I finished the manuscript! Hooray! Now just a few loose ends to tie up and we’re off for Christmas!
Scott and I are spending all of January 2008 in Chicago, as visiting researchers to the English Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago (with, among others, Joe Tabbi, editor of the Electronic Book Review and director of the Electronic Literature Organization). We’ve rented a brilliant-looking little place in Bucktown and I’m looking forward to being all urban. If you know of any interesting events in Chicago in January, please let me know! We’ll being giving talks with Joe on Jan 11; either of us would be happy to come and do a talk elsewhere if times suit.
vika
Congrats on finishing the manuscript, Jill! That’s a huge deal, and a big relief, I’m sure. See you in Chicago. 🙂
(Don’t know when you’re getting there, but I’ll be there as of the 27th, and am looking for something fun to do that evening. If you know of anything, ping me?)
scott
Vika — we’ll see you at your panel hope that you (and anyone else interested) will show up for the ELO meet-up on the 28th.
jeremy
I won’t be in town until the 13th, but sometime after the 13th we’ll be doing a Metaverse Meetup and you are invited, you or scott could give a talk there. I’ll drop a note to steve in a few minutes to see if he has anything at EVL.
KF
Does this mean you’ll be at the MLA? I’ll be there, and at all the digitalish stuff, so I’ll hope to run into you…
Jill Walker Rettberg
Scott will be at the MLA but I probably won’t, or only minimally – my daughter’ll be with us until New Year and then I won’t see her for WEEKS, so I want to spend as much time as I can with her in the romjul, the time between Christmas and New Year. We’ll show up for the ELO meetup though 🙂
Jeremy, a Metaverse Meetup sounds pretty cool – I’d like to go to that!
Ben
I don’t know of a lot of events in January in Chicago (given the weather), but I did my undergrad at Northwestern, and I recommend the following restaurants: Geja’s on Armitage is an excellent fondue place (there desserts are incredible), Japnonais (a Japanese-French fusion place, pretty pricy), Flat Top Grill has a number of establishments at a really decent price for an all you can eat Mongolian BBQ with fresh produce (if you catch them on the day that their dinner fish specialty is wasabi marinated tuna, you’re in for a real treat), and in terms of various cusines, the Argyle stop on the red line will lead you to good Vietnamese cuisine, the Devon St. neighhborhood had amazing Indian food (this will be a good cab or bus ride(s) from your Bucktown haunt but well worth it), and there are amazing Greek and Italian restaurants to be found in their respective districts. Leona’s is a good fast sit down restaurant open late, and there are also a lot of good restaurants sprinkled through Lincoln Park, your neighborhood of Bucktown, and also the nearest northern suburb of Evanston. And last of all, treat yourself and have real Chicago style pizza – even though I now live in Madison, I still remember the taste of Chicago style pizza – Giordano’s used to have 1/2 off Monday nights, Carmen’s is decent, and if you find yourself strolling along Wacker Dr. and craving a pie, Bacino’s (which I hope is still there) will satisfy your cravings.
Hope this helps, and I hope that you really enjoy your time in the Windy City,
Ben.