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Hugh Forrest came out to introduce Frank Warren
“There are many interpretations about what happened on this stage yesterday, but it’s reflective of how new media is changing every process that we are used to.”
2:08pm Sia’s “Breathe Me” is playing over a montage of postsecret postcards (above). A brilliant quote flashed across the screen from Frank: “there are two kinds of secrets: those we keep from others, and those that we keep from ourselves.”
2:11pm He’s talking about some of the variety of secrets that he’s gotten: one on a Rubik’s cube that was mixed up with a secret on each side. One secret: “I passed her at the store the other day. I almost had his child. I wanted to tell her.”
Some of the ones that he just got from conferencegoers. “These web celebrities have never worked with clients.”
“My company sent me to SXSW, but I came here to find another job.”
“My company sent me here to steal ideas from startups. I’m pretending to be a freelancer.”
2:20pm He’s started talking about how he started Post Secret. He said it started with an exhibit. He handed out cards in DC, saying “you’ve been invited to participate in a community art project. Send your secrets to this address.” But, after the exhibit was over, he continued to get post cards.
He told a story of a music video that wanted to use post secret post cards in exchange for $1000. He refused and instead granted them the permission if they would donate $2000 to a suicide prevention hotline. He played the video “Dirty Little Secrets,” by the All-American Rejects.
2:30pm He’s showing some post cards. “I like to watch Dr. Phil, Drunk.” “I’m still thinking of you. (image of a penis on a BBQ)”
He’s talking about the most gratifying moment he’s had in his time during Post Secret. He saved a national suicide prevention hotline by posting on post secret and getting readers to donate $30k.
A postcard: “I tell myself that one day, after our spouses die and we’re like 80, we’ll be reunited”
He’s talking about the barcode sticker that is on some post cards. Some readers want him to remove them, but he likes how they give a sense of the journey that the secrets take to his mailbox.
He’s reading from one of his books about someone who posted a secret inside of a bathroom stall. She came back later in the day and saw at least 10 other secrets posted there, all on pink post-it notes.
2:40pm He tells a story about how his father, for the longest time, couldn’t understand why people would send in post cards. He ended up flying his father to see one of his exhibits. On the way home in the car, his father ended up telling him a secret from his childhood.
A proposal!
Some guy just got on stage to tell a secret, and said “Natalie Thai (sp?), will you marry me?” There was a long pause, and a girl came all the way from the back of the ballroom, and walked slowly up to the stage. He said “hurry, I’m shaking up here. There’s alot of people.” She came up on stage and simply said “Yes.”
From the audience
“When I was in fifth grade, I thought I was retarded and that my parents were paying everyone to pretend that I wasn’t”
A questioner brought up a point that we are perhaps experiencing an authenticity revolution, and Post Secret is evidence of that.
A questioner asked what he would do if he received a secret admitting to a really serious crime. Frank says that he doesn’t get many like that, but on the back of one of his books there is one that says “he’s been in jail for 10 years for something I did, and he has 5 more to go.”
A questioner asked about how many secrets he thinks are actually true. He’s essentially saying that a piece of art can be good whether it is true or not - Fiction vs. Non-Fiction books as an example. He’s also saying that there’s a little bit of truth in any secret.
Another questioner is bringing up the issue of truth again. He’s reading a post card “the secret I sent you last week was true, and now it’s not.”
2:58pm A girl is up there at the microphone crying, she says she has a secret. Her sister is sick and she is worried she might die. She would like for people to leave comments for her sister at her (her sister’s) blog. Dang, I missed what the address of the blog was.
The girl came up on stage to give Frank a hug. The End.
Just can’t afford that designer brand? Or maybe you want the name, but not all of that…class. Well, now you can make your own t-shirt in any brand you want!
My friend Joe was talking about his improv class. He said it went something like this:
Instructor: Let’s go around the room and each of us explain why we do comedy.
Common response of classmates: I want to move to LA and become a big star.
Joe: I do this because if I didn’t – I would probably bring a gun to work.
That. Is art.
Many people hate Southwest’s format for seating. For those of you who aren’t familiar, when you check in, you are assigned a group, “A,” “B,” or “C,” depending on how early you have checked in. Then the plane is boarded in group “A,” then “B,” then “C.” This results in people standing in line for as long as an hour so they can be sure to get the best spot. All of that effort is uneccesary though if you just follow these tips, which work best when you are flying alone.
Does anyone else find this sponsorship to be a bit. Uhm. Inappropriate? Ah, the power of random ad serving.
From New York Times
Recently WorkMetro worked with Hombre Films to produce a hilarious promo for WorkAustin.com called “How Not To Interview.” Here’s the video:
It’s on YouTube, so you can pass it around easily. Blog it. MySpace it. IM it. Yo DAAAAAAAAAWWG!!
During my three years in Omaha between college and the big move, I lived in an apartment complex called London Square. It was a great location, right in the heart of Dundee, one of Omaha’s most desireable neighborhoods, but my first unit there was the cheapest one that I could get: a basement apartment. The unit certainly had its faults in its first months: a dishwasher that leaked stagnant water, flooding that soaked the carpet of much of my living room, frightening insects that were at first sight, unidentifiable, and some extremely smelly old ladies that lived across the hall, that were known to wander the hallway in their diapers. These are all stories of their own, but nothing sticks out of my stay at London Square like “The Bat Story.”
One day I was doing my laundry in the London Square basement laundry room. I was transporting my clothing from the washing machine to the dryer, armful by armful, when a dead bat fell out of said clothing onto the floor. I thought that I had screamed, but I do know that nothing audible came from my lungs. I simply stared down at the tiny bat, wondering if perhaps one moment I would wake up, in my bed, in a cold sweat – but it did not happen. It felt like one of those traumatic experiences that has a surreal quality by virtue of it not immediately feeling nearly dramatic as you know it will sound when it is retold. “Is that what I think it is? Yes, it is a bat? Is it…whoo, yes, it is dead.” I of course transported what clothes that were now in the dryer back to the washing machine for a second go.
The call to the property manager was interesting: “Yes, this will sound incredibly odd, but the other day when I was doing laundry, I discovered that my clothes had been washed with a dead bat.”
The response of the typically customer-service challenged property manager was disturbingly nonchalant even for her: “oh, that’s funny, someone called and said they had seen a bat in the laundry room, but we went over there and ya know – we didn’t find anything.”
Hmmm. Bats live in caves – maybe they should have looked in the washing machine.
Don’t believe me? Here’s “The Bat”:
Okay, Adrian, you got me. This should be fun, anyway.
My mother recently sent me an article from the February 4th Omaha World Herald entitled Omaha: Creative, but intolerant. Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, and other related books was the keynote speaker at Omaha’s first Young Professionals Summit. It turns out that while Omaha ranks 11th on the midsize city Creativity Index, and has a “strong technology base” (what?), Omaha ranks 155th on the tolerance scale of midsize cities. Florida(the author)’s research indicates that cities that rank high in technology, talent, and tolerance lead in innovation, and Nebraska’s being the first state to ban gay marriage doesn’t help Omaha out with that third “T.” Business leaders present and future gathered to hear what they could do about this problem.
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