I attended the Fictional Bloggers panel at SXSW. The panel featured Liz Henry and Odin Soli. They are both active in Latin American political writing, which is an area I admit I don’t follow. I spent some time in Brazil when my mother was stationed there and got some creepy awful illness which caused blood to exit from strange places and caused me to take medication which made everything taste like metal for a month. Also, despite huge natural resources and local wealth, there were homeless children there and that kinda freaked me out. I haven’t followed much in the way of anything Latin American since. Even though I live an easy drive from Tijuana, the only people who generally try to get me to go south of the border with them tend to be professional adult webmasters. These are the sort of guys who just can’t help bribing public officials and finding out where the donkey show is. As a result, despite having lived all over the world and living in Los Angeles now, I have never even visited Mexico for an hour.

Liz Henry’s work these days is working for Socialtext, which is a company attempting the interesting enterprise of introducing wiki technology to the corporate environment. She also blogs for Feminist SF which lists yours truly in their index of female authors of science fiction, so they have to be awesome. Bonus points: Liz Henry wears purple hair well. Odin Soli works for a company called Aveso, which is either a webhost, or more likely a company striving to sell big business on the cyberpunk giftcard accessory of teensy weensy electronic displays. I know it doesn’t seem like this is a more likely thing to even exist, but the Interactive portion of SXSW is about new tech and next time someone mails me a Starbucks giftcard as their holiday thanks for helping them have a good year, I’d like that card to have an animation of ice cubes in a latte. Actually, I’d like to claim ironic detachment on that one, but I really do think miniature electronic displays on cards would be pretty spiffy.

However, what Odin Soli is best known for is creating a fictional blog. And that was the main topic of the panel. From 2001 through 2004, he wrote an online diary of the supposed life of a young woman named Layne Johnson or Plain Layne. Odin Soli explains his concept of the character of Layne on his site saying, “Layne Johnson was an unlikely protagonist for that kind of fame. She was cute but gap-toothed, a twentynothing infowaif laboring in the lower GI tract of Corporate America. She struggled with her conservative Lutheran family and a revolving door of boyfriends — and later, girlfriends. She described herself as “un-out-dorkable” and tended to finish sentences with “hey?” And most of all, she shared her innermost thoughts and feelings with brutal honesty.” He thought it would be an interesting creative exercise, writing in the first person, with a female voice, in a medium like the internet where the readers could interact with the fictional character of Layne. He had previously written a travelogue in this style from 2000 to 2001, but, The Sex Pistols are Alive and Well and Living in Sohatsenango, the travel diary of the fictional female journalist Acanit became ethically uncomfortable for him after the events of 9/11. So he created Layne. Usually, an author would be very pleased if something he or she wrote garnered hundreds of thousands of fans. Unfortunately for Odin, his fans kinda thought Plain Layne was a real person and they cared about her like they would a real person. And, when he grew weary of the creative exercise, his creation’s fans clamoured for more. And, when he actually stopped writing Layne’s story, “her” readers turned sleuth, did some detective work, and outed the real author as being a man. The mainstream press went beserk and Odin had a pretty unpleasant time of it.

Liz Henry, whose BlogHer blog identifies her as “feminist, geek, punk, poet, mom”, made the point that, in situations where fictional journals are being put out there, the “dominant culture can be speaking for people who actually know much more about what it is like to be them.” She also pointed out to Odin Soli that all testimony is undermined if you undermine the social trust. His view was that, if the writing could potentially impact international public policy, then that was ethically dicey, but, even after all he had been through, he seemed to still feel that there ought to be a way to be entertaining with a fictional blog.

I admit I’ve played both LARPs and table top games with the best of them. But, in those situations, everyone knows you are not really a 10th level illustionist/assassin of half-orc descent. To write good fiction, a writer absolutely must be able to express voices besides his or her own. When I had one of my fiction pieces in Susie Bright’s Best American Erotica, I participated in a reading for it at Slim’s in San Francisco. I never do readings because, although I enjoy public speaking, actually reading my work aloud makes me experience agonizing shyness, but, hey, it was Susie Bright asking and she’s a real inspiration. At any rate, the story I had written was from a first person male point of view. I wrote it under my own name and Amelia sure ain’t a boy’s name. There was no question that the story was intended to be taken as fiction. Yet, some people who reviewed the show said that they found it sort of odd to see me up there in my red sequin corset talking about my cock and not meaning a strap-on. But it only struck them as humorously off-kilter, not actually enraging. Because they honestly did know, in a general way, what was real and what was not. Then again, they certainly couldn’t know which characters in my short story were based on which real life people and which parts were wholly fiction and which ones less so.

So how far is too far when it comes to online roleplay? Lots of writers use pseudonyms. Is that wrong? Does it become wrong when they use more than one? Does it become wrong when the illusion is broken? Does it become wrong if they have an actor perform the role of being their pseudonym on book tours the way J.T. Elroy did? One of the reasons so many people felt J.T. Elroy was more a hoax than a pseudonym was because they felt they were having a relationship with a real person, but their friend turned out not to really exist. Another reason people felt J.T. Elroy was so wrong was perhaps because the hoax was so very successful. Is it wrong for someone to pretend in their online profile that they are someone they are not? Is it more wrong if they pretend successfully enough to get laid IRL?

When does fiction bridge the gap and intrude too far into real life?

BlueBlood.com hottie Halcyon’s Cocky Bastard Vision from the Pink Broadcasting Company did two entertaining videos on the 2007 SXSW experience. Halcyon has been going to SXSW basically forever, has MC’ed more of the SXSW Web Awards than he hasn’t, and introduced me to the Interactive portion of the show when we did our “Turning Pink Into Green” panel back in 2005. We got to work and play together again at this year’s event and he is always a pleasure.

In the first interview video, Halcyon says his goal was to ask “a bunch of web visionaries what they loved most about the web.” My favorite answers were from web book author Derek Powazek who enthused about the internet’s ability to connect all different sorts of freaks and of course Forrest Black’s answer about how much he loves the creative exchange where he gets to directly connect with people when he makes media. Stay tuned after the credits for a little fellatio joke with yours truly. Halcyon’s pink microphone was just so darn alluring. He cut the part where I said something smart because (a) it was sorta similar to Forrest’s sentiments and (b) let’s face it, blowjobs are always more interesting than most other things.

After watching Halcyon’s slightly downbeat most recent video about his experience of the SXSW show this year, I feel kinda bad for not being a sketchy and lazy crack addict. In all seriousness, it is sort of odd for any internet professional to go into a high tech environment where a lot of people just take things like venture capital for granted. I would absolutely accept VC if I had a project which (a) would really benefit from it and (b) which I was really sure would benefit the angels investing in it. But one of the other things I love about the internet is the freedom it can offer the individual. I don’t really have to answer to much of anyone and that warms my punk heart. At any rate, both videos are funny and I am absolutely certain that Halcyon is going to do just fine.

This feature was originally published May 18, 2005. With this year’s SXSW looming close, I thought it would be fun to bring it back.
–Amelia G

photography by Forrest Black

Every time I take a trip to some place which is not Manhattan or San Francisco, I start drooling at real estate. Property is at such a premium in Los Angeles that I can’t help it. On my recent jaunt to SXSW, the cab driver who picked me and Forrest Black up at the airport must have known this. He launched into the most amazing dissertation on the socioeconomics of the city of Austin. He told us that 120,000 of the city’s residents are students at any given time. The majority of cab drivers have at least a Bachelors. The city is the live music capitol of the U.S. and perhaps the world. Nightlife is hopping. Booze stops flowing at 2am, but some clubs stay open dry until 4am on weekends. Finding nightclubs which serve coffee should not be difficult. Panhandling is not totally uncommon. High speed wireless access is quite common. There was once a student at UT Austin who dropped out after his frosh year much to his doctor father and stockbroker mother’s dismay, but now he is one of the biggest employers in Austin and his name is Michael Dell, you might have heard of him. Forrest and I might even have gotten some tips on playing Texas Holdem as the cabbie was also a tournament poker player, but alas we arrived at the Hilton. I kicked myself for the rest of the week for not getting that first fascinating and wonderful cab driver’s phone number. Later on we kept getting this chick who must have bribed her way or something into being the main cab driver in front of the Hilton during the big SXSW convention and she was a total scammer who repeatedly claimed not to have change and snarfed an extra $20 from us when she dropped us off at the airport at the end. Regardless, being used to the cablessness of Los Angeles, it was kind of nice to be able to be driven places fairly easily.

The checkin guy at the Hilton was adorable and super friendly and nice and I headed upstairs to sack out. Due to loathsomeness on the part of American Airlines, which I will for the moment spare you all the details of, I sort of missed the first night of SXSW Interactive. It involved a talk about the success of Alien Hominid I think. My bed at the Hilton was tiny but the mattress was oh so very comfy and the sheets felt super nice to the touch. Apparently a prior guest had broken into my mini bar before I checked in. The Hilton folks were amazingly nice and friendly and told me that sometimes this happens with underage guests who they don’t give a bar key.

I ate at a place called The Boiling Pot my first night in town. Not only did they have crawfish which I expected, but they also served blue crabs which I had thought were something one could only get in the Chesapeake Bay area. The waitress was charming and friendly and discussed my beverage tastes with me. I couldn’t get sparkling water, but she recommended the local Shiner Blonde based on my preferences and totally steered me right. Shiner Bock by the same company is apparently more commonly consumed but is a bit darker craft beer.

I ate waffles and steak for breakfast the next day at the Hilton and the hostess was friendly and the waitress was so amazing she almost made me like morning. I kept waking up early and eating breakfast in Austin and then wanting to go back to sleep. Of course, I had panels and seminars and keynote speeches and such to go to most days, so I ended up a little sleep-deprived the whole time. I was not alone in this though. The panel I got up earliest for was the Blogging Software showdown which was totally worth losing a few zzzz for. It always makes me happy when something I enjoy is created by someone who is just as great as I would want them to be. Matthew Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress, came across so passionate and brilliant that it made me feel all warm and fuzzy about loving his creation.

The second day Halcyon and Tassy swept into town. They had just participated in a reality show in Jamaica. They basically got to the airport in San Diego, pulled some things out of their bags, threw some clean things in, and headed back to the airport to hit Texas. Despite all this air travel, they looked tanned and lovely and once they arrived, the party got going in earnest.

Apparently famous cyberpunk author and futurist Bruce Sterling used to always give a party at his house during SXSW Interactive. But now he has succumbed to the siren song of Los Angeles. So Wired sponsored him throwing a shindig at an American Legion Hall where he ran around in pajamas demonstrating how a still works. Actually most of the parties were just as educational as the seminars because of the intelligence and curiosity about the world of the people partying. Ben Brown, the self-proclaimed Internet Rockstar, gave a bash at his Home for Wayward Boys which includes a hot tub and which a biker-looking cabbie told us was in a shifty neighborhood. Whatever that means. Looked great to me, although I guess the host did say something about bodies being dumped in the area. Then again, some folks just need killin’. Blogger gave a party and we got groovy baseball caps. Gawker gave a party at a bar which is one of an apparent 211 nightlife locations in Austin which chose to be smoking establishments. What this means is that patrons can smoke in side, but everybody has to be over eighteen years of age. I guess so second-hand smoke won’t stunt their growth or something. This bar didn’t have Shiner Blonde, so I had a Lone Star to keep with the local theme, but it wasn’t totally my thing, so I switched to Amaretto sours. I appreciate Gawker buying me the drinks but kind of wish I hadn’t mixed alcohols.

Halcyon, among other things, is in the process of launching a site called Pinkgasm with Tassy. He says it is going to be “love-infused porn” and I believe him. Jonno D’Addario is the editor of my favorite sex news site Fleshbot. Halcyon and Jonno are collectively two of my favorite people who move in online naughtiness circles. When I told Halcyon, who is a SXSW vet, that I wanted to go to the convention this year, he set me up to speak on a panel called “The Business of Pleasure: Turning Pink Into Green.” For the record, he named it, not me. The convention quite reasonably thought we should have a third person on the panel. Halcyon asked me who I thought would be good and Jonno was the first person I thought of. We both loved the idea of having him speak with us and happily the convention organizer agreed. I was a little bit worried that the panel would be such a lovefest that we wouldn’t be interesting enough for the audience. But we actually got together beforehand and planned and stuff and, although we all like each other, our viewpoints and experiences are not identical, so I think the panel actually went super well.

I’ve spoken in front of a lot of different audiences over the years, but this one was very different. I try to pay careful attention to audience response and see which topics I should spend more time on, according to what they seem most interested in. This was a new experience for me because the audience was so techie that many of them were blogging about the panel while it was going on or talking in IRC about the panel. The conference takes place in a convention center with wireless access in every nook and cranny. I definitely came home thinking that I crave all sorts of new tech toys.

Returning to eating which is my favorite thing to do, the Blue Blood contingent all lunched in Austin with a bunch of cool interesting people at a place with Asian food of some sort called Mekong Somethingorother which was pretty nummy. There were whole shrimps with the tail still on sticking out of my sort of egg roll and the lemonade was delicious. In the middle of the night, the always-open Magnolia Cafe supplied me with a taste of gingerbread pancakes and other folks with all sorts of Tex-Mex breakfast fare. No bottled water though. We ate pizza at a place which played death metal. Loudly. We ate pizza at a bunch of other places nestled in between clubs with different sorts of music emanating. We ate at a place called Jazz which specializes in cajun food and we got to eat beignets made from mix shipped in from Cafe du Monde in New Orleans and fried oysters. It seems like every place in Austin features raw oysters, so I knew they had to have fresh ones, but I like mine cooked thanks and was overjoyed to find such especially excellent fried ones on my last day. Technically, I guess I also had cooked oysters at Finn & Porter, the Hilton’s higher end restaurant, but they had some creative wasabi thing going which would probably be done better where I live, although the service was great and the steak was perfect and, unlike most every other place in Austin, they had some damn sparkling water for me.

It is really easy to get booze and coffee in Austin, but it is kind of difficult to get anything actually thirst-quenching. Juice tends to be high quality when found but not too common and sparkling water is just a fantasy. Austin is right off a river so it is much less dry than Vegas, but I got way more dehydrated there. Forrest opined that perhaps this dearth of hydrating beverages is the reason cowboys look like raisins. I tend to think this must be an accurate observation.

But I could be a pruney mofo with some damn affordable real estate in a great walking neighborhood with friendly if sometimes a little disorganized denizens. Then again, Bruce Sterling is a smart guy and he left Austin for Southern Cali. More research in the field is clearly called for. Now where should I check out next . . .