Post Convention Exhalation
"It's Monday morning and the long weekend of party is over." -- This could probably be said more times per year now, here, in New Orleans, than at any other time in my life...or of any of the places I've ever lived.
This past weekend was the Saints & Sinners Festival, an annual gathering of LGBT writers, poets, readers and various hangers-on. Now that we live here we can see many of our friends from all over who descend on the conference. It's also nice that with each passing year we meet many more friends in the business, and some of whom ALSO live here, like right down the block.
It has become an annual thing that with Saints & Sinners comes our friend Felice, who we only get to see once each year. I deal with him much more than Dave does, as I manage his website, but the special 'Felice is in town' stories make the weekend that much more memorable.
If you don't know Felice Picano, it's difficult to describe him. He's a well published author, well known LGBT pioneer, editor, lecturer, publisher and all around bon vivant. (Yeah, I did just use that term, but believe me, I ONLY use it in cases like this). As he is one of the 'luminaries' of the gay writing world, along with others like Andrew Holleran and Edmund White - both of whom were also in attendance this weekend, we as his hosts get to ride his coattails and tag along for everything during the festival. It has its perks. It also has its funny moments. There are always one or two. And also, if you know Felice...it's MUCH more satisfying to tell the anecdote yourself rather than have him do it for you ;)
As I mentioned above, sometimes we get to meet locals, who as it turns out are also writers/editors/publishers. And sometimes, as was the case on Saturday night, those people live right around the corner...or in the next block. Felice mentioned to us that his friend Jean was throwing a cocktail party that night, and she just happened to live on our street. Being the middle of the festival there were parties and what-not back to back each evening. A group of us had gone ahead to one of these a few blocks away and were planning to then rendezvous at some point for the later soirees. Hours later we still had not heard anything from Felice, but as we had to walk right by our house on the way to the next party there was a chance we would discover what had happened.
I approached our house and there was Dave standing in our front door, shutters and front doors thrown open wide. "Did Felice leave the front door open?!" I called out to him incredulously from about 20 yards away. "No, he's still here...holding 'salon'" he answered back, half laughing. I climbed our front steps and popped through the french doors into our packed living room. "Ummm, hello..... welcome to my home...?" I said loudly to the room of strangers. Sitting sheepishly in the corner was Felice, "They just came in! We were just sitting here, really!" he pleaded. "Well, we inadvertently wound up hosting a party after all" I said jokingly to Dave as we scrambled to rearrange chairs, retrieve drinks, open windows and what-not.
The stream of people WERE passers-by, but they were headed to the party up the street that we had ALL planned on heading to that night. Our neighbors Jean & Gillian, whom we did finally wind up meeting, and attending their party, were quickly told of another 'party' just down the street that had distracted many of the party-goers. At our house people came in, sat down, started chatting... but then asked, "Where are the lesbians?" (Obviously something was amiss) "Ohhhh... this is the wrong party?" Yes, well... it wasn't planned.
Eventually all was sorted out, people mixed back and forth between our two houses and drinks made the masses docile. A balance was achieved on Barracks Street.
Next year we are coordinating our efforts, mainly because I'm not sure I can make cosmos as well as Gillian, but WE have the outside space.
