Tuesday I crashed a conference at the Congress’s Palace. Not an easy feat given the amount of persistently incompetent security staking out the entrance.
Here is what happened. I wanted to meet with Professor Inocência Mata for a quick conversation about a project I’m brooding. She was at a conference on Oscar Ribas, and told me to meet her at said palace. I walked into security, said who I was there to see, was given blank agressive stares (the combination, I give you, is impressive) and told to wait. I was charmed for about 15 minutes by the woman running the x-ray machine ripping a piece of paper, jamming it up and around her nose, and pressing the stop/go button with said shred.
Once Professor Mata arrived I sailed in with a laminated name tag that assured the nose-pickers and aggressive idiots that ”Megar” was a-okay. I had a fabulous invite to sit through a few of the morning panels: a combination of academic literary debate, political posturing , and plugging for recent publications.
Because I was sitting in the ”invited guests” section, organizers gave me a free lunch ticket, and I made some painfully ignorant conversation with writer Manuel Fragata de Morais [if you speak Portuguese, its worth checking out his blog:http://literaturafragatademorais.blogspot.com/]
