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Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019) and AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021).

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Off to Atlanta

We're flying from Kansas City to Atlanta tomorrow (i.e. Thursday, since it's still Wednesday night here in Kansas City). Thanks to Eric Reynolds, who has done so much to look after us for the last few days, including a museum trip today (and the drive to the airport tomorrow). It was especially nice meeting Jim Gunn a couple of days ago, and talking about Delany and other things.

Kansas City, contrary to what might be thought by people who have never visited it, is a beautiful city of lush green parks, gardens, innumerable fountains, and stately old buildings (with, of course, a very modern downtown district that we only ever saw from the road). It's quite lovely, at least under the current circumstances of the rather mild summer the city is enjoying this year.

In Atlanta, we'll be going to the huge media/fantasy/sf/whatever convention, Dragon*Con, which will probably have about ten times as many attendees as the Montreal Worldcon. It attracts something of the order of 30 or 40 thousand people. I find it hard to imagine a convention on that, er, scale (though there's a comics-based convention held annually in San Diego that's even bigger). We're going to meet a lot of interesting people, and it should be a blast, even if it's confusing.

5 comments:

Jerry Coyne said...

Hey Russell,

Maybe I'll see you in the Atlanta airport today (I'll be looking for someone who resembles Bill Clinton).

In the meantime, don't miss the great Southern Cooking in Atlanta, esp. Mary Mac's tea room.

And for the true American drive-in experience, go to the Varsity Grill, the world's biggest dispenser of Coca Cola (but get an orange freeze instead).

Russell Blackford said...

See you there around 5 pm, Jerry, if that happens to be when you're there.

Dave Cake said...

Though DragonCon is smaller than ComicCon on the raw numbers, I wouldn't be surprised if it is bigger if measured in attendees at any given time, as ComicCon is an expo event with a lot of people who go only for a few hours, while DragonCon is more of a full immersion event, is my understanding. I'm certainly looking forward to hearing your experiences of DragonCon, anyway. Take lots of photos!

Russell Blackford said...

I doubt that we'll be getting far from the four big hotels hosting Dragon*Con, but I had an excellent steak today (Friday) at Durango's Steakhouse at 230 Peachtree St.

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