SIME 97!

check out the wacky glowing beam-up five chaired stage
from SIME 97

I kept telling people at Swarthmore it stood for Scandinavian Interactive Media Festival,

but it was event.

Organized by swedens most successfull web wranglers, the rapidly expanding Spray Incorporated,
a host of business people from the US and Scandinavia, mostly entrepreneurs from the states and big corporate types from around here sat in a circus, a nicely round building, for a two day exploration of the future profits of virtual community
I was there because of Svante, and they had me ask Howard to come as well
I was part of a contentious panel on the second day, after a tidiously boring and overlong presentation of a computer model for simulating virtual community cash flow

Esa Saarinen, flamboyantly dressing author of Imagologies, professor of media philosophy at university of Helsinki and popular figure in the finnish media since 1980
we got along well; he seemed to like meeting someone who might embody his philosophy, and I liked meeting someone who was trying to figure out what to do with his fame.

esa me

Also Linus, who told the assembled exploiters to respect anarcho-libertarian-socialist college student firebrand idealism
anybody who mentions marx during their ten minute presentation in a conference dominated by business is not out to make friends
Linus studies swedish hackers. He has been accused of hacking the CIA web site
Our panel was good for observing the evalution of commodity online from money to attention.
The last participant was a "push-media" guy, sandwiched between philosophers and spit spewing pulpit pounding exhuberant personal publishers.

Sarinen used the word blood in his first sentence. He celebrated the web as remaining a promise. Unpredictedly, it is cool to be communal online. The web is post modernism signalling the arrival of social virtues. No more solo creativity. He sighted the need for more sorrow on line, on the web, it's not a sight for compassion - which is what makes for more true humanity.

Ulf, the haughty moderator, and father of Beata, the planner of the event
Ulf theorized that the web, and web writing is a post digital revolutionairie romantic reaction
Esa argued for a wide emotional portfolio for the web, and against any overarching program.

I stepped up, with an outline that I didn't use for my first memorized speach
I opened with a line compiling the useless buzzwords from all the previous speachers
Some people wonder why I'm here, since I'm young and funnylooking I believ it's because I provide an interactive multimedia community content information service product with multiple revenue streams
I told my web story, never quite walking but always in motion, some emphatic moments explaining sad sections of my site, spurred on by Esa, I finished explaining RSI, the greyhound trip and otherwise unheard from voices online and encouraging people to publish for donations, and to become artists since there's never enough time or money;
my velocity was too much if engaging, Ulf escorted me from the podium with a point or two remaining.
I received the warmest reception of my speaching career, people clapped longer than they needed to, one or two whissles, and people later told me they cryed some.
Otherwise I spent much of the conference talking to friendly swedes who've heard of me through Svante's freelance writing,
talking to swedish media who were very patient,

palling around town with Howard
this was my first time seeing him speak, a story I've heard, and read, but still poignantly delievered
he took some little while to warm up and spend his forty minutes

but I was more shocked by his shyness around the others
people asked what do you do, Howard would say I'm a writer. That may be the descent answer, but utterly lacking enthusiasm for his current enterprise. I think he was tired from travelling and entrepreneuring, he responded to my recessitation and prodding well.
Arguing on the sidewalks of stockholm with the same rythm and rapidity of most other discussions anywhere - we have a very familiar and intense bond.
His being the featured speaker, I think people wondered how long I knew him,
I told them I ate worked and slept with Howard for three months.
Howard reports that after my speach asked if I am always like that. He said yes.

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