SXSW: Two Perspectives

My fourteen-year-old daughter had her first taste of SXSW this year. She went to see a whole bunch of bands I've never heard of and tried her hand - well, her whole body, actually - at moshing. She fell down in the mosh pit and had her hair stepped on. Some big guy with a smelly butt lost his balance and landed on her face. She puked. She got punched and scratched. She got kissed. She got ground on, but refrained from giving the grinder a knee to the nads because he had just helped her up out of the mud. She came home, wearing a favorite top of mine she had "borrowed" ("Well, you haven't worn it in forever!"), covered in mud and band autographs, laughing and breathless and declaring she'd never had so much fun before in her whole entire life.

I, on the other hand. went to the SXSW screening of Weaving World, a thought-provoking film about the systematic economic exploitation of Navajo rug makers.

Maybe next year we'll switch.