insent, Fred

Fred, has anyone alerted you to the existence of Giordano's? I think the one on Rush street might not be too far from your hotel. Very, very good stuffed pizzas, particularly the spinach.

Giordano's is good, but Gino's East is the best. Plus, graffitti.

Gino's!!!! You took me there. My name is on the wall there!

Mmmmmmm. Pizza....

I see Giordano's has a location in Rockford. Which is dangerously close to where I grew up.

And mail order pizza. Hmmmmm. Must remember.

And aurelia, e-mail answered.

Got it Fred.

It may be time for me to go back to Gino's to freshen up the "Morgan slept here" that my brother wrote on the wall nearly 5 years ago when my nephew was 3 months old.

If you go, let me know if my scrawlingg is at all still visible. I know you cleaned up the Morgan Slept Here when we visited.

Damn I need to make it back to Chicago.

Can I just travel all the time?

Yes, yes you do.

Aurelia and Fred, let me know what you arrange and I'll see if I can meet up with you - I've got kind of a crazed week ahead of me, but I should be able to carve out some time.

Can I just travel all the time?

nods furiously

I love my home, but it feels so good to be on the move.

In preparation for the F2F, I'm in the middle of reading The French Quarter, an underworld history of New Orleans by Herbert Asbury, author of Gangs of New York. It's a delicious Herodotus-like rambly collection of every story Asbury ever heard or read about New Orleans crime and criminals and general rowdy licentiousness, regardless of whether it was solidly supported by historical record, sounded vaguely plausible, or struck him as the rankest but coolest bullshit ever.

Among the excellent stories I've read so far is one that easily qualifies as the Best Riot Ever, Ever. In the early 19th century, during the shadowy period in which Louisiana was being treated as a bargaining chip by both France and Spain, passed back and forth between the sovereignty of one or the other (usually with a several-year lapse between when the handover happened and when the inhabitants were actually informed of it), there was a big glamorous high-society ball held at the finest ballroom in New Orleans, attended by all the young people of the old-family Creole aristocracy, along with the family and hangers-on of the governor (it's not clear whether he was the governor of all the Louisiana territory or just of NO), who at that particular second happened to be a Spaniard cordially loathed by all the Creoles.

The governor's obnoxious son was at the ball, and after a few French ballroom dances he decided to show off his power and piss off the snotty French guys who didn't want him to dance with their sisters; so he went to the band and ordered them in his father's name to start playing English ballroom dances. The band complied; the Creoles made small disdainful faces but danced on, because the governor's son might be an ass but he wasn't going to keep them from dancing, and anyhow, if a couple of English songs appeased him then that was fine by them.

But after the first two he demanded a third, and then a fourth, and then a fifth, and the Creole gentlemen had had enough. They stormed the bandstand howling for French music. The governor's son howled back. The band froze. The other Spanish loyalists in the crowd started getting huffy. Someone drew a sword. Someone picked up a chair and smacked someone else with it. Within minutes, it was a madhouse of partisan dancers clocking each other enthusiastically but ineptly (no major injuries, no deaths) with anything at hand and bellowing about how much the other country's ballroom dancing stank.

Meanwhile, the ladies in the room, being ladies, began swooning, and the Americans in the room, having remained neutral on the question of French vs. Spanish ballroom dances, began scooping up the swooning ladies and running off down alleyways with them.

The whole thing ended when three Creole men of unusual tardiness and eloquence showed up very very late, stared aghast at the melee, and then leaped up on the only intact tables and shouted in ringing and commanding tones that everyone ought to be ashamed of themselves: those chairs were expensive, they were spoiling their dress clothes, as long as there was decent music and pretty women to dance with who cared whether it was English or French music, and where had all the pretty women got to, anyhow?

And everyone put down their chairs and table legs, straightened their wigs and cravats and rebuttoned their waistcoats, mumbled apologies to each other, and ran off to rescue the ladies from their American rescuers, following which the dance proceeded for several more hours to everyone's satisfaction.

I defy anyone here to come up with a better (or, anyhow, more Buffista-ish) Best Riot Ever. And now I kind of want to reenact it at the Prom.