Friday, December 28, 2007

MLA Day One

(A few quick items before I head out for lunch)

1. Conference terrorism:

I believe I coined this term last year to describe those aggressively bad papers that hold an entire room hostage while they're being delivered. But last night I saw a slightly different form of terrorism during the one panel I attended: during the Q&A a kindly-looking grey-haired man in the audience attacked every single member of the panel (two of whom were graduate students, one a second-year assistant professor) with very long, very hostile criticisms that weren't really questions. The panelists did an impressive job of parrying, but it was a deeply uncomfortable-making experience. (In part because I kept thinking: "please, please, please, Sir, do not come to my panel.")

2. The weirdly club-y lighting of the Hyatt reception desk/bar/atrium:

The main lobby gets very dark here at night, with groovy (?) lighting, and I keep thinking I see people I know. On the one hand, the dark lighting makes it possible to avoid those I really don't want to see. On the other hand, it makes it hard for me to be certain whether the people I don't want to see are, in fact, the people I've seen--and thus whether I have to continue to be on guard.

3. Blogger meet-up:

I'm not going to attempt to enumerate the nearly 20 bloggers I met or re-met last night, but it was an excellent gathering and an amazing time--and one that just went on and on and ON, until the last of us were kicked out when the bar closed. I'm afraid to look at the receipts in my wallet and discover exactly how much I spent.

But! No bad dreams and no back problems so far. Stay tuned~~

5 comments:

What Now? said...

Totally fun last night! That was a stupendous blogger meet-up, and it was lovely -- as always! -- to see you.

Another Damned Medievalist said...

I totally want to know who was there! But you all can e-mail me if you want to remain anonymous ...

Flavia said...

Oh, man: I'm probably going to forget people! And I'm not going to link. But those I remember include Dr. Crazy, Horace, What Now, Margot Darling, Sisyphus, Meg, Maude Lebowski, St. Eph, Fretful Porpentine, Heu Mihi, Lettriste, NikWalk, Dara, Dr. Virago, and Earnest English. A couple of people couldn't make it at the last minute, and I met up with a couple of others independently.

It was a good time.

Flavia said...

Correction! it was not I who coined the term "conference terrorism," as the original post, which I've just dug up, shows. Oh well. I'll happily take credit for it.

Belle said...

Lawdy, lawdy, that sounds like a fun meet-up! Hallo y'all!