The Robin LeBlanc

So a dream last night got me thinking about something and after getting some opinions on said dream, I’ve been thinking even MORE about it.  To start with, I’ll first tell you what happened in this dream.

I was getting romantically involved with this girl whose breath smelled of gasoline and who lived in a house full of mannequins.  Anyways, we were walking down some road at night wondering what to do when she recalled that my friend M had her thing tonight.  “I hear her topics for this week are going to be really good” she says.  I smile and we start heading to M’s.

When we get the the two-floor apartment building we find that there are already a number of people outside on the street.  Some are talking to one another, most have a bottle of something and all of them are hanging out by this one specific area outside the building that has about six LED marquee lights put up.  Suddenly, the light in one of the rooms turns on and we see M, not even paying attention to the crowd outside.  The sounds die down and the twenty or so people look up intently.  The light turns off and the only illumination from the room is a computer monitor glow and a small desk light.  We can still see Mara, but she’s looking down at her computer, which we cannot see.

Music begins to play.  Sort of a dark ambient sound.  And then the LED lights begin to scroll words.  As M is typing, they project on these lights and all of us read.  We’re barely paying attention to the music, just reading what she has to say.  The topics are broad, each one leaving us something to think about.  Like all concert situations, some people break off from reading to discuss the previous topic.  But most just read.  When it’s done the LED lights turn off and M turns off her computer.  That’s it.  The crowd begins to scatter away, discussing their experience.

Wouldn’t this be just an interesting thing to see?  Perhaps get a bunch of well-known bloggers to shoot out on to these LED screens either a raw or pre-written piece of writing?  Hell, hook up another monitor and one could, at certain times in the post, display an image or even a full screen video clip. The ambient music would be a nice touch, since it would make the people standing there reading feel a little less like complete gits (thinking on it, I’m pretty sure the music playing in my dream was Taphead and almost definitely part of this preview track that he put out. ALSO, the entire album is available for download on the site). But most of all, this would be taking the concept of the blog and making it less accessible.  Hell, more or less turning the act of blogging in to a concert experience.  Both of which wouldn’t be a horrible thing to see.  Hell, sort of giving it that “reading them live is different then reading them on their site” kind of thing (ESPECIALLY if the words are shot out as they write them).

While there would be some excellent writers who I would love to see write on their own (Warren Ellis, Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton to name but a few) I really see this as something that could do well with multiple writers typing up different topics.  If the folks at Boing Boing, Lifehacker or Coilhouse each set up an event (or hell, even went on tour, which would be doubly weird and awesome) I think they could seriously get a good audience out of it.  What would make the experience more interesting was if this was something that will NEVER be seen officially on the writer’s site after the concert.  Perhaps at the end a piece of paper with the completed piece would be handed out, but that’s it.

Anyways, just thinking out loud on this one.  I’ve got to admit the idea of taking a specific medium and turning it in to a different kind of presentation with a somewhat same result would be fascinating and the thought of starting up one of these is really tempting me.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll find someone with a couple of LED lights and the technical know-how to set it all up and get one going.  Either way I certainly hope someone does it.  It would be great to go to one.