Belated AWPlanta report

One thing I can say is, at least I got to see the One Tweezy. Other than that, Atlanta looked like the inside of a hotel room at best (thanks to MH and his Batman-like bourbon signal he flashed into the night sky to alert me to nearby open bottles of Beam). Though I hear the Highlands is a pretty sweet neighborhood, the cabs/public transportation system seem to make it difficult to get anywhere without a car. Who puts a convention center in the middle of Sucktown anyway? Even though it wasn't that far away from where we were in the Downtown area, Midtown, which seemed pretty ok, cost $14 by cab. WTF? Some ATL highlights despite all that? A hungover breakfast at the Flying Biscuit (they have stellar bathrooms, btw) with my retarded Sheraton roomies Justin, Dan, and Sam, a hungover dinner at La Fonda (dope paella), delicious PBRs at Django's after the Fence/Action Books reading, which induced a hangover (the PBRs, not the reading), and some badass sushi at Nickiemoto's with my Boston friends and the 'rents who came through town on their way to Fla.

Oh, and no way I can not tell you about my lunch at the American Grille (that's "American Grill" for those of you who aren't bilingual) in the Mariott Mezzanine. So we (MS, JC, DB, ZS, JM, and SS) walk into this place like 5 minutes before they close and there has been this high-pitched humming in the hotel since we walked in. This is driving DB insane. So he asks the waitress (her name is Song and she is in love with SS because he looks like "rock star...like Mick Jagger who can do it all night long") how she deals with this sound all day. She thinks we're nuts and that it is coming from one of us. DB continues to head to the brink. Anyway, I hit the bathroom (not noticing that the sound has gone away), and when I come back the table is in tears, because apparently Song figured out that it was coming from my cheezy AWP tote bag...it was my cell phone. Dan has it dismantled on the table and is completely done with me for the afternoon.











As for the conference, I basically floated between the Kitchen Press, Redivder, LIT, RealPoetik, Rose Metal Press table and the Typo, Octopus, Black Ocean, H_NGM_N, The Pines, Cannibal, etc. table. Elisa's Thanks For Sending The Engine debuted for Kitchen Press, and Ana and Caroline sewed up a storm before their flight on Wednesday and put together a beautiful print version of RealPoetik (not to mention a terrific cd ;). Over at the other table, the new Cannibal was unveiled as well as a great looking new book by The Pines. But so far, my "take away" from the conference is Zach's The Man Suit from Black Ocean.
It is a truly remarkable book.

And of course The So and So South was tons o' fun. Thanks to all the editors and readers. My apologies again to Rose Metal Press and their authors.