Where Not to Have Your Next Reception

Apparently the origanizers' original plan was to host the first-night SAA reception in "the Museum" (either Penn's or Philadelphia's, not sure which). But when that proved too expensive, the reception was shifted to the World Live Cafe, which is on the Walnut Street bridge connecting West Philly and Center City, and which is dark and down many stairs and hot and not quite big enough for the SAA crowd. So after a long wait for the trolley to take us to the reception, Truewit and I found ourselves in the academic version of a college frat party: packed in like sardines, waiting in a long line for drinks, with little if any food to be found and lots of people to looking to score (ok, that last bit may not be quite true, or at least is only true in the academic sense, you know, book contracts and the like). We saw people I hoped we'd see and then left early for an absolutely delicious dinner downtown. Not a particularly exciting first day, nor a particularly exciting first post, but there you have it.