Thanks, XOXO

I just got back from attending the XOXO Festival in Portland, OR. What a whirlwind few days — I talked to more people than I have in literally years. I feel grateful for the opportunity to attend and participate this year, so I wrote some thank yous.

Thanks to Craig Mod for coming all the way from Japan to share the stage with me for a too-brief chat about membership programs. In the run-up to this, Craig and I had three extensive conversations about memberships, the open web, the value of writing your own software, Walt Disney’s corporate strategy chart, and many more things. I wish you could have heard those chats as well. Maybe we’ll have to do another podcast.

Thanks to Matt & Greg for making my dreams come true by taking me to Dos Hermanos Bakery for chopped sandwiches! They were delicious, of course! (A little messy though.)

Thanks to my pal Tim Shey, who shared with me the Japanese word komorebi, which is scattered sunlight that is filtered through tree leaves. Komorebi was the visual theme for this year’s XOXO, as seen in the XOXO Field Notes notebooks.

Thanks to Powell’s City of Books for the reminder that bookstores can be more than just places of commerce. Curated by people who love reading & books & people who read, great bookstores make your brain fizz with ideas just by browsing the shelves. Your algorithm could never.

Thanks to Portland for being so cool + weird. This was my fourth or fifth visit and I gotta say, I was pretty charmed. The food in particular blew me away — I can’t remember eating so well. Luce was a delicious local Italian place — I’d eat here once a week if I lived in Portland. Eem was so good, my favorite meal of the weekend. Solid pies at Apizza Scholls with great company. Ramen at Kinboshi, katsu sandwiches at Tanaka, a gin & tonic at Pacific Standard, and a banh mi at Lardo.

Thanks to Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou for showing their new short film The Second and (and!) their first new Every Frame A Painting video essay in eight years!! EFAP is hands-down one of my absolute favorite things on the web; I’m thrilled it’s back.

Thanks to the folks I saw wearing kottke.org t-shirts, including the guy wearing a design squiggle shirt who I said “nice shirt!” to without any further explanation.

Thanks to Annie Rauwerda of Depths of Wikipedia for the heartiest laugh I’ve had in many weeks. Seriously, she had the entire hall rolling in the aisles.

Thanks to Erin Kissane, not only for her great talk but for her work, alongside Robinson Meyer and Alexis Madrigal, on The COVID Tracking Project. Truly one of the heroic efforts of the pandemic that saved lives and helped millions make safe choices — talk about making a dent in the universe. (An extra thanks to Erin for not laughing too much when I introduced myself as “Erin” when I ran into her at Powell’s. Never meet your heroes…you’ll only make an awkward ass of yourself.)

Thanks to Ed Yong, whose talk was just incredible and the one I most needed to hear this year. Like Ed, I spent a couple of years fully immersed in all things pandemic so that I could keep my readers (hopefully) well informed about what Covid was doing to us and how to stay safe. Even though I didn’t go nearly as deep as he did with his essential reporting, there were many parts of his talk that resonated strongly with me, particularly the burnout part (which led to a sabbatical in both cases). I’m definitely going to link to his talk when it gets posted.

Thanks to…the universe? (This one doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to the thank you note format.) The day after the conference, I walked around Portland for a few hours and thought of Heather, with whom I spent a few lovely days here in 2015. I hope you’ve found your peace, my friend.

Thanks to all the kottke.org readers who came up to say hi during the conference (and at the airport!); I appreciate you all and hope I wasn’t too awkward in response. 😬

Thanks to Neal Agarwal for showing off some of his many web experiments.

Thanks to Nolen Royalty, creator of One Million Checkboxes, for telling one of the wackiest internet nerd stories I’ve ever heard. I hope a recording of his talk or a writeup of it makes its way online…it’s an amazing story and I’ll link to it on kottke.org when it becomes available.

Thanks to my fellow indie media travellers — Platformer, 404 Media, Garbage Day, and Aftermath. I’ve enjoyed watching you folks strike out on your own, supported and trusted by your readers to punch above your weight without corporate heavy-handedness. 👏

Thanks to all my friends who, when I ghosted from a conversation or begged off sharing a meal, understood I needed some time to myself to recharge the ol’ social battery. 🪫

And most of all, thanks to the Andys (Baio, McMillan) for putting on XOXO for all these years. It is a singularly impactful gathering that’s touched/changed/bettered too many lives to even count. XOXO is perhaps the most thoughtful thing I’ve ever experienced — I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been for them to sustain that level of kindness and attention to detail across this many festivals and years. As life’s works go, this one is pretty good. The Andys said this was the last XOXO and I’m inclined to believe them this time — buuuuut if that changes, I will totally come to the next one.

The XOXO Dream is dead. Long live the XOXO Dream.

• conferences
• XOXO