Standing

Had a great Rising Tide yesterday. As a host and organizer of the conference, I probably shouldn't have muttered that line about how "now we get to talk about something interesting" just as I was introducing the panel that followed the afternoon keynote. While I'm grateful to David Simon for agreeing to appear at the conference, I thought his talk was a little awkward and frankly just wrong in certain ways I'll discuss once I get a chance to review the video. But I should say I was disappointed. I've seen Simon do better than what he showed us. So I didn't feel so bad about stealing his name tag. I wore it while I was dissing him on stage.



Otherwise the program was spectacular. Here's the incomplete re-cap gathered from a bleary eyed review of my Tweeter Tube.

• Richard Campanella's morning keynote was a perfect place to begin a day long discussion of issues vital to the future of New Orleans. I was most interested in his emphasis on the point that neighborhood geography is best defined by the varied and mutable experiences of the people who live in the neighborhoods and not the rigid result of lines set down on a map by realtors or planners. Also while Campanella is talking, it's fun to play Twitter bingo waiting for certain multisyllabic terms to come up. "Antecedent cadasters" got thrown around a few times. As did "vestigial toponym" Good times.



• Jordan Flaherty appeared on the Social Media Social Justice panel with two other men and one woman. Their discussion was led by an African American woman. He complained that the conference was too white and male anyway, though. I'm guessing because that's just in his playbook.



• The oil spill panelists compared deepwater drilling to "prostate surgery", Mary Landrieu to a stand-up comic, and re-conceptualized a metaphor about Big Oil "raping" Louisiana as being "more like consensual sex." Great live-blogging of this panel at Noladishu.



• Food panel. We may have come upon a scoop with the news that MVBurger is considering a comeback as a cookbook-themed pop-up restaurant. (Pop-up book?)Gambit editor Kevin Allman tweeted that Chef Chirs Debarr is "the bona fide version of what Anthony Bourdain is sold to be." I agree. Debarr is a rock star. The panelists were all very glib and informative. I nominally served as this group's "moderator" but the best move in this case was just to let them talk. So good. Much more on this when the video is up.



• Brass Band panel. OK I was drunk but I do remember the term "Carverizing" as well as "What do you call a musician with no girlfriend? Homeless."

Congratulations to G-Bitch winner of this year's Ashley Morris award. If you're at all concerned about the ongoing effort to privatize and segregate public education in New Orleans you should be reading her.

And that's all I got tonight while I'm trying to watch this fake football game. I'll have more later but for now Imma hang up and listen.