RSA, Part Deux

I'm glad to be home, even if I did have an awesome time in Montreal. Four days is a long time to share a bathroom with three other girls!

Last night was a suitably fabulous ending to the conference. Dr. Cooper introduced me to another round of Venetianists after the last panel ended. To put this in perspective, I just looked at the table of contents for this pretty seminal work called Venice Reconsidered, and I met 6 of the 15 contributors in the last two days. I'm sure I would have met more if they'd been there; Dr. Cooper is pretty relentless in in terms of introductions! Dr. Hall is less gung-ho about it, though she did introduce us to Cheryl Reiss at Jasmine's talk; she remembered my name from having read my abstract for her CAA panel on merchants and said that she had liked it (even though I didn't manage to snag one of the spots), which was really flattering.

After that I only had a few minutes to go freshen up in our room before we were due back downstairs for the closing plenary talk. Dr. Cooper was going to be handing out the Gordon Prize for best art history book and she'd made clear that she wanted us there, so off we went, even if we weren't really thrilled by the prospect of a 45-minute lecture on 17th-century English literature. However, even if I didn't take a whole lot away from the talk (it was about how writers used the imagery of David rising from sheephook to scepter to argue for/against rising up against Charles I), the professor, a woman from Barnard, was easily one of the most engaging speakers I've heard recently.

That's not to say we weren't all glad when the talk was over so we could make a beeline to the reception! As a perk of being among the relatively few (perhaps 100?) who actually attended the lecture and didn't just hang around upstairs waiting for the food, we were able to stake out a Temple table and get food and alcohol before the room absolutely flooded with people. The food was fabulous, and more than made up for the opening reception, which was at this Jesuit library 45 minutes from the hotel where there was wine but no food. To be fair that turned out OK as well, since we met that girl Helen and had dinner at a faux-English pub where they gave me mayo with my fries. But I digress.

The wine flowed freely, and talk was plentiful and boisterous. Cate and I were scoped by an older Italian man near the bar, who said "Young women, what a joy!" before walking on. We rated various eminent scholars on their relative shag-worthiness. We even managed a photo-op that didn't make everyone look weird, all in all, a rousing success! The reception bar, however, closed at 9:30 and they turned the lights on abruptly at ten, so we had to move the party to the hotel bar, where, joined by Dr. Cooper, we drank ridiculously overpriced wine until 1am. It was pretty awesome, especially since sitting next to her we managed to have completely serious discussions about my future, publishing an article based on the paper I gave, etc., to completely silly things, like how she thinks we should hold clothing swaps in the department.

We were also joined by my new pal Emily and a couple of girls she knew from UCLA, who were both really cool. Apparently I should have brought more than two business cards to this thing, because there was a lot of number-swapping. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to make so many connections, and I certainly wasn't expecting to meet people I'd really want to have a drink with rather than just some stilted conversation under the watchful eyes of joint advisors, but I confess myself surprised. Also amusing: Cate and Jasmine told me that they were really impressed by my ability to socialize with all these new people--apparently I make it look effortless! It was ironic because hello, aren't I normally known for my general misanthropy and dislike of people? Lol. Of course, everyone's chatty when they've got five glasses of wine in them!

Anyway, it was worth being really tired this morning to have such a fun night. RSA was a wonderful experience, not least because I was there with friends. Dr. Cooper was right about having a 'conference buddy', or in my case, three buddies, because otherwise it would be overwhelming and lonely. Next year RSA is in Washington DC, so I anticipate an even larger contingent of Temple people will be in attendance. Jasmine is even planning to make a return from Italy if she can get funding.

Oh, and we'll be rehashing all of RSA on Tuesday in Dr. Cooper's class, since she requested Jasmine put in a special appearance for the evening. I think the Robocop story will be told. I think it must.

RSA

So I have been having an absolute blast at RSA. I can't believe tomorrow is the last day! Time is flying. My presentation went really well, first thing Thursday morning. My session organizer, Catherine Harding, really enjoyed it; Dennis Romano (a big Venetian historian) told Dr. Cooper he liked it; and another historian, Richard MacKenney, tracked me down at another panel to tell me how much he liked it and how well I presented. He also gave me his card and asked how far into my dissertation I was, only to be quite surprised that that was from my MA thesis! I feel really much more confident about my scholarly-ness now, I must saw, and this made me really determined to get this published.

I've also been meeting scholars right and left. Jasmine introduced me to her undergrad adviser, Julia Delancey, who worked on Venetian vendicolori, as well as Holly Hurlburt, a historian who I had actually exchanged emails with re: Bergamo. At another panel I introduced myself to Gabriele Neher, who works on Brescia, and she told me to email her and that she's thinking about putting together a panel for next year's RSA that perhaps I could get in on. I spotted Dr. Escobar as I came down the escalator today by his bright orange vest, which he still has after all these years! He tried to entice me to his Spain panel, but alas, there's a LOT of Venetian panels to be had, and with Dr. Cooper it's kind of a command performance.

Today has been a particularly interesting day for other reasons. I went to several panels that were really interesting, including one on realism in northern 17^th century painting, and the first two of six panels on the relationship between the Venetian stato da mar and the stato da terra. After the end of the second panel, Dr. Cooper urged me to talk to James Grubb, a Venetian historian, who was a little gruff until he decided he was interested in my project. Then I stood around talking to her and a couple other scholars for a while before we all headed back upstairs toward the rooms. Near the elevator, Dr. Cooper asked me about our dinner plans and then suggested we should reach out to some of the Princeton girls who'd been at the last panel; I said 'oh sure' in that way that means 'I have no intention of complying'. At that moment, Dr. Cooper spies one of the girls who'd given a paper behind me, and says “Oh! Emily! This is Michelle DiMarzo. You should join her for dinner!” And then walked away. Um, what? Naturally then I HAD to invite this girl to our pre-arranged dinner, PLUS the friend she'd been planning to eat dinner with.

Luckily she seems really engaging and friendly. She asks me if I want to grab a drink at the hotel bar. I was kind of frantically trying to figure out how to coordinate alerting my roommates to the change, changing our reservations, etc. (our cell phones are not free in Canada) so I distractedly said oh sure. As we're waiting in the several-people-deep line at the bar, this guy walks up to us and starts talking familiarly to Emily. It was immediately clear, from his clothes, bearing, and way of speaking that he was not your average historian—something a little more casual about him. Not really handsome, but craggy and intense. Anyway, he was looking for Alexander Nagel (another art historian) and I told him I'd seen him at a panel but not since. Emily invited him to join us for a drink, but he said he hated waiting at bars and invited us, instead, to “the real party” down the hall, which turned out to be the VIP suite that you needed a card key to access—buffet, beer, and wine, all complimentary, in this swanky lounge with a glass wall to the hallway beyond, so curious people could look in at all the eliteness they were not partaking in. As we walked over I asked Emily who he was (he'd introduced himself, but it was so loud I could barely hear) and she said “Peter Weller.” Then, in a whisper, “Robocop.”

Ironically, my friend Cate had told me earlier that this guy would be presenting in a panel on Michelangelo. He's working on his dissertation at UCLA in his spare time (where he and Emily had met). His day job, which he referred to repeatedly, is being an actor (and he regaled us with how he finished his dissertation proposal while stuck in a trailer for 18 hours waiting for Michael C Hall to get back from chemo so they could film for Dexter) and also known for ye olde Robocop. He was certainly very well-educated and intelligent, but there was that indefinable something about him that screamed “I'm used to being a center of attention” which you definitely do find in scholars, but not in this earthy, physical way. He wasn't creepy, though he did tell us he enjoys being surrrounded by pretty girls—in fact, he proudly showed us his wife's sonogram (a wife he met when she was many many years his junior and he cast her in a film...he described it as lust at first sight, then friendship, then love), right before showing us the absolutely picture-perfect view from his balcony on the Amalfi coast where they spend the winter, and where he invited us to join them if we had no Christmas plans. Like, what? I wonder what would happen if you were actually ballsy enough to follow up on that kind of invitation. Would it be some kind of freaky orgy? Does he really just enjoy spreading largesse? Is it (most likely) a completely insincere invitation never meant to be really considered? I really don't know.

While I'm trying to carrry on a conversation with this guy, I'm also trying to alert my roommates that we have had a change of plans. Finally I had to go find a hotel phone and call the room. Imagine their surprise to hear where I was! I have to say, he was interesting enough that I wouldn't have minded staying around for a while (plus, free wine), but we had about half an hour to get everyone together and go find our restaurant. One of my roommates was quite displeased with random people being invited, although I was able to assure her that Emily, at least was really fun.

Our food experience in Montreal has been AWESOME. Totally expensive, but awesome. Last night we ate at a place called Accords (Sarah took my business card for it, so it's good for me to record it here), where I had piglet served over sauteed onions and potatoes, and Jasmine had some divine duck sausage. Accords also deserves note because its waiters were seriously, seriously HOT. Like, model pretty, and all six women at that table, married and unmarried, agreed. Damn. It was also expensive ($66, although to be fair, that included 1 glass of prosecco and 1 of wine). Anyway, tonight we ate at La Sauvargine, which I think means 'the savage', in the old city. Its menu is heavily game meats—Tammy andI had wild boar drenched in a maple syrup reduction, Emily and Sarah got the duck trio (medallion, confit, and foie gras, the last of which I tasted under duress--it was nasty)­, and I don't remember what Cate had, but it was all amazing! The waiters were more mature in age, alas, but it was less expensive than Accords.

I had a good time at dinner; Emily was very lively, though Sarah seemed a bit reserved. Emily works on post-Byzantine painting in Crete and Sarah on the interchange between Renaissance Venice and Eastern Europe. However, more fun was had when we got back to the hotel. Before we got into our two taxis they'd asked us to join them for a drink and we all demurred, but by the time we hit the hotel I realized it was only 9 and I wasn't at all tired, so I joined them in the hotel bar while the others went upstairs. We spent about an hour and a half there, and it was really, really fun to talk to new art history people about traveling, and art, and scholars, and pretty much anything and everything. Sarah also loosened up considerably. It's great to connect with Princeton people since we go up there so often for symposia and things. I finally had a chance to give my business (scholar?) cards to people! It was pretty cool. Well, less cool when we got the check—my wine was $11, but Sarah had ordered a Kir something or other, liquer plus champagne, and they charged her $27!! For one cocktail! Apparently that's a risk of the Hilton wine bar.

Anyway, today was pretty wild. I'll have much to tell Dr. Cooper tomorrow, and I have to admit that she was really right about meeting people at conferences—we met Helen, a literature girl from England, at the reception on our first night and ended up having dinner and drinks with her, and now these girls (who will also be people I'll encounter in the future, unlike Helen!) Also: drinks in the VIP lounge with Robocop. Freaky/awesome.

Look About You

Last night we went to see another play at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton. This one was Look About You, a comedy written by an anonymous playwright around 1595. It was a farce with a lot of disguises, mistaken identities, guys in drag, actors mimicking other actors' mannerisms, etc., and it was really, really funny. Sean liked it, even though mistaken identity is probably his least favorite plot device, and something that he dislikes about Shakespeare's comedies, like Comedy of Errors, in which there are two sets of twins and it's basically one giant case of mistaken identity. We saw that at the Yale Rep theater in college, a production that I chiefly remember for the fact that there was a little loft in a corner of the stage where one actor, in costume, was effectively the foley artist, clashing pans and shaking beans to make the sound effects for what was going on below.

I thought this play was actually a bit funnier than Shakespeare (even though I'm almost afraid they'll take back my English major-ness for saying so). That's probably due not only to the amount of snark/sarcastic wit in the play itself, but also to the talent of the actors at the ASC. The plays we've seen there have all been excellent, and the atmosphere is so awesome!

I'll really, really miss this place once Sean leaves Virginia. Their spring season, which goes until June 19th, right when I'll be leaving for Vermont, includes Measure for Measure, which I've neither read nor seen, and Macbeth, which I've seen twice before, and...meh? Of course, it might be worth seeing what they make of it! But here's the rub: after I leave they're doing The Tempest and Hamlet. Dammit!

Happy Dance

Sean decided to go to Yale, not OSU! Cue the happy dance...