Stories, Memes, and Fans: A Review of NerdCon: Stories 2015

I'll begin with a story.

Last year, in September 2014, I went to Portland, Oregon for XOXO, a conference and festival designed for people who make a living with the internet, either because they make the internet go in some way, or they use the tools and social structures the internet enables.  Silicon Valley folks, musicians, and... me.  (It was a lot more diverse than that sentence implies, but it's safe to say I was more the exception than the rule.)

It was only after I got to Portland and started focusing on the speaker's list for the conference portion that I realized that the speaker Hank Green was the Hank Green, that guy who's one-half of the Vlogbrothers, a founder of VidCon, and -- this is the important part -- somebody who my daughter, Miss Mary Mack, by now a teenager, is a huuuuuuuge fan of.  (She is an avid Nerdfighter, as some of Vlogbrothers' fans call themselves.)  In other words, if it had been my daughter there in Portland, and not me, the entire conference would have been leading up to Green's talk instead of his talk being an "oh!" moment, as it was for me.  (His talk, by the way, is really good.  I recommend it.)

Having said that, my daughter took the news that I saw Hank Green in stride.  Had I met Green in person, as Nick Disabato did, it's possible that her reaction would have been more along the lines of the author's teenaged nephew, who, after hearing that Disabato had casually chatted with Green in the food truck lines for a half hour, yelled at him in anger, "Hank Green was wasted on you!"

All of that -- hearing Green speak, my daughter's Nerdfighteria, the fact that I get myself to conferences I'm not entirely sure I'm the target market for -- helps to explain why I found myself in a large convention center ballroom in Minneapolis a couple weeks watching a squid answer questions.

Rapid-fire question and answer with famous people and a squid at NerdCon: Stories

We were in Minneapolis for NerdCon: Stories, the first NerdCon from Green and the folks who put on VidCon in Anaheim every year.  VidCon is a huge affair, bringing nearly 20,000 fans to a convention center across the street from Disneyland to meet and maybe learn from the biggest names in online video, names that I, for the most part, would not recognize at all, but would be stunned to find out would have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fans on YouTube, Vine, Snapchat, etc. etc.

In related news: I'm old.

But in late March, John Moe of the great radio program and podcast Wits noted that he was going to be participating in this thing called NerdCon: Stories, a conference which billed itself as a celebration of story-telling featuring authors, podcasters, musicians, and others.  The conference was being run by Hank Green's VidCon folks.  The conference would be held in Minneapolis, where I have many friends.  In other words, not only did this sound interesting, it also sounded like it had a much better chance than most first-year conferences of being well-attended, and even if it wasn't, we could visit friends.  It was actually doable... so we went ahead and did it.

I guess I should explain the squid.  The squid was -- and I hope I'm not revealing any secrets here -- a guy in a giant squid costume.  To be more specific, The Giant Squidstravaganza is the brainchild of Paul and Joe DeGeorge, who are also the folks behind Harry and the Potters (more on them anon).  The squid has a podcast -- the Cephalopodcast, of course -- and why wouldn't he be answering rapid-fire questions about himself with the likes of Rainbow Rowell, the aforementioned John Moe, Mara Wilson, and Joseph Fink (Welcome to Night Vale)?  It could have gone over very poorly, but it (both the squid in particular and the panel in general) was, like much of the conference, very, very funny.

In looking back at the conference agenda, I realize just how dry it all sounds, how... conference-like.  Panels, mainstage things, breaks for meals.  "We will learn about the importance of stories and how to produce stories, and the technical components of making a living sharing stories..." [/boring teacher voice].  But in execution, the weekend was was way more of a festival or what a "con" might entail.  Of course, I've never attended a "con" before.

In related news: not only am I old, I don't play RPG games, rarely read fantasy or sci-fi, don't watch much TV, and am generally, it would appear after reading this, a stick-in-the-mud.

But do I enjoy watching authors and podcasters get into arguments that devolve into (exaggerated fisticuffs) over whether someone would rather fight against 100 duck-sized horses or one giant horse-sized duck.  Thank you, John Scalzi and Kevin B. Free (again, from Welcome to Night Vale among other things) for taking the absurdity of that particular debate to its logical conclusion -- headlocks.

A spirited debate at NerdCon: Stories 2015

NerdCon: Stories was probably the funniest conference I've ever been to, and that includes not only the occasional day-job conferences (very dry) but also XOXO, Kindiefest, and even MaxFunCon, which is from a podcast network that features comedians.  I laughed a lot.  Not only that, the absurd nature of some of the discussions led to some amusing in-conference viral memes, like how an answer in a mainstage game of Superfight about the Illuminati, but made of guacamole, led to the creation of The Guacanati (and, of course, the accompanying Twitter account) and its own hand sign (two hands forming a triangular tortilla chip shape). 

I also thought quite a bit about stories and narratives and who tells those narratives and the importance of hearing those narratives from a wide range of perspectives.  Some of the panels were more focused than others, but I viewed the process of picking what panel to see when multiple panels were taking place akin to that of picking classes in college -- pick the professor (i.e., panelist) you want to hear, not the class title you think you want.  So while the topic of the challenges of adapting a work into another medium didn't interest me at all, the fact that John Green (Hank's brother, an author, perhaps you've heard of him?) was speaking on that panel very much did.

But as someone for whom "fandom" is not a particularly pleasant state of being, I felt somewhat at a remove from the guests.  I sympathized with author Patrick Rothfuss, who recounted a story of politely declining to take a selfie with a fan led to a somewhat dismissive public response on Twitter, without the fan knowing that Rothfuss was in the middle of trying to make funeral plans for a recently and suddenly deceased friend of his.  Believe me, as a Kindiefest guest, I get where Rothfuss was coming from -- even on the waaaaaay smaller scale of Kindiefest, I would get exhausted from talking to folks who wanted to talk to me about Kids Music Stuff when I would have been happier just talking about random things like the weather or the awesomeness of the taco truck down the street.  I can only imagine how taxing that must feel for Rothfuss let alone John Green, who didn't do a signing session.

Miss Mary Mack was all about trying to meet Hank Green (his two signing sessions filled up incredibly quickly in advance and she wasn't able to do so), while I sat to get books autographed by John Scalzi (for our hosts) and John Moe (because I really like his stuff), and aside from 10 seconds of chit-chat, that was all I needed.  But both of them are funny people -- I feel like if I spent time interacting with them that wasn't creator-fan but two middle-aged guys talking about something random, that would be more my speed.  It was those opportunities that I wished there'd been more of, because I'm used to those opportunities at the smaller conferences like those I mentioned above.  With well more than 2,000 fans in attendance at NerdCon, that probably wasn't going to happen.

So it was the youngster -- i.e., Miss Mary Mack -- who found herself in the middle of a circle of fans around Harry and the Potters as they finished up a party for the Harry Potter Alliance, singing the band's lovely singalong "The Weapon."  She was the one getting Nerdfighter pins, meeting fellow fans, getting us to go to a Nerdfighter meetup Sunday afternoon after the conference had ended.  I had a lovely time, but I hope for her it meant even more.

OK, some final comments in case there are any NerdCon folks (producers, attendees) who've read this far:

1) I wish there were more structured opportunities for attendees to interact with each other (and, to the extent possible, with the guests as well).  I kept watching the guests have fun interacting on stage and wishing there were similar opportunities for the attendees.  Now those interaction opportunities could be as simple as a game room, or an ongoing open-mike or storytelling session (they had those, but they were limited in time, and because the open-mike session was on the mainstage, it may have scared off some folks who might not have wanted to share their talents in front of hundreds of people).  But I think one of the great things about MaxFunCon is that there's little distinction between guests and attendees.  Obviously its size (less than 200) makes that possible.  XOXO is larger (close to 1,000) but by having a smaller conference and including a festival component that includes gaming and music, it provides more of those attendee interaction opportunities.  I'm not suggesting that there be a ton of public-facing performances for attendees.  I'm struck in reading Fangirl, a YA novel I picked up at NerdCon, written by guest Rainbow Rowell, how the impulse in writing fanfic (another thing I've never had any interest) can be primarily that of community, not of performance (let alone fame).

2) I wish there had been a closing session.  The last session Saturday night was a performance of "Too Might Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" performed by the Neo-Futurists (i.e., the folks behind Welcome to Night Vale), which was really enjoyable, but it was odd that a conference dedicated to the story didn't provide one of the most important things almost all good stories provide: closure.

3) I also had a small sense of confusion over what the conference was trying to be -- a conference, a "con," or a festival -- but its good humor and diverse guest list overcame that confusion.  Maybe rather than giving it a "Stories" focus, they could have called it NerdCon: Hank, or "HankCon," or "HankAndPatrickCon" (because Patrick Rothfuss was a major contributor in the planning of the weekend).  XOXO has always essentially been a weekend of the two Andys who are its founders indulging their own tech and culture whims, and it always seems to work out.  Hopefully they'll figure out what worked and tweak next year's event accordingly.

4) Mary Robinette Kowal should teach courses on how to run a good conference panel.  Her method -- take questions first, before the panel starts -- should be, well, mandatory for any conference that isn't taking questions solely via Twitter.  (OK, I hate to mandate anything.  But I loved that approach.)

If you're interested in other perspectives on the conference, I recommend John Scalzi's and Hank Green's comments.  Having said all this, I haven't said all I want to say, but it's time to wrap this up and press "publish" on this post.  I'd like to think that Hank Green wasn't wasted on me this time around.  I (and Miss Mary Mack) had a blast and look forward attending another NerdCon (Stories or otherwise) in the future.

Review: Question Bedtime - MC Frontalot

It's an open question whether "nerdcore" is a larger or smaller niche than "kindie," but almost by definition "nerdcore kindie" is smaller than either, and with Question Bedtime, MC Frontalot (who coined the term "nerdcore") has essentially created the first nerdcore kindie album.

Question Bedtime is the Brooklyn-based rapper's sixth album, and first for families, and instead of addressing subjects like video games in his songs, he's gone back in time to fairy tales from various cultures.  But rather than straight-up retellings, he's often given them a twist.  Goldilocks and the Three Bears becomes "Gold Locks," featuring rapper Jean Grae as the titular character, who rather than being scared of the bears, is a bear-eating hunter.  "Start Over" features a conversation of sorts between the Big Bad Wolf and a chorus of girls who aren't exactly buying his version of events with Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.  Nor does he limit himself to more familiar fairy tales you've heard hundreds of times - "Wakjąkága" features the title character who, well… just read Frontalot's lyrics, and you'll understand that it's not common.  Besides "Start Over," I also particularly liked "Shudders," whose retelling of the story of the youth who went out to learn what fear is (and is really more about fearlessness) is a useful song in an album that features stories that kids have, at points, shuddered at.

One listen to a handful of songs (or reading those lyrics above), and you'll quickly gather that this is not an album for your favorite preschooler.  Not that it's inappropriate or a Joseph Campbell treatise, mind you, just that his dense wordflow and his refusal to dumb down the darker themes of the stories are going to appeal more -- and, really, mean more -- to a significantly older audience, probably ages 9 or 10 and up.

I liked Question Bedtime, but it demands close attention if the listener is to get the most out of it.  (And close attention is hard, no matter if you're 6 or 36.)  The more you like dense hip-hop wordplay, the more you'll like this, and that's not what every kids music family is looking for.  But if you've read this far, and thought, "Hmm, that sounds kind of cool," then I think it's definitely for you.  Recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.

Interview: Jack Forman (Recess Monkey)

My interview with Jack Forman, bassist in Seattle's star kindie trio Recess Monkey (not to mention to DJ at Sirius-XM's Kids Place Live), about the band's brand-new technology-focused album Wired started, ironically, with an electronic hiccup as I had difficulties getting cellular coverage for my iPhone.

Or maybe not so ironically, as the band's new album is just as concerned with playing IRL, as the kids say -- out in nature, in the real world.  Forman chatted with me by phone a couple weeks ago about growing up in a nerd family, having an album produced by John Vanderslice, and how the shift to digital has -- and hasn't -- affected the band.

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Zooglobble: Were you a computer nerd growing up?

Jack Forman: My dad was definitely a computer nerd -- he was in computer engineering in Boeing.  He worked on government contracts, so couldn't tell us what he was working on.  He was the dweebiest spy ever.

My parents met in the computing center at Indiana University.  They had a big VACS machine with big tapes spools, with everybody carrying yellow punch cards.  I distinctly remember being brought into the computer room, and I pressed a red button, and I literally deleted an entire reel of work.

After that, they had a strict "no kid" policy.

My dad worked for IBM, where he dealt with setting up standards for computing graphics languages.  It wasn't until I was a teenager that I even really understood what he did, let alone be able to explain it to others.

Yeah, here in Seattle, we were festooned with dweebs, walking around in Birkenstocks with socks on.

I had computer terminals, the old school modem, eventually the Commodore 64, writing computer scripts.  The floppy disk that was actually floppy.

Did you play with your physical environment?

That was something important with the record, actually -- we were trying to tap into that "maker" movement.  [As a kid], I was a huge LEGO fan -- in terms of the hours spent, far and away that was my favorite.  I was never a big sports kid -- [fellow bandmates] Drew [Holloway] were more so and Korum [Bischoff] somewhat, but me, it was indoor play.  Sometimes my dad would have to evict me, "Go outside, it's 80 degrees."

And sunny.

Right!  I definitely empathize with the engineering nerd.

Switching gears a bit -- pun unintended, I swear, looking at your album cover -- how was working with John Vanderslice on Wired?

We were all fans separately of him before coming to the band.  It's art, how he approaches his songs.  The Beatles, Elliott Smith -- he's up there with them in terms of my favorite artists.

It was actually you on your review of Tabby Road where the idea first came up of actually getting John Vanderslice on the next album.  So the very next day I wrote an e-mail to him which started out, "OK, this is weird," and asked if he'd be willing to do it... We eventually met at Bumbershoot, and we recorded the bit that went on Field Trip.

So last year he was setting up a living room tour, where he literally played people's living rooms.  [Jack's wife] Ellen and I decided to host him -- we had 70 people downstairs, and he put on a great show.  While he was here, I said we would love to do an album with him.  So we went down to San Francisco in December.

It was an interesting conversation in my head.  You can listen to an album over and over, create an exalted image of an artist, have this intimate connection.  And he lives up to those expectations -- he's the coolest guy, so flexible -- but it's tricky to look up and see this person and have this life-changing experience.

What's it like meeting an idol, crossing that divide from fan to collaborator?

It would be more difficult with a diva -- you hear about people with their own... gravity and who are not afraid to exploit it.  That would be challenging, but not the case with John.  He's been running Tiny Telephone for 15-17 years, so he understands that role, it's not "paying homage to me."  He knew what we wanted, he was supportive.  He spent the night at our house [during the living room tour], and I knew him, but you never know.  But he was great -- we've already booked our next record with him.

Did you have to explain kindie to him?

No, he did his research.  Maybe a year or two before this he didn't know as much.  But the Sippy Cups recorded their first album at Tiny Telephone, though not with him.  And he'd actually had lunch with Alison Faith Levy the day before we started with him.

What did John bring differently as a producer to the recording?

His studio is a physical manifestation of the guy.  We were in the B room, which is newer than the A room, but has the same gear, and his same understanding.  He was almost like a tour guide, telling us about the sonic quality, helping us make the right choices.  "What kind of vibe and energy do you want?," he'd ask, and then he and [engineer] Jamie [Riotto] would get to work.

There was a lot of experimentation -- there's lots of gear, all these amazing things.  [John's] a savant, almost.

How did being in that studio affect the songs?

The songs obviously were written beforehand.  We knew we wanted them to be more electric (especially compared to Desert Island Disc, which was almost entirely acoustic).  We wanted the music to feel like a mashup between algorithms and electricity, duct tape and coat hangers.  Sonically, we wanted to push that nexus.  There was this foot-driven pump organ like on that last track on Radiohead's OK Computer.  There were double tape delays, Dolby noise reduction, overdubbed melodies.

It was hugely instrumental, both literally and figuratively.

Since the album is so tied to this digital/analog split, I'm wondering how the shift to digital music generally over the past ten years has affected the band?

Well, I'm going to comment about us as a case study -- I definitely don't want to say that how others have approached it are wrong, this is just what we've decided works for us.  We don't want to do a Kickstarter.  I know that John Vanderslice raised $75,000, enough for him to do not 1 but 2 records.  And it can be great for fan engagement.

Our model is playing shows and reaching fans in the real world.  We do 100-110 shows per year, and others do more -- Jim Cosgrove ("Mr Stinky Feet") did 300 shows per year until he cut back with his new job; Chris Ballew (Caspar Babypants) did 200 shows per year until he cut back as well.  We're constantly playing, and we always have a merch table.  We've been here for nine years, and everything has grown, our audience has grown.  Our sales have grown overall, though the growth has slowed.

Also, the royalties associated with Kids Place Live are enormous -- they've served as venture capital.  Most of the great kindie albums over the past few years could be traced back to funding from KPL, and I'm not just saying that because I'm associated with them as a host.

With digital, more families are comfortable with it, but it's not yet cutting into sales.  We're just making music and hoping it'll sell.  We're trying to make authentic connections.

Finally, I'm wondering if you as a band have an experimentation philosophy since you seem to try lots of different things.

I think that "growth" is more along the lines of how we think.  We're teachers (or used to be), talking about setting goals and how we get there even after the school days is done.  So we're identifying goals and next steps -- right now I'm looking at our nearly finished garage, which I built over the winter.

Music is easy, you buy a new instrument, and the guilt alone of that being there will work on you.  I live 2 blocks away from a vintage music store, and I'm constantly in there trading instruments.

It's super fun to be a funk band for three minutes, a hip-hop band for three minutes.  It's fun to experiment in all these realms.

Band photos by Kevin Fry.