Two Gentlemen of Boston

So the Shakespeare Association of America (SAA) is having its annual conference here in Boston this weekend!  If anybody's at that show and actually reading this, Hello!  Enjoy my town.

I am not a member, but I did head into town to at long last meet my partner in crime KJ - owner, operator and chief rabble-rouser of the world-renown Bardfilm blog. If you're not subscribed over there (not to mention following him on Twitter), what are you waiting for?  Where precisely do you think I get all my best ideas?  He's like my own Holinshed's Chronicles.

Anyway, three funny stories come out of the night.  First, we're trying to decide where to go grab a drink.  I point out that despite being born and raised here in Massachusetts I did not attend college in the heart of Boston so I'm about as lost as the next guy.  We end up at a place called, are you ready for this?  The Globe.  I mean, come on! How could we *not* go there?  I joke about showing up and having 500 Shakespeare conference attendees all thinking the same thing, but when KJ asked the concierge for directions she said, "Surprisingly, you're the first person that's asked."

So we're hanging out at the bar, having a few pints of Guinness. (I tell KJ that had I known he had a preference for Guinness we could have gone to a more traditional Irish spot just so I could hear him ask, "Do you have Guinness?" and see what kind of reaction it got :). )  He shows me the program for the conference and we're discussing the "Shakespeare in New Media" presentation which is likely to be the one nearest and dearest to my heart.  There are no abstracts for each presentation but they do each come with a laundry list of authors/presenters. 

Son of a gun, I see the name Erin Presley from Eastern Kentucky University. I know her!  In fact, once I got back to my computer to dig it up, here's the February 2006 comment she posted, asking for permission to cite me in a paper she was working on.  While sitting at the bar I fire up Facebook (where I have her linked) and post a comment on her wall.  Wondering whether she'll see that, or this post.  Small world!  Hi, Erin!

Lastly, I wasn't going to add this one but it just came up this morning and I found it hysterical.  When I got home and filled my wife in on our summit meeting, she's the sort who wanted to hear less about the Shakespeare and more about Mr. J - how old are his kids, will he be home for Easter, all that good stuff.  So this morning over IM we're talking and I fill him in on that story.  He agrees that our wives would probably get along as well as we do.

"Question," he asks, "Did your wife make you promise not to meet me in any dark back alleys behind the hotel?"

"Yes!" I write back, and then I wonder whether I tweeted something about that.  "What made you ask that?"

"Oh, my wife told me the same thing," he replies.

Wives.  What're ya gonna do. :)