Kent beat me by a few minutes, so I actually was "thirding" praise of Barb and the Elmira staff. On 8/5/2013 7:13 PM, Kent Rasmussen wrote: > I'm surprised I seem to have the honor of being the first person to echo > Hal's thoughts (unless someone else beats me to it before this note goes > online). It goes without saying that we all owe a big debt of gratitude t= > o > Barbara Snedecor, Christy Gray (why do my fingers insist on typing "Chris= > ty > Brown"?), and many others at the center for all their work. This was my > fifth conference, and I've always been amazed at the amount of work that > goes into them. The attention to detail is quite astounding. > > I got home to California very late last night and am still a little tired= > > and disoriented. Rather than try to sum up my feeling about the > conference--except to say it was wonderful, perhaps the best yet, I'll > follow Hal's lead by rattling off some random observations ... > > --I too was impressed by the Japanese contributions to the conference and= > > the dedication and energy the Japanese scholars put into their > presentations. I counted ten Japanese paper presenters. Wouldn't it be > something if that many people participated from each of many different > countries! > > --I was fortunate to be in Elmira in May, when blooming flowers made the > campus more beautiful than I had ever seen it, but it still looked awfull= > y > beautiful during the conference, which was blessed with cool weather. The= > > grounds of Quarry Farm also looked more beautiful than ever, thanks, I'm > sure to Tim Morgan. And Hal is right about the view from there! > > --Speaking of the weather, the air conditioning in the new dormitory, Mei= > er > Hall, was almost too cold. Imagine that in Elmira! It's a wonderful, > old-school-style building, by the way. Its spacious commons room has a ni= > ce > old-fashioned fireplace, by which John Bird read an unpublished (for now)= > > fairy tale by Mark Twain, and at least one aging scholar (if that's the > correct) word comfortably drifted off to sleep. > > --I can't remember a conference with more papers that I wanted to hear. A= > s > virtually every time slot had concurrent sessions, I missed nearly half t= > he > presentations I wanted to attend. I've been lobbying Barbara to add anoth= > er > day to the conference to reduce the number of scheduling conflicts. Sure,= > > some people would miss sessions because they couldn't come on Wednesday .= > .. > but would that be any worse than missing them because of scheduling > conflicts? Another suggestion I'd like to throw out is that it would be g= > ood > to have a web site where ALL conference papers would be posted. Not > necessarily the scholars' full-length papers, but at least the truncated > versions they present at the conferences. > > --I've been to Elmira seven times and was stunned to realize I had never > before been inside Cowles Hall and seen its chapel! Its magnificent woodw= > ork > and stained-glass windows are gorgeous. Its acoustics aren't good for > speakers, but no one visiting the campus should miss a chance to visit th= > e > chapel. > > --I'm not sure it's appropriate to single out individual papers for prais= > e > here, as I don't want to hurt the feelings of people I fail to mention. I= > 'll > merely say that keynote speaker Peter Kaminsky's praise of Horst Kruse's > presentation was right on the money and that there were many, many fine > papers at the conference. > > I'll end by enthusiastically seconding John Bird's call to everyone to > attend the next conference at Hannibal in 2015. I'm not an officer of the= > > Mark Twain Circle, so I speak only for myself, but I'd like to see these > conferences unified into a single-series biennial conference with > alternating venues. Why not? > > Okay, I will single out another person. Mark Twain Project editor Ben > Griffin's talk in the chapel about Mark Twain's "A Family Sketch" was > wonderful--informative, fascinating, and occasionally hilarious. I hearti= > ly > concur with another attendee who suggested that perhaps he should have be= > en > the keynote speaker. Next time? Incidentally, Bob Hirst was no slouch of = > a > follow-up speaker. > > Kent Rasmussen >