Well, that was a very valuable experience on many levels. It was marvelous to see Graham and Levi again, though we spend most of our days emailing back and forth in any case. Jane Bennett was a terrific presence as ever and lunch with her was a very in depth and hilarious conversation. I spoke up for decadence, intellectualism and masturbation, since intellectuals seem to like to beat up on themselves using those terms quite frequently. Nothing beats the intellectual for anti-intellectualism.
My friend Marcus Boon was there, on a trip down from his fellowship at Cornell. And Padraig Timoney was there, was a good guy. Andrew Hageman was there. Many, many others were there. Karen Gregory spoke to me about magic and tarot cards. Questions were very detailed and there seemed to be greater knowledge of OOO in the crowd than I noticed a few months ago (wow almost a year actually) at UCLA.
New York has changed. My cab driver said it was 9/11. People do seem friendlier, able to talk with you rather than just yell. I was pretty freaked out, too, when I lived in NYC for a few years. So I experienced things as hostile in any case. And you can't beat walking up one street and finding everything, just everything you need.
I had so many good conversations—with any luck they will unfold somewhat here.
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