Hipstomp's Journal

Subject:	Harvard gig
Time:	11:39 am.

I rock Pictionary

Tomorrow I'm getting on a train bound for Boston, I'm going up to Harvard to be on the panel of a design symposium. They wanted Theme Magazine (the mag I edit for) but they couldn't get the founders, so I'm being sent in their stead.

At this point I've done dozens of college gigs, but this is the first where I'm representing someone else. I'm a little nervous because lots of college gigs are hastily-thrown-together due to busy student schedules--for my first Cornell gig, they were putting up flyers publicizing the event as I arrived, I think my eventual audience was five people--and this one seems a bit disorganized. They somehow got their hands on a six-year-old bio of me and posted it on their site, so it heralds the column I'm "developing for GenerationRice.com," a website that died like five years ago. Also I'm not even sure I'm qualified to speak on the symposium's subject, which is something about architecture and "new ways of conceptualizing spatial experience and representation." Meanwhile I'm not even sure what the old ways are.

Well, I'll do my best; right now I'm working on the 15-20 minute slideshow I have to give on Saturday to introduce Theme Mag. (It's a good thing I'm not representing myself, or I'd be putting up 15 minutes worth of pictures of blog entries, just black text on a white background, remaining completely silent while I click through each slide.) Then there's two roundtable discussions, where you sit around a table and discuss why it's round ("It's easier to clean!" "There are no corners to bump into!") and perhaps afterwards I'll do the usual, which is to trash my hotel room in a drunken fit of self-loathing. Or maybe I'll just watch cable and wear terry-cloth, and peruse the yellow pages for transvestite hookers (I "just want to talk").

Okay, now that I've gotten all that out of my system I can focus on the task at hand, the slideshow. There will be no transvestite hookers, no scheduling mishaps, no blank moments of confusion on my part, just a rousing, spirited and well-informed panel discussion and a seamless, witty slideshow filled with inspiration and insight. I'm going to Harvard for chrissakes, and even if I will be surrounded by teenagers way smarter than me, I am going to give them a lecture/panel to remember!

I'm going to go recite that last paragraph in the mirror. Hopefully after six or seven times, I'll be able to make eye contact with myself.

"Space Rocks" event
free/open to all
Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
(map)

Kick-off lecture by MK12:
Friday, November 9th
6pm

Main Event:
Saturday, November 10th
11am to 5pm

Comments: Read 9 orAdd Your Own.

Advertisement