An Open Letter to the Citizens, Public Servants, Mayor, Council Members, City Manager, City Workers, Merchants, Artists, Filmmakers, Musicians, Club Owners/Managers/Staffs, Restaurant Personnel, Bartenders/Bouncers/Owners, Hotel Workers, and Anyone Else I Have Left Out, Past and Present. With Special Acknowledgment to the SXSW, Austin Chronicle, and City Staffs:
Thank you!
As humbly and quietly as I can, with the deepest and most profoundly real gratitude, I thank you.
All of you.
The 20th South by Southwest is over. It seemed to be spectacular on every count, and on every count it was so because of you.
I write this as the editor of The Austin Chronicle but not speaking for the Chronicle. I write this as a director of SXSW but not speaking for SXSW. This is not to say they disagree, but rather than negotiating wording, fine-tuning text, and including the insights offered by all, here I speak for myself.
Certainly, there is criticism of SXSW, and negative as well as hostile feelings toward it. Fine, but not here and not now.
SXSW is my favorite week of the year. This is true for many reasons, inspired by many sources.
One is the sheer joy of working with SXSW and Chronicle staffs – many of whom are among the best in the world at what they do; their dedication, professionalism, and accomplishments can’t be overstated. Year-round staff, event staff, crew chiefs, and volunteers come together during this period to create a superb and determined working force. Reading some of the biggest issues we do each year reminds me of why we all started to do these things. The daily Chronicles are thrilling. Constantly during SXSW, I was noticing little innovations – changes in process and procedure – that made things run more smoothly.
There is the enjoyment of working with my partners, especially now, after so many years, when our attitudes are still in such sync. Following Managing Director Roland Swenson’s ever-inspiring vision of SXSW, crashing through the borders, helping to settle new frontiers. Watching the enigmatic phenomenon that is Nick Barbaro – so influential, involved, and inspiring – not simply maintaining anonymity but ever more fading into just a knowing smile. He’s unquestionably the most intelligent of us all, but there is no one I know who finds such near-epiphanic pleasure in just how stupid and retarded he can get other people to believe he is.
Then there is the wholeness and scope of the event: film, music, new media, art, posters, radio, print, comics, and comic books.
The pleasure is entrepreneurial, but it is also ideological.
But there is only one real answer …
Famously, when Orson Welles was asked what films he watched in preparation for making Citizen Kane, he answered, “Stagecoach, Stagecoach, Stagecoach” (word is that he watched John Ford’s 1939 classic Western, starring John Wayne, more than 40 times). Later, when asked about which filmmakers he liked, Welles answered, “I like the Old Masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.”
When asked about SXSW – its success, conception, orientation, content, and pleasures – the only answer is much the same: “Austin, Austin, Austin.”
Especially Swenson, who has most clearly seen the event’s future growth, would not only claim few other ingredients in SXSW, but would most vehemently insist on Austin as the bedrock from which it has arisen, as this is where he was also raised.
SXSW is Austin – Austin magnified, exaggerated, and multiplied, but still Austin every day.
It is Austin as it is now and as we have always known it: as it was when many of us first came together here in the second half of the Seventies. We’d watch movies at campus film series until midnight and then go to the clubs to hear music until 2am. We’d gather at The Daily Texan to write until daybreak and then head over to Ed Lowry and my house, where we had a projector set up in the living room, to watch one more film, drink, and talk. We’d eat barbecue and Mexican food, talk, argue, sing, drink, and talk even more; we would sleep together and love each other. SXSW is all and only that – speeded up and amplified.
SXSW is the Alice in Wonderland pill. As that pill caused Alice to grow giantlike, SXSW helps Austin shoot up in size. Regardless, Alice was still Alice, only bigger; so it is with Austin.
SXSW is because of all of you, the people of Austin, Texas – those who hate SXSW, those who cherish it, and those who aren’t quite sure what it is; even those who curse and demean SXSW contribute to it.
We didn’t create, change, mold, or maneuver it. This isn’t like Sundance, where if you go to Park City the week before or the week after, you are in a ski resort. This is not like Telluride, where the town is invaded once a year, or even Tribeca, where if you go a couple of dozens blocks uptown, you’d have no idea there was a festival going on. This is not like a giant music festival, where everyone heads to a huge race track or giant fairground. It is in Austin and of it.
People love Austin – they love the music, food, and film; the talk, ideas, and drink; the creative and innovative atmosphere, but they really uniquely admire the people: their friendliness, range of interests, and good-natured intelligence.
For years, wherever we went, people would say, “The city must love SXSW,” meaning the municipal institutions. We’d look confused, because the city not only didn’t cut us any special deals, but often didn’t even cooperate, making things more difficult.
Then came City Manager Toby Futrell. And Mayor Will Wynn. The police, fire inspectors, code inspectors, park services, convention staff, and all other city employees figured out that we all had the same goal, and that the best way to achieve it was to work together. Write off the 2004 Ozomatli arrests as one aberrant incident, unless you simply want to dwell on pinpricks. The cooperation of every city agency and service has helped this event blossom in the past three years.
In order to effect this on our end, SXSW hired the legendary Carlyne Majer as a city liaison. SXSW didn’t want city staff to work with us; we wanted to work with them. We wanted to obey the rules, insist on safety, and concentrate on compliance and aid rather than thwart all the public safety agencies. General Majer trained the troops for this goal as though we were the misfits in Stripes who had to be up to snuff the following morning.
As in a Disney cartoon, the barren landscape blossomed into spring. Roland Swenson and I had a meeting with Futrell, assistant city managers, assistant police chiefs, and other city staff about a month out from SXSW. Not only could we not think of any issues to be addressed, but the only two I could dredge up, Roland quickly pointed out to me, had already been solved. The Austin Convention Center staff, still recovering from the hurricanes’ aftermaths, were prepared and focused. The city parks department, once a continual thorn in our sides, proved a pleasure. Austin Energy co-sponsored our Friday-evening fireworks display. Unfortunately, many of us were so worried that too many people would show that we underpublicized it, but won’t make the same mistake next year.
The police, fire, safety, and building inspectors maintained their ordinary, tough standards while facilitating all the activities.
SXSW is watching visitors from around the country and the world, on the streets, talking, excited, and smiling. SXSW is working with all these great people: the theatre managers, ushers, projectionists, stage managers, musicians, media visionaries, Internet pioneers, and filmmakers; media, retailers, promoters, industry folk, and independents; the volunteers and those who do the jobs all year-round. They all believe that the creative process belongs to us, the people, and not some distant, culture-making machinery – not just for one week a year, but every day.
Thank you, Austin, Texas
Thank you from my heart!
Thank you for the last 20 years,
and for whatever is coming next.
Sincerely,
Louis Black
This article appears in March 24 • 2006.