Anna Mitchell, Commander of CapitolCon and a stalwart of the 501st Legion, invited me to share a table with her and Alesha Austin, a librarian for the Rappahannock Regional Library, to celebrate World Book Day. World Book Day? Well, I’m there.
WBD was hosted by Casal Catala of DC, and those guys did it up right. They set up canopies and tables right in the middle of Dupont Circle and had dozens of volunteers on site to help unload vehicles, which, if you’ve ever tried to unload a vehicle in the middle of a DC traffic circle, you know how life-threatening that is. I was in and out of the circle in less than five minutes. Finding a parking space, though, different matter. Those of you who ever tried to park in DC can empathize.
WBD coincided with the Catalan celebration of St. Jordi, and, in keeping with that, Casal Catala was handing out roses and books because a rose lasts the day, a book, forever. Man. Were I so poetic.
The setup:
It was just cool. No, downright cold, with a stiff north breeze ( as you can tell by my flapping banners)
and lower 50’s all day. I now know how people can die of hypothermia when it’s well above freezing. But, you know, so what? We had a blast.
Anna and Alesha had this excellent promotion called Blind Date.
See those bags? There’s a book inside, but you don’t know what book; all you know is the genre, which is written on the outside of the bag. Pays your $2.00 and takes your chances: could be the best date ever, or a dud. They had brought at least 2 bins full and, by the time we ended at 1700 (5:00 pm, civilian time), they were down to maybe 15 bags of Paranormal Romance. Because, well, paranormal romance.
My view of Dupont:
Water and coffee in the foreground, both being survival items.
A read-aloud for the kids:
I met a lot of great people, just great. CapitolCon and moi got a lot of exposure we ordinarily wouldn’t.
And I am definitely doing this again next year.