SXSW…
by MG001 March 14th, 2010
…is officially here. MadGods started it off in 2010 with our friends at Massive Black who returned to deliver another rad opening party for the Interactive Conference. As was the case last year, this party was full of weird and beautiful art and artist types from all over the world. One of my fave things about SXSW is all the accents. Lots of people from lots of different places. I have a small set of pics from the Massive Black party but first let me give a quick primer for all the out of towners who are gonna pack the streets, F’ing up traffic on roads that I am planning on taking up a lot of space on this week.
I’m not sure if any other cities can match Austin’s utter lack of uniformity when it comes to naming streets but there are many roads with different names and some streets with the same name that don’t connect. And none of these are really inconsequential streets. It’s always important streets. It really begins with biggest streets around- our highways.
For example, many visitors will be arriving via US Highway 290. FYI- It has 2 parts that miss each other by like 7 miles. According to some maps this 7 or so mile gap may also be called I35. Stemming from I35, in one direction, US Highway 290 can also be known as Highway 71, Ben White Blvd or Oak Hill if you stay to the right. In the other direction it might be known as Koenig Lane or Ranch Road 2222. None of those should be confused with US 183 aka Ed Bluestein aka Research Blvd. Or Capitol of Texas Highway also known as Loop 360. Try not to mistake Loop 360 for Loop 1 also known as Mo-Pac. And don’t bother looking for the other 359 loops as they do not exist.
Many streets just change names as you go along. On the west side there’s 35th and Mayfield as well as Bee Cave’s and Rolling Wood. On the Eastside Webberville is Pedernales and Cameron turns into Dessau. There are 3 Duvals. Two in central Austin and one in northwest Austin. 1st Street is also Cesar Chavez, 15th is Enfield, 19th is MLK, 24th is Windsor, 26th is Dean Keaton and my favorite –35th is also 38th Street. Good luck with the 5 way intersections on 45th. Don’t let anyone give you an address on 57th street.
If you’re not from around here, maybe you should just stay in the bubble that is about to surround downtown Austin. Reality as Austin knows it won’t really exist there for the next 7 days and problems like knowing where you are going matter less the closer to it you are.
