I'm currently hanging out at my second alma mater, the University of Iowa. I'm here for a very cool conference on nonfiction, called, appropriately enough, NonfictioNow. I'm having a FABULOUS time, despite the fact that the conference organizers made no arrangements for attendees to be able to use computer facilities for anything: not email, not printing out last minute revisions of papers, not blogging. I'm only able to write this entry due to the generosity of an old classmate, who, saintly, trusting woman that she is, gave me her user name and password and let me log in on her account. My god.... I am still in awe of her benevolence.
But I'm so glad I came. I've been lucky enough to meet up with many old friends, which is always wonderful. I've met new people. Then there's the fact that I get to wander around someplace I lived for eight years. I didn't really love Iowa City when I was here, especially at first; it was cold and midwestern and filled with ugly architecture. But it has gotten WAY cooler in the four years since I left, and there's almost no comparison to what it was like in 1993, when I first arrived.
One of the standard lines about Iowa City went, "Oh, it's a nice little town, but there's hardly a decent restaurant in the whole place!" But now there are quite a few shishi restaurants just downtown. And there are all kinds of cool galleries and shops. And some of the ugly buildings have been torn down and replaced with buildings that aren't quite so ugly. (Though there are still PLENTY of HIDEOUS buildings, so that I still feel I recognize the place, and don't quite wish I could move back.)
Anyway. I'll no doubt have more to say about this trip and this conference when I get back to PA, but in the meantime, I thought I'd give a shout-out to you, my vast and devoted readership, and say HI FROM IOWA.
It sounds like Iowa it treating you well -- I nearly made a silly joke about how cool it is that they undertook all that effort to get the city ready for your arrival. More evidence of the thickness of our town! They only have till Sunday to undergo urban renewal; how will they manage that? I would love to hear more about the changes in the city. Urbanism is one of the things I'm really interested in although it's been on the back burner now for a little while. The midwest, at least the small farming communities, has been de-populating over the last several years -- some parts of the midwest are less densely populated today than when they were opened to homesteaders... It's interesting to see how the cities are coping with these changes, as well as trying to find new ways of creating investment opportunities and tax bases. I was in Omaha a few years ago and it was also trying to take advantage of the University and its culture to reinvent the core of the city to make it more attractive.
What Holly doesn't tell you is that few inspire trust as much as she does and always has, even here in Iowa where there's nowhere to hide from those you screw over. You're welcome, Holly, and it was good to see you. What a great conference.
C
ps that's a really good picture of you up there --