Columbus and the con were generally good, but after sleeping late and for a bunch of different reasons, we decided to head out. A late lunch at North Market preceded a very long day of driving through rain, mountains, and a whole lot of night.
A key lesson from this trip is that when it comes to highway rest stops, the following is clearly true:
North Carolina >> Virginia >>> Ohio
Sorry, Ohio, but that's just how it is.
The con began entirely too early for me today, because I was on a ten a.m. panel. To my pleasant surprise, several dozen people joined us at that unreasonably early Saturday hour to discuss the use of the other in horror fiction. The conversation stayed interesting, and everyone seemed happy to have attended the panel.
After some work and lunch, I spent time in the dealers' room and the art show but ultimately bought nothing. I then did a reading, at which a half dozen folks, almost all of whom are friends, heard an unpublished mainstream story I have shared only one time before.
More work, some conversation, and then it was time for a World Fantasy Con tradition of mine: dinner with a group of friends in publishing.
I spent time afterward listening to one panel and chatting with friends.
All in all, another very reasonable con day.
When I was growing up in Florida, I figured a good way to know which states were least desirable was to see how many of their license plates turned up in tourist-attraction parking lots. If a lot of your people came to Florida, you probably didn't like it where you were--or so my reasoning went. Based on that line of thinking, I grew up convinced that the least desirable states were New Jersey and Ohio.
Yes, my thinking was flawed, but I was a kid.
Having shared these thoughts with others over the years, I feel obliged to say that Columbus--or, more precisely, the small parts of it I've explored while here--is a pretty nice place. The restaurants have been uniformly decent or better, the variety is wide, the ice cream (Jeni's) is (of course) extraordinary, and all in all it's been a fine place to visit.
I particularly like the North Market complex, which mixes food stalls with some specialized grocers and other vendors. It's hip enough to have the hot chicken I mentioned in an earlier entry,
in Columbus, Ohio, I know the first thought that springs to mind: did I take any plant photos?
Thanks for asking. I did indeed. Two.
Outside the Subway where we stopped for lunch today stood this lovely tree.
I hate travel days. They almost always start rough for me, because I don't sleep well when I know I have to get up early. So it was today, as I woke up about ninety minutes--a full sleep cycle--before I had to get up and could not fall fully asleep again despite being very tired.
Once I got out of bed, however, the day proceeded well, if in a haze of fatigue. The drive was long but uneventful, which is a good thing.
As we were cruising through West Virginia, we saw a sign I couldn't resist: Tudor's Biscuit World. Onto the exit and into the wilderness we drove, until in the town of Ripley we came to the small shop. Most of the business consisted of construction workers in trucks using the drive-through window, and the place was closing in less than half an hour, but we went inside; I wanted the full experience.
Not my best plan. The bathrooms had flooded, so the smell was on the funky side. The young woman behind the counter was surly and nearly unintelligible. The biscuits were better than cardboard but not by a huge margin, and their contents inspired such unfortunate discussion moments as the following:
"That could be a real egg."I can't speak to all the world's Tudors, but if you're in the Ripley area and considering this one, drive on by.
"No way. That egg-like thing came from a bottle."
"But is sorta has white and yellow areas."
I've eaten a fair number of rubber-chicken meals in my time, but this afternoon's World Fantasy Con awards banquet has to rank as one of the very worst.
Some of the bad aspects of the meal were predictable and fairly common: the overwrought salad dressing, the bread fresh from the packages in which the hotel bought it on sale last week, the meat cooked so dry it was only a few hours from turning to jerky, the mashed potatoes well on their way to setting solidly enough that the hotel could use them to repair the holes in my room's ceiling when Hyatt finally gets around to the way overdue renovations.
Other features, though, were unusual and added to the meal's very special standing. The desserts, for example, ranged from chewy to nearly impenetrable; Jürgen Snoeren, a Dutch publisher at our table, had to push hard on his fork to get it to penetrate his hockey puck of a chocolate cake. The servers were also a treat, each one surlier than the one before, all annoyed at everything we did, some reaching in to move our water glasses or forks or knives simply because we hadn't put those items where they felt we should.
Up to now, I'd thought this Hyatt was merely the worst example of its type I'd ever stayed in, but the banquet has shown me that there is always room to do worse.
After some work and rest in the afternoon, a large group of us walked to the Hyde Park steak house, where we enjoyed a good meal and a lot of conversation. For dessert, though, we left the restaurant and walked to--yes, you guessed it--the Jeni's up the street. I have greatly enjoyed all this ice cream, but I am very, very glad that it's not available anywhere near my home.
On a completely unrelated topic, several folks here have stopped to chat with me about the Children No More charity program and child soldiers. As you may have noted in the news, the U.S. government recently decided to issue a waiver of the 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act and continue to provide aid to four countries that are still using child soldiers. I don't agree with this decision, though I must assume the people involved did not make it lightly and are considering many different issues. If you are also thinking about this recent action, or if you're just interested in the topic, I thought you might find these photos, which Kyle brought to my attention, both moving and disturbing.
I didn't finish my work last night until nearly five in the morning, but I was able to sleep late and so woke up feeling okay. Lunch was again at the North Market, where this time I tried a hot Italian sandwich that was, unfortunately, only so-so. No matter, though, because an orchid vanilla ice cream cookie from Jeni's fixed me right up.
After a pass through the art show and the dealer's room, it was time for my panel on Thorne Smith. The five of us on the panel and quite a few audience members conducted a reasonably lively discussion of this largely forgotten fantasist who was a bestselling writer in his day. If you don't know his work, I recommend starting with The Night Life of the Gods.
Baen Senior Editor and friend, Jim Minz, treated a dozen of us to a very nice Italian dinner at Rigsby's Kitchen and then to dessert at the shop right across the street. Yes, you guessed it: another Jeni's.
The bulk of the rest of the evening went to the Artist's Reception and a few parties, notably Tor's.
A pleasant enough day, all in all, but now one in which I must return to work.
It's going on four in the morning Friday night, and I've been working for hours when I wish I was enjoying the con. I'd be down, except that I'm listening to Gaslight Anthem on my Etymotic in-ear headphones and the music and the sound are so good that I can't help but smile at the music.
Work dominated today, but I did manage to squeeze in quite a few fun things. I made passes through both the art show and the dealers' room, and I had a good time in each. Omar Rayyan, an artist whose work I love and who is just a great guy, is showing quite a few pieces here, and I spent some time studying them. His sense of childish whimsy and fantasy is unsurpassed and always leaves me happy. I already own several of his paintings and always wish I could afford more.
As I walked the dealers' room, several folks brought me stacks of books to sign, which is always gratifying.
Lunch today was at a small barbecue stand in the fine North Market, a building that houses many local food vendors and that is less than half a mile from the hotel. I once again tried a little Jeni's ice cream, this time splitting an ice cream cookie with friends. Wow, is their stuff great!
As it turns out, there's a White Castle only a mile away, and several friends had never eaten a true White Castle slider, so that was the late-night dinner pilgrimage. Their sliders aren't great, but they are addictive and well worth experiencing. Dessert at the other Jeni's was a natural follow-on.
Dinner was so late because from eight to eleven the con ran the traditional mass author signing in the Grand Ballroom. To my pleasant surprise, people wandered by to chat and to have me sign books for almost the entire time (nearly two hours) that I stayed there.
As I head back to work, enjoy the Gaslight Anthem's "I'da Called You Woody, Joe." I did.
I didn't get to see much of the con today, because work consumed most of my waking hours, but a few incidents from the day deserve note.
After registering for the con, I didn't have much time before a client call, so lunch was in a food court in the adjacent convention center. As frequent readers will know, I'm a big fan of the mighty tube steak, so I ordered one from one of the vendors there. Mistake. Big mistake. The dog started doing tricks in my stomach and didn't stop for the next half dozen hours.
A mid-afternoon visit to the original Jeni's Ice Creams location did help somewhat. I tried my first Jeni's ice cream sandwich--oatmeal cookies, which they baked, surrounding vanilla ice cream--and it was wonderful. I'm so very glad I don't live near one of these stores.
Dinner was a delightful meal at M, courtesy of Tor Publisher Tom Doherty. The food was very good, but the stories from Tom were better. He started in publishing in 1957, and his knowledge of the field and its history is both wide and deep. We all tried to persuade him to write a book about it, but I don't think we succeeded. I truly hope he does.
I talked with a few folks in the hotel bar after dinner, then spent many hours working.
Oh, yeah: I'm finally announcing the contents of the anthology I've been editing that will appear next August. See the next post for more on The Wild Side.
Other than an hour in the Cincinnati airport once many years ago, I've not spent any time in Ohio. This trip will begin to fill that gap in my travel resume.
We drove here, a long drive that with lunch and gas breaks took almost nine hours. For a bit under an hour we had to fight fog and rain, but the rest of the way the weather was lovely. So was the scenery. I'd also never previously been in West Virginia, but I've always heard it was beautiful. It truly is. The old, low mountains sported fall colors just a bit past their prime, as if they were college professors adorned in well-worn plaids. Rarely was the view less than lovely.
For lunch, on Jain's recommendation, we pulled over and ate in the food court at Tamarack. This odd structure houses many different types of craftspeople, a conference center, an art gallery, and, of course, the grill from which we ordered. The food was decent, better than I'd initially feared, and the break in the trip was great.
Even though I had cellular connections most of the way and so could keep up with work somewhat, I still hit the hotel desperately behind on work. The evening plan thus turned simple: work, get dinner, work many hours more.
For dinner, we headed half a mile north to a very pleasant little place, The Happy Greek. I have no idea how authentically Greek the food was, but it tasted good, the portions were bigger than we'd expected, and I left happy.
Of course, we were only a block and a half away from a Jeni's ice creams store that was still open, so we had to drop in there and try a little tasty creamy goodness--and good it was. I expect to visit that place another few times before I leave town.
The con starts tomorrow, and I hope to manage to do it and my job and my writing--always a recipe for long days!
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