver Aoman told us (my fellow passengers were two other PBSers that had also awakened at four to catch the six o’clock flight from Reagan), “This is the Big D—the hotel is big. You will see.”
So, I was prepared for a supersized city and accordingly surprised by the relatively few people I saw outside the hotel.
The Hyatt is across the street from Reunion Arena, which had held a graduation the afternoon I escaped from the over-refrigerated conference proceedings (one morning complete with bizarre chair coverings)
to find the JFK Memorial Plaza (that I decided against Plazing). This group was walking on the other side of the street,
in context, though, they were the largest group I saw, and dwarfed by the buildings.
It is slightly surreal to walk around areas like this out of world—in Second Life this would be entirely normal: buildings, landscaping, areas that look like an architecture firm’s rendering, a few token residents.
There were signs on buildings to be read,
signifying stickers,
and differAnt white marble fronts.
I walked through the live oaks (the wooden counterpart to the propane Arlington eternal flame) next to the JFK Memorial Plaza,
and reoriented myself to face Philip Johnson’s cenotaph.
I had little interest in seeing the Sixth Floor Museum (here’s the web cam from the sniper’s perch) and the decision to visit only the cenotaph seemed the best and the brightest idea that afternoon.
The air was still, and I sat entirely alone on the ground inside the memorial, looking up at the joined concrete columns that hover between the ground and sky.
I walked back to the hotel, reflecting that I should enter the hotel from a side pavillion
under the dome.
Besides being a useful landmark to help navigate the Reunion area (and looking vaguely like part of the Transformers set), the dome holds one of those slowly revolving restaurants,
with what look like erector set pieces spanning the windows,
and we managed to find our way to the differently-colored areas (hot, cold, etc.) and back to our table,
though I was confused by this dish’s signage,
and finished with heart waffles (brunch is an even odder meal in a rotating restaurant).
It was the celebrities at Showcase that could turn a girl’s head:
Dr. Joshua Green (of the CCC at MIT), who ended his Brand Masters presentation with the image that he uses for his Twitter icon (so the presenter was gesturing to the image which was staring out the audience—I’m not sure if the rest of the audience was as amused as I was by the layers of mediation),
Bill Moyers at the opening night reception,
eclipsed only by Lunar Jim,
and later in the weekend, Snook, who reminds me of the gentle Dark Crystal characters.
Snook was promoting new episodes with a karaoke singalong, and my colleagues Sara and Kim dazzled with improvisational choreography to “Fame,” that will live forever in Showcase history.
We didn’t get to Southfork, but we were able to eat with relatives of the Ewings on Saturday night at the concierge’s recommended restaurant, the Old Warsaw. A French restaurant opened by a Polish owner in 1948, the menu seems to have changed little from its original classic offerings.
The elaborate painting reflected in the mirror was between us (from left, Andrew Lee of MTV Networks, Tim Olson of KQED, Angela Morgenstern of PBSi, me, Theresa Riley of P.O.V.) and the violinists,
and I could not resist lobster thermidor on the menu.
As we left, the women were given roses, but the better example of the old-school atmosphere than the side of asparagus with hollandaise is Andrew’s picture of the lobster thermidor, which is in on his camera right before the shot of me that our server insisted taking (thinking that, of course, Andrew was trying my picture instead of the dish). I really wanted more pictures of the thermidor too.
Besides the online video panel that we brought Andrew to speak on, Interactive also sponsored a social media panel with Dave Witzel of Forum One,
Theresa Riley of P.O.V., Brendan Greeley (formerly of Open Source), and Brian Oberkirch of Small Good Thing. Angela moderated, and I ran some of the slides.
Afterwards, we went to hear Skip Gates talk about finding roots and becoming a Son of the American Revolution,
before hailing taxis to Stephan Pyles to celebrate the panel’s success (and have a bit of an impromptu lUNchconference).
From left, Silvia Lovato of PBS Kids, Tim Olson, Brendan Greeley, me, Brian Oberkirch, Angela, Dave Witzel, Theresa Riley, and Sara DeWitt of PBS Kids.
I sat next to Brendan Greeley, really liking my butternut squash gnocchi, and discovered the Public Radio Talent Quest was his idea (btw, I was allowed to resubmit my entry along with the other late entrants, which was incredibly decent of the contest organizers. Voting goes until June 2nd.)
Silvia had a very good order of salad, which was dressed at the table.
The server explained the pipettes by stating that Chef Stephan likes the dressing measurements to be precise.
The table shared a ridiculous dessert tray that included root beer float (with homemade root beer), lemon tart with berry sauce and fennel pollen ice cream (did I mention Angela let me pick the restaurant?), Star Canyon (Pyles’s previous restaurant, where Brian took a cooking class) Heaven and Hell peanut butter cake, “Coffee and Doughnuts”, and Spanish funnel cake.
Soon after lunch, I collected my luggage from the hotel and boarded a very crowded airport taxibus full of PBSers and our Showcase swag. Although it was tempting to leave some of it at the airport (the security guard sternly warned me that I had to consolidate bags), all of it made it back to the office in Crystal City.
For Cameron, the “Landscapes Through Time” hat (I think he looks FETCH!ing), a “Best of Austin City Limits” dvd, and a KERA coffee mug.
For Jen, a journal to record her impressions of Ken Burns’s “The War” (she is helping facilitate the user-generated content strategy for the program promotion),
a Mr. Rogers’s “Adventures in Friendship” dvd wrapped in a red zippered sweater that gave us our new team motto: You. Are. Special.,
and a MotorWeek keychain for her mother’s car with a hilarious vanity tag she occasionally enjoys driving to work. Jen LUVS2LAF.
For Alicia, Austrian chocolate and Zula Patrol window stickers (she’s into aliens).
Then, all three put on their new Zula Patrol bracelets and activated the blinking function on the underside,
though Jen’s blinking mechanism broke,
and Cameron’s began to cut off his circulation (I think the Zula Patrol demographic skews a bit younger anyway).
Then, I took my favorite swag, a Jane Austen action figure that I shamelessly guilted everyone for since I missed the Masterpiece Theatre lunch (thank you, Silvia), out of the package.
Fully cognizant that this may have slightly decreased her collector value, I recklessly began posing Jane as the guardian of my work area.
Even without her writing desk and Pride and Prejudice copy, Jane the Avenger is poised to help me slay thorny verbiage, maneuver through intricate formal relationships, and weave tightly constructed social media strategy for public broadcasting. The quill is mighty.
Related posts:
- Year Two: There Was A Star Danced
- The Edible Architecture of Infructescence
- a Kinder Bueno tunnel run
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Posted Sunday, May 27th, 2007, 3:17 pm * Filed in Food, Photography, Travel. * . Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 28th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I’m now imagining with delight how Austen might have described Dallas and its inhabitants. She might have fallen on her quill.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Those chair coverings are bizarre, but match Jane Austen’s blouse very well.
June 8th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Kristen! I am so glad you are going to read my blog. I aspire to have channel even a fraction of your photo-journaling abilities. (The French do not seem very into my snapping pictures of food in stands, though.) Anyway, I’m glad to see that you are so busy and a jetsetter!!
Talk to you soon!