10 years ago Loni and I started Stark Insider. I opened up a Netscape browser, loaded something called Typepad and “wrote” this piece of profundity. I guess we still haven’t really grown up, refusing to leave the creative bubble this site affords our lives.
It’s hard to believe a decade has already passed since that curious day in 2006 — then the vanguard of self-publishing, blogging, and years before something known as social media would add a spicy twist to how the world communicates. And, boy oh boy, was my #1 prediction for 2006 just slightly wrong.
We wrote about what we knew and loved: traveling in the Baja, seeing a show at the local theater, Loni and her painting (The Artist Diaries), me and my never-ending obsession with cameras and gadgets. It gave us welcome respite from the congested highways of Silicon Valley, PowerPoints, and the ol’ “double down” philosophy enshrined within the endearing community of dreamy entrepreneurs and their start-ups. We love all that, but our alternate personas needed something like SI: to either keep us sane; or to at least somewhat temper our descent into madness.
Soon others joined us (the sane part). And they too wrote about what they loved, sharing their passions with the San Francisco Bay area, and, eventually, an increasingly national and global audience.
I’m ever thankful that Cy Ashley Webb writes for Stark Insider, contributing since 2010 thought-provoking, eloquent reviews of shows, big and small, across the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s truly a magical thing. And I know we, and the arts community at large, are fortunate to hear her voice.
Also for Ilana Walder-Biesanz, another wonderfully talented writer (and herself a performer) and recent addition to the Stark Insider team.
Wanderlust-er and travel writer extraordinaire Janice Nieder continues to grace these pages with whimsical accounts of interesting people and places.
And I’m also grateful to those who have taken time to contribute over the years. You can see more of them on the About SI page.
Finally, appreciation for some of more significant Stark Insider partnerships over the years including the Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) run by Mark Fishkin and Zoe Elton, and the Live in the Vineyard (LITV) music festival by Claire Parr and Bobbii-Hatch Jacobs — first class organizers running truly special events.
Soon we’ll have more news to share. Meantime, we’ll continue to scratch our creative itch, and search out creative and interesting things, people, places, and events across San Francisco and up and down the West Coast.
10 years. Stark Insider. That can only mean one thing:
Where’s the green screen…?
