Closed Eye For The Weary Guy

Is it wrong that at 3:30 PM local time I feel completely and utterly exhausted? Considering that I finally managed to leave the room at around 10:30? Because it seems wrong to me.

When I got there this morning, they had it so that only a certain number of people could go up to the registration area at one time to get their badges, so we were all standing at the bottom of an escalator, waiting for the bouncer to let us up there. It was not unlike how I always imagined trying to get into Studio 54 in its heyday, with the important exception that I would never have been allowed through the door at Studio 54, and here I did.

Once up to the registration area, we had to get in line again. As it happened, Whitney, an aquaintence from library school, was directly in front of me, and we started talking. (I had noticed her downstairs, because she is one of the tallest women I have ever met.) She is apparently employed at the same university as her boyfriend, so I'm two-times-jealous: both in terms of job, and in terms of boyfriend. But be that as it may, I hung around her for maybe the first hour or so, seeing the exhibits and whatnot. It was nice to see someone I recognized. We went to the Wayne State LIS booth, and Dr. Mika was there. He recognized Whitney right away, but didn't know me, which isn't surprising, since I was never really introduced to him ever. He did send me an e-mail once, thanking me for an e-mail I sent to a listserv. But anyways, he invited the two of us to the alumni reception tomorrow at 5:30. It looks like it is going to last a couple hours, so I should be able to still go to the bloggers shindig, scheduled for the same time. Both are at the hotel that I'm staying at, so I should be able to swing it. This almost makes up for the expense of staying here. OK, not really. But it should allow me to get all networky and whatnot, which is certainly a good thing. Hell, it's why I'm here!

I haven't seen Veronica, which I had hoped to. She may not come to ALA, but considering that she encouraged me to, it wasn't out of the question. Also, Library Mike apparently did not come, according to Whitney. Which is unfortunate, he's a nice guy.

I eventually ditched Whitney -- my strongly-held belief is that you should always try to leave before they get so tired of you that they ask you to leave. I wandered over to the graphic novels ghetto, to see who showed up. Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse were all represented, as was Diamond. Top Shelf seemed to be piggy-backing off the Comic Book Defense Fund, which I certainly have no problem with. I was a little disappointed that Fantagraphics and Drawn and Quarterly were not represented, since these two publishers are a bit more, uh, adult. Or they market themselves as such, the whole "comix=literature" thing.

Gene Ha and Alex Ross are doing signings at the DC booth. I like Gene Ha, but I already own Top Ten, and don't see the need to own a softcover version, even with his signature. Just more junk to move. And Alex Ross sucks all the fun out of comics, so screw that.

There was a booth for the guys who create the online comic "Unshelved". I like the comic a lot, and gladly plunked down $40 to buy all three books, signed and with a little drawing in each book. Considering how much food is costing, that might be all the money that I could afford to spend at Quimby's, but it was worth it.

One odd thing that I found while scouring the exhibits was a large poster from the Penguin Classics booth. It is a cartoon, depicting the events of Voltaire's Candide: it looks like it might actually be the cover for it. The artwork is uncreditted, but it is very clearly the work of Chris Ware: the sort of bulbous simplified figures are the same as can be found on the cover of McSweeney's Issue 13. I've searched for the cover online, but have found nothing, and I neglected to ask the guy at the booth anything except, "Can I take this?"

Because I got such a late start, I missed the first program I hoped to go to, and only managed to go to the queer one, "Out of the Margins: GLBT Librarians, Libraries, and Literary Activism". It was OK -- well, the seats were uncomfortable, but I suspect that is the same with any program. But what I was curious about is how to deal with queer issues in a library that might not be queer oriented. That really wasn't dealt with, the emphasis being rather on the creation of special places where queer info is kept: archives, repositories, and the like. One woman admitted to problems with her boss when she asked if the school library she worked at couldn't have books that discuss gay stuff, like Heather Has Two Mommies, because the issue had come up with some of the students. The principal ended up confiscating all material from the library that even mentioned homosexuality, and asking her church to pray for the librarian. This was in a Chicago Public School, and without any knowledge of the parents or students. But this was only discussed as an afterthought, with most of the woman's presentation being about the Leather Archive, where she does unpaid work. Which, admittedly, is interesting, but I think her other story may have more relevance to my professional career.

The presentation ended with a lesbian poet reading her work. Now, I did like her work, and it was witty, playful, and thought-provoking, but is there any other ALA presentation that would end with poetry about women fucking being read? It seems a little, I dunno, non-professional. But maybe that's just my prejudice. Although I would feel the same if it were about men fucking.

Of course, then I went back out on the exhibition floor, and they had cleared a big space for poetry reading. Some woman was reading a poem about the Trojan War, I think.

The most surreal moment: walking past a booth where a woman was having a conversation with a robot, and the booth next to it had a guy all done in pirate drag, accosting innocent librarians.