Wednesday at the CWA

This was an up-and-out-the-door morning. With no more than 4 ½ hours of sleep, I walked the mile to meet Paula at the bus stop by 8:10. Good thing it was a nice morning. When I got in late last night (about 2:30) , I realized I had a 9 AM session. Not only that, it was with Bill Clifford, associate director of the MIT Sloan Fellows Program. The Sloan Fellows is a mid-career program for overachievers like Robbie Allen, AD guru and my editor for the new book I'm beginning work on. The subject was on Wikipedia, a new open-edited encyclopedia. Also on this all-star panel was Martha Baer, a former Wired magazine founding editor, and Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist.org. This website has become internationally famous as a clearinghouse for all sorts of local information in a number of cities. No pressure for me!

But, as I’ve experienced in all these sessions so far, everything worked out fine and we had a nice chat. It turns out Bill is a really nice, gregarious fellow with a common interest in jazz so we hit it off right from the start. I didn’t really talk to Martha too much at first, and Craig is a fairly reticent fellow. But judging from how the week was going I had 20 hours x 3 more days to get to know them :). And that is how it worked out.

I went to a session called “The State of Jazz” that was very interesting. Each of the panelists – members of the week’s band, including Dave Grusin – had something very individual and personal to day. Kevyn Lettau talked about being so upset over the state of commercial jazz today. Her husband Mike discussed the financial aspects of playing overseas versus in the states (it’s much more lucrative overseas). Dave Grusin had a memorable quote. He said, “There’s only one reason to be a jazz musician, and that’s because you can’t help it.” Finally, saxophonist Nelson Rangell bared his soul about being pulled to the Dark Side – smooth jazz – by the financial benefits but was searing about the artistic sacrifices that accompanied it.

After lunch, I did a session with Ellen McGirt, Bill Clifford again, and Peter Dykstra (executive producer for CNN Science & Technology) on The Future Of Work. It was held in a meeting room above a local coffee shop, and we filled the place with probably 35 or 40 people. Plus we got good coffee out of the deal :). It was another fun session. Our moderator was a Boulder city councilperson, and on the way back to the conference headquarters we talked about the expense of moving to Boulder.

When we got back to the museum headquarters, Ellen introduced me to Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Richard Aregood who told me a great knock-knock joke:

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Knock
knock.
Who’s there??
Philip Glass.
(okay, you have to be a
musician to appreciate it best.)

Wednesday was a free evening, and the Kassoys were tied up so I was at loose ends. Paula and I strolled the Pearl Street Mall where I bought (and promptly forgot) an origami dragon I got for Sharon, caught dinner at a nice restaurant, then went to hear the band play again, this time at The Reef. They played lots of bop so it was a great time for me. The bar - which is normally probably deserted on a Wednesday night - was pretty well filled with Conference groupies there to hear the band. The evening shut down at midnight, which was well needed because I was definitely running out of sleep...