One my most beloved professors ever, prof Paul Hoftijzer, once told me 'Everything is interesting if you're interested'. And you know what? He's right (well, of course he would be, he is one of the smartest guys I've ever met and one of the best bookhistorians). Totally right. Everything IS interesting if you take an interest.
Yesterday I went to the second edition of Interesting, the 2008 installment. (If you want a full run down of who was one and who talked about what, check out the Technorati listings of blogposts here and here or Wordpress tags here, and see photos here). And it's my duty, as someone who attended last year's installment too, to say that it wasn't as good as last year's. Actually, now that I've availed myself of my duty, I can secretly admit that this year was every bit as interesting as last year's and I yet again had a blast. Where and when else will you learn all you wanted to know and much more about toilets, why horses get scared by crisp packets, what the links between graphic design and music are, find out what zoetropes are and fall in love with them (see Jim Le Fevre's stuff here), see an impromptu 35-person recorder orchestra perform, why lego is brilliant, and why Winston Churchill was loveable. And tons more that I can't remember now but that was equally stunning and touching and brilliant and unexpected. And I loved Steve's presentation on what specifically it is that generalists do, a topic close to my heart (see here). The world can't be all bad if days like this happen!
Special hello goes out to Amelia, who made sure I didn't hide in the corner the whole day. It was weird having my online world collide with my real world (having lots of that lately, colliding worlds), weird and wonderful. Must make that happen more.
It was lovely to meet you IRL rather than in the blogging world. Sorry that there was so many people, I had wanted to chat properly but next time! We should do drinks or something at some point soon
Posted by: amelia | Sunday, 22 June 2008 at 10:02 PM