In New York, #140Conf Tomorrow

June 16, 2009

Today (Edit: make that yesterday, since I wrote this at 3 am) was an intriguing day, spent with friends familiar and new. Here’s a round up: train to NY in the am. (I owe my inlaws BIG TIME, they have all my kids.)

Got to see my beloved @jessicagottlieb on the East Coast, which was surreal and awesome. I have to return her Chanel sunglasses that I stole borrowed in LA, and that is sad. It’s been fun hanging out with at @audreymcclellan and her sister @janeporricelli- we had dinner at one of my favorite places in the world tonight, Pastis, which makes a mean steak frittes.

And, of course, meeting all of the Tweeple getting ready for the #140Conf, which the amazing Jeff Pulver appears to have outdone himself on. He had a lovely cocktail party tonight, where I met many, many smart people. And you know what I learned? A lot of smart people are passionate about music. It reminded me again of how we see one facet of a person on a blog or on Twitter, and when you meet them in person, they can surprise you completely.

I picked up “Paris To The Moon”, by Adam Gopnik, in my room at the Roger Smith tonight- this is the intro quote, from The Ambassadors: (Henry James)

“I daresay, moreover” she pursued with an interested gravity, “that I do, that we all do here, run too much to mere eye. But how can it be helped? We’re all looking at each other-and in the light of Paris one sees what things resemble. That’s what the light of Paris seems always to show- It’s the fault of the light of Paris- dear old light. ”

“Dear old Paris!” Little Bilham echoed.

“Everything, everyone shows”, Miss Barrace went on.

“But for what they really are?” Strether askes.

“Oh, I like your Boston reallys! But sometimes, yes.”

It reminds me of Twitter, and the glimpses into the collective subconscious it affords us.

Posted in Miscellaneous