<the big one>

SATURDAY

AT 10:00 A.M., I GIVE A 60 MINUTE keynote address on web standards, a subject I've begun to loathe. I am tired of carrying this flag. Video cameras capture the speech, projecting my likeness onto 40-foot-tall screens, a process better suited to Denzel Washington than me.

The video lights prevent me from seeing the audience. I don't know if they're getting it, digging it, bored out of their skulls, or hopelessly confused. I feel like a singer in a studio isolation booth, unable to match his performance to that of his fellow band members.

Whenever I speak, the audience collaborates with me. Their reactions dictate where I go and how long I spend there. Three times I've rehearsed this presentation. It always ran longer than 70 minutes. Now, in front of 1,000 people I can't see, it is over in 40 minutes. I once saw Jorge Luis Borges speak to a crowd three times this size. Blind as Milton and old as parchment, he nevertheless had us all in the palm of his hand. He was Borges and I'm not.

There's a second chance to carry the message at 1:00 p.m., when Glenn Davis, Dori Smith, Tim Bray and I represent the WaSP in a smaller, informal session. It's the first time the four of us have shared a stage. We tell the audience bits and pieces of the secret history of standards and browsers, then answer their questions. There are a lot of questions.

Dori, Tim and I speak from the brightly lit stage. Glenn talks from the unlighted area to the right of the stage. Pacing there in the dark, he reminds me of a bear in its cave.

At 4:00 p.m., Curt Cloninger presents the thesis of his upcoming book to a packed room of enthralled attendees. Curt's never spoken before, but he's a natural — somewhere between William Burroughs and a Southern preacher. At the conclusion of his presentation, I walk to the foot of the stage and hold up my cigarette lighter.

"Best thing in the whole show," says a guy behind me.

"Best thing in the whole show," says Glenn Davis.

That night, Steve Broback of Thunder Lizard takes us out for a long, leisurely, superfine dinner. Steve and a charming guy from Adobe do magic tricks with wine corks. Glenn does logic tricks with coins. I smoke cigarettes with a woman from Fawcette Publishing — an ex-New Yorker who I like immediately.

A young kid stands outside the restaurant. I think he is a parking attendant. He's black and I'm disturbed by the symbolism of his having to stand outside while the white folks eat. The kid tells me he's never flown in a plane. I lie and tell him it's safe. »