partying in accordion city

Yes, the conference is great, and I'm learning a lot, and it's good to be back in the academic swing of things. But I have to say that the highlight of the conference thus far was going out on the town with Kathleen Fitzpatrick of Planned Obsolescence, and Joey deVilla, Toronto's infamous "Accordion Guy."

We dined at Smokeless Joe's, on chowder for them (and when they say a big bowl of chowder, the mean a big bowl of chowder) and pesto pasta for me--with beer to wash it all down, natch. Then we embarked on a tour of Accordion City. (Kathleen has a great post about the tour, and Joey is promising more details soon on "lizapalooza".)

We wandered past the Rivoli, home of Sunday Night Kickass Karaoke, and setting for Joey's recent "ground rules" post. Then we stopped for drinks and conversation at the infamous Tequila Sunrise (which will be recognized immediately by regular readers of Joey's as the spot where Joey met "The Waitress," his co-star in the Worst Date Ever series of posts). Kathleen headed back to her hotel at that point, and Joey and I headed to the Bovine Sex Club. (Yes, that's really its name. Joey says the back of their t-shirts reads: "Pet me, milk me, kill me, eat me.") Happily, I had worn black clothes, so I didn't stand out too much--it's a pretty goth sort of place. And loud. Very loud.

We sat and talked there for quite some time. Much of the time I was trying to avoid looking at the video monitors behind the bar, which were showing a variety of disturbing images, featuring plenty of blood-caked clothing and cruel and unusual mistreatment of characters. It was like an ongoing visual trainwreck--I didn't want to watch, but kept finding my eyes pulled towards the images.) Despite the distractions (did I mention that it was loud?), we had a nice chat. We walked back to my hotel (quite a distance, but it was a nice night for a walk, particularly given the amount of anti-freeze I'd poured into my system at that point), and said good night.

You will notice, however, that there was no accordion playing whatsoever during the evening. <sigh> That means, of course, that I will have to kidnap Weez one weekend soon (maybe November?) and come back up for an encore, this time with accompaniment.

Tonight I'm going to have a quieter night. I opted not to pay the $50 for the conference dinner, and instead will get takout food, bring it back to my hotel, and spend a few hours working on the powerpoint-for-pay that's going to pay my way to Tokyo in February.

Update, 10:20pm
Okay, I lied. I went to the conference dinner, because somebody gave me a free ticket. The food was good, but the company (Jason, Kathleen, D., and Irina) was better.