Medievalist Envy
May 14th, 2004I returned from Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Monday, but it�s taken the last three days to fully recover. Those medieval studies conferences really take a lot out of you. A quick recap of my adventures in the Midwest:
We arrived in Kazoo, brandishing fresh haircuts and 20-foot banners, on Wednesday afternoon and went straight to Western Michigan University to set up the Penn Press booth. First impressions were exceedingly positive � giant, state-of-the-art basketball gym and football stadiums, both of which were dedicated to a benefactor named Waldo. (So, just to answer the age-old question: Waldo is on Stadium Drive, on the outskirts of Kalamazoo.)
Unfortunately, when we found our way to the conference facilities, it was clear that Waldo had not seen fit to endow any non-athletic buildings. The Medieval Congress was held in two large dormitories, which were like a cross between a working-class-neighborhood grammar school and Abu Ghraib prison. Although about three thousand people attended the conference, the bathrooms would have been more suited to, say, twenty. By the end of the first day they looked like the washrooms of a 747 after a transatlantic flight.
–The Penn Press booth. Ain’t it grand!
After checking into the Holiday Inn and unpacking my things, I realized that my shower didn�t have any bathtub. It was just a nozzle jutting out of the wall, with a curtain cutting across the middle like in a hospital room. Curiously, there was also a large plastic armchair. When I went to hang up my blazers, there was no closet to be found � just a bar at thigh level next to the front door. Then it dawned on me: I�d been given a handicapped room.
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