This is going to be fairly brief because I will do more extensive writing in other places and (eventually) link to it. Also because I am tired and sleep deprived, having stayed up way too late last night when I got so caught up in the competition at a 1-3 minute story swap that I didn't cut out after a half hour or so like I'd intended to. The gimmick was that we did several rounds and the person with the least total elapsed time won the grand prize. I lost by a whopping ten seconds, alas. It was tremendous fun and since the prize was all of one dollar, it hardly mattered..
The storytelling conference felt particularly short this year. I was glad I'd flown into Saint Louis early, which gave me time to see a bit of the city, as well as the surrounding region. That included going to a Cardinals game. St. Louis is a serious baseball town, but I was disappointed in the new Busch Stadium. The seats in the section I was in have a grand view of the Gateway Arch. But that means that they're angled away from the infield, so you have to turn to see home plate. That violates a fundamental rule of good ballpark design. I still had fun, though.
I plan to do a real travelogue (i.e. one I will put on Xenophilia on my meanderings through Missouri and Illinois. The short version is that, in addition to the ballpark, I satisfied part of another obsession by hitting two state capitals. Jefferson City was hot, humid and hilly. Springfield, Illinois was considerably more pleasant. In addition to seeing a few Lincoln sites (e.g. his tomb and his house), I went to the Museum of Funeral Customs there, which was surprisingly interesting. My other touristy ventures included some in Saint Louis (downtown, the Eugene Field house, and the zoo), stops in Florida and Hannibal, Missouri to pay tribute to Mark Twain who is second only to Herman Melville in my pantheon of American writers, and a visit to the Raggedy Ann Museum in Arcola, Illinois.
As usual after the conference, I am both energized and exhausted. Stay tuned for both the travelogue and a real report on the conference.
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel