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.