Welcome to Techsas #6: Landlocked State of Mind
Goodbye Austin, farewell Texas: a love letter to what it was
I’m writing this not from the benches that overlook the Lake underneath the i35. Nor am I writing it out on the porch drinking a beer watching the sun go in. Nor am I scribbling the words down at the back of Austin Convention Center room 9ABC because I went into a talk about plastic that really isn’t very interesting. Nor am I writing it up in the P6 bar watching the ants crawl across South Congress. Nor the Royal Blue, or the Brew and Brew, or the activation for Mountain Dew.
No, instead, I’m writing it under an electric blanket in West Norwood. The hail has hammered the windows, the washing machine has churned, the emails curtly looked at. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t my favourite place on earth. But I’d also be lying to say I already miss Austin.
I’ve spent an entire life being over familiar with people, and I guess that extends to spaces as well. Four trips to Austin, all staying in the same Air BnB, I feel some sort of stake and ownership to a city that doesn’t know me like that. I see the sanitised version, where the event organisers and local council have put blankets over the fringes, and you could easily survive the week off free Lone Ranger and mochi balls from the registrants lounge. But the kinship and love is real.
The heat and the dust and the birds and the lilts of the accent, it’s a such a sensory spot. I’m not sure if I’ll get to go back again, but I hope I do. It’s so easy to visualise your life there. Mainly because everyone is incredibly attractive, and that romanticisation will always bode well for the psyche.
So what did this time round do to my psyche? I used to get quite scared. I’d sit in a ballroom around 1000 other people whilst someone would show me a graph with the text “you’re all going to die!!!!” and I’d go '“arrrrrgh!” like I’d seen a snake. Now I barely pop my gum at the statement “no one knows why” to a load of horrible things, like the world heating up, or aliens being spotted, or simply the state of the geopolitics. Part santisation to click bait, part acceptance that the world is going to continue to change and there’s not much I can do about it. I’m at the last stage of grief. I used all my bargaining to get the invite back in the first time.
Everything tells you to go to the “predict the future” talks, but you’re going to get just as much out of some off the wall guy like Brian Johnson telling you to inject other peoples blood to stay youthful like a modern day vampire. 60/40 weird to rational, and you’ve got yourself some chunky provocations.
There’s always a lot of conversation about how SXSW has changed and that it’s not this cool counterculture festival anymore. I find that so very boring to hear. You strike up conversation in line, at a bar, in an uber. “It used to be like this” they say. As if people, attending SXSW, aren’t aware of it’s 40 year old legacy. “It used to be like, all about music and film”, to which I say - it still is, there’s just this interactive bit now for sad marketing nerds like myself. Maybe, yes, Willie Nelson isn’t smoking a doobie out the front of the conference centre, or *insert zeitgeisty band* aren’t doing a sit down protest at a P-Terry’s, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a waste of everyones time. SXSW has changed, but so have we all. None of us are the same people we were 40 years ago. I wasn’t even a twinkle in someones eye.
I have so little patience for that sort of performative negativity that I’d hoped we left behind with that horrible era of boom clap music and drinking out of kilner jars. The same people who profuse it was so much better in the good old days still are propping up Mumford & Sons I’m sure. I am under no disillusion that this festival probably was once much cooler than it is. But to say that it doesn’t hold charm and allure and intrigue and intelligence and creativity just because there’s less free parties feels a little transparent. Yes the passes are obscenely expensive, but you could do so much without ever stepping foot in that conference hall.
No better metaphor for the state of the world than the intense heat that Austin offers up year on year. I look back at pictures of me wearing a leather jacket and trousers and think oh god, you sweet summer child. Last year the city saw 37 degree + weather for 100 days, no break. And yet, the big bodies of water that surround the landlocked state soothe the city between the hours of 5-9am, I am reliably informed. As we left, the first 100+ day was creeping on in. They all said (my host, the uber driver, TSA) “this is just the beginning! It’s a drop in the ocean for what it could become!”. My heart goes out to the poor people of Texas. The last manageable heat days of their year are spent looking after thousands of tech bros on spring break.
To spend a week taking notes in the convention area and panicking purely about what you’re going to bring back is in fact a fools game. Like much with life, the moment you stop worrying, the easier it becomes. No matter how well I know this, I still spend the first couple of days panicking, running between sessions, looking for keywords to give meaning. By Sunday, I’ve resumed normal programming, watching 2:3 on weird shit to even it all out. This is what opens up the faucet and lets it flow out. You can’t begin to craft a compelling story out of badly written (or worse, generated) notes. You have to take the rough with the smooth, get into the groove, and go see something that interests you to break the seal.
I worry about what SXSW will look like without the convention centre to prop it. Without the cool days to acclimatise the tourists. Without the bats under the bridge when global warming takes them. I worry about what it will look like when eventually the luck runs out and I don’t get to go anymore. Where will I get my boots? I miss a place I’m not from already.
So for now, here’s a list of things I have missed, do miss, will miss:
The sound of grackles in the trees
The teal like sheen of the lake
The warm air on your skin
The neon lights everywhere
The dogs in their droves
The cracked but smooth pavements
The bike lanes (in Austin, I’m not scared of things)
Walking through Zilker park
Long swims in Barton Springs
Standing on the bridge and looking out at the skyline
Telling everyone that the Wells Fargo building makes you think of Die Hard
Ranch Waters in Dive Bars
Slushie culture
Real life cowboys
The bat colony just out here thriving
The giant oaks
Cold brew
Music on every single corner - the city thrums and hums
Southern hospitality
Beer patios
Pretzels with hot mustard
An Icy Boy
Food trucks and breakfast tacos
The murals, including the preservation of Daniel Johnson
The commitment to keeping it weird in the face of it not being so weird anymore
Saying you’ll “do” brunch - you cannot get away with this anywhere else
The stories
Being away for a bit so you can miss coming home
This was the last time it will be the way it was, the last time we’ll queue for hours for ballroom D and let the light shine blue and iridescent as we descended to the exit to enter the street. They’ll tear down that convention center, but then what? It isn’t what it was, but it’s also not what it will be. That’s the last time it was that. And what a good one it was.