To wintry mix and a head cold, or well, it was a head cold on Wednesday when I started writing this, but now it’s Friday, and it’s in my chest.
Wintry mix falling on HC White building courtyard from Debra Shapiro on Vimeo.
Since I’m so belated in writing, here’re a few snapshots of the conference.
On Sunday night we braved the weather and the Falcons fans to go out to dinner at this place called Ecco, all dark wood and European sleek design, and no TVs. We though we were well away from football, until a guy in full Falcons regalia walked in and joined a large table nearby, that proceeded to get rowdier. Mark and I split a salad, that had a tart buttermilk dressing with strips of carrot, and some shaved fennel, and pomegranate seeds providing the only sweetness. Mark didn’t eat his seeds. I had a pumpkin and Taleggio pizza, with greens on top. Belana had the San Marzano tomato with house-made mozzarella, and said it was finally a pizza her Italian exchange student friend would approve. And we got to catch up with Joe, who’s been on sabbatical and missed the last couple ALAs.
Our last day in Atlanta was alternately those who were a little gloomy since both the Packers AND the Steelers lost OR those who were hung over because the Falcons won, and it was Monday. So almost the same thing – a lot of tired, saggy people.
The day started with the mis-placed breakfast fiasco – the convention center took our breakfast meeting breakfast to A301, but we were in B301. The food finally did arrive almost an hour into the meeting. Belana mostly missed the breakfast at the hotel too, so for lunch we went to the food court under CNN, to this place called BurgerFi (which seems to be a limited chain) and split an order of pretty good fries – I should not have ordered the aioli topping, though, it was pretty tasteless, and only added extra grease to the fries.
Then we went to see the closing keynote, Neil Patrick Harris. He showed a funny video of his kids talking about books, and was not too politically correct despite his librarian audience, which was quite refreshing. For example, his sign language interpreter was a veiled woman. When she was replaced with a male interpreter, not veiled, Harris said, “So that’s what was under there!”, and when asked if he wanted the woman back, he said, “No, he’s cute!” When the questions started, one was from a librarian who identified himself as a law librarian, who even got up on stage and took a selfie with Harris. In that spirit of familiarity, Neil started asking why there were still law libraries. Which turned out to be a less naive question than it sounded originally because he based it on the fact that his father was a lawyer, and he knew that even though the walls in his fathers’ office were lined with identical books (the tan and red U.S. Statutes, no doubt), nobody ever used the whole book, so wouldn’t it be better if it was digital. And he willingly stood corrected when the (pushy) law librarian explained that it was digital and the ongoing purpose of law libraries was to help people use both print and digital resources.
On Monday night we decided to go to Moonlight. We took the MARTA to the Buckhead AMC because Google maps said it was a 2 minute walk from the train – and promptly got lost in a wasteland of high rises and hotels and parking garages, finally walked through one of the parking garages to get to the theater. The movie was really good, though. Grim but unexpectedly beautiful, good. I hope it gets a bunch of awards besides the Golden Globe it already got. After we went to Waffle House, where the smiling workers in the promotional pictures on the wall were majority white, only one Black person depicted, but the people actually working there were all Black. It was our chance to introduce our German exchange student to all-processed American food – hot chocolate from a powdered mix, whizzed up in a machine; waffles from a powdered mix so they taste the same in every Waffle House. When I got down to my last few bites of waffle, that I really shouldn’t have eaten, somehow a hair appeared on my waffle. I’m pretty sure it fell off my own sleeve, so I just brushed it away and ate – but just think – I could’ve not only not finished the waffle, which would’ve been better for my figure, and probably gotten it for free, if I complained. Sigh, missed opportunities.
