Report from the Stacks (ALA 2009)

Unlike some people, I find it difficult to blog AT a convention. Let alone tweet. I mean, there’s too much conventioning to do. Plus my spouse was along, and he took up those snippets of time usually devoted to blogging. (Notice how I deflect blame?)
So now I’m home and blogging instead of tackling the BIG REVISION.
Chicago is a great city. My visit was a combination of business, pleasure, and pain. We got the pain over with early. That was the five-hour flight delay that cost us our first day in Chicago. Seems Continental forgot that they’d need a crew to fly the plane.
Our hotel was great, though—the Trump Tower Hotel.

We got a deal on the price, it was in a fabulous location, the room was huge, and it had a stovetop, dishwasher, microwave, and a refrigerator you could actually put things into. With a built-in ice maker. The service was gracious, but not stuffy. Imagine that—a luxury hotel that goes out of its way to make guests comfortable.

We went and saw the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was focused on the movies (one of the guides said they weren’t supposed to talk about the books because it is sponsored by Warner Brothers). It included lots of props and costumes, such as Harry’s wand and Professor Mcgonigal’s dress robes, and recreated settings including Hagrid’s Hut and the Great Hall of Hogwart’s.

We also visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and the Chicago Art Institute.
My ALA experience began with the Voya/Scarecrow Press reception for Perfect Tens and Top Shelf Fiction. (Voya named The Dragon Heir a “perfect ten.”) And, frankly, that is the only way I’ll ever qualify.
Then we went to a “Newbery banquet alternative dinner” at Aria organized by the awesome Nancy Werlin . Visited with Kindling Words buddies Laura Rubie, Toni Buzzeo, and Frannie Billingsley. Web designer Lisa Firke and authors Delia Sherman and Annette Curtis Klause were also there.
After dinner, we headed over to the Sheraton to hear the awards speeches. All the chairs were filled, so we ended up sitting on a platform at the back of the room.
We arrived just in time for Caldecott winner Beth Krommes’s speech and heard Neil Gaiman (Newbery Award for The Graveyard Book) and Ashley Bryan (winner of the Laura Ingalls Wilder award). Gaiman’s speech was especially moving. He described himself as a feral child raised amid the stacks by librarians. I congratulated Krommes outside the ladies’ room and she let me hold her Caldecott medal. It was weighty. And I shook Gaiman’s hand in the receiving line and told him his speech was fantastic. “Really?” he said. “I was kind of nervous about it.”
Maybe greatness rubs off.

The next day was my signing. I spent the morning chasing key ARCs and buying a few books (still no Going Bovine, alas). Arrived at the Disney-Hyperion booth to find out they were already out of ARCs of The Demon King. Signed Heir series books and met lots of people I’d only met online before.

Librarians rock! Seriously.

What to Wear, What to Wear

OK, so after my whining posting of last week about not getting to go to BEA, I AM going to the American Library Association conference in Washington, DC. This is my first ALA conference and I’m doing a signing at the Hyperion Booth for Warrior Heir and Wizard Heir on Saturday. I’m also thrilled to be going to the Caldecott-Newbery Banquet (or is the Newbury-Caldecott Banquet.)

So here’s the problem: What to wear? I asked my contact at the publisher, and she said, “Black is good.”

Here’s the data:

I’m from the Midwest, and the conference is on the East coast, plus there will be all these NYC publishing types there. They all wear black, right?
The banquet is black tie.
My hotel is ~1/2 mile from the convention center and I’ll be walking back and forth.
I’m vertically challenged and my bodily contours are, shall we say, redistributing themselves.
My typical dressup fashion look is a cross between throwback flower child, gypsy’s night out and high bling
I don’t go to these kinds of events often, so I have to be aware of the cost-per-wear factor

Cocktail Dress Criteria
Black
Flattering to short person with redistributed contours
Sexy, but not too sexy
Inexpensive, but looks very expensive
Comfortable (does not require constant strap and infrastructure monitoring and adjustment)
Emphasizes what I want to emphasize
Downplays what I want to downplay
Available in one of the three malls I frequent (requires no visits to formalwear stores)
Ironing? What’s that?
Totally in context with whatever my table-mates will be wearing

Shoe Criteria
Very comfortable for walking long distances on pavement
Look good on my feet
Very high heel
Inexpensive but look very expensive
Sexy. Just. Sexy

So after searching my three malls (one of them twice) and trying on scads (Midwest term) of dresses, the one dress that fit, looked good, emphasized, de-emphasized, etc. is…black and white polka-dot.

Does polka dot have anything to do with polka? Here’s what Wikipedia says

http://www.answers.com/topic/polka-dot

Polka dot is a pattern consisting of dots. Polka dot patterns are quite variable: they range from a series of dots that are equally spaced and sized to a random arrangement of multicoloured dots of different sizes. Polka dots are most commonly seen on children's clothing, toys, and furniture, but they appear in a wide array of contexts. The pattern rarely appears in formal contexts, however, and is generally confined to more playful attire such as bathing suits. Occasionally white on black regularly spaced polka dots appear on more formal clothing.
While polka dots are ancient, they first became common on clothing in the late nineteenth century in Britain. At the same time polka music was extremely popular and the name was also applied to the pattern, despite no real connection between them.

I’m doomed.