The Mainly Annual EastWesterly Review / Postmodern Village Conference 2007

Brontë-saurus: Evolution, Romanticism, and the Fossil Record in the 19th Century Brit-Lit Zeitgeist
by Anita Dovertu

The bones of fish on mountains? Zounds! Thus does Dovertu slowly pick from the matrix of 19th century English fiction the traces of the traces of ages past and, reassembling all the pieces with painstaking care and gallons and gallons of superglue, shows how it all comes together to make Darwin's discovery not mere genius but utterly inevitable despite all the random modifications of social ferment and the careless idylls of the scribe.

Maxfield Parrish Hilton: Klass Meets Trash, or High Culture Becomes Low Art in Self-Identifying Prophesy
by Nast E. Thomas

The recent movement to replace all the nudes in Maxfield Parrish's prints with Paris Hilton spawned a backlash in the illustration community unseen since the manipulation of a Norman Rockwell print to show a mixed race couple kissing. The presentation was okay, but the best part was the back table with its oddities: the urinal cake with the Mona Lisa on it (does that explain the weird smile?), tons of things with polo ponies on it, and the cell phone that plays the second Brandenburg Concerto. (That phone may or may not have been part of the exhibit. Hard to tell.)

Club Anschluss: The Sound of Music Enters the Gay Cabaret, or The Rocky Horror Effect Goes Viral
by Madge Enta and Cole Umbria

The gentle reader has no doubt heard of the popularity of The Sound of Music singalongs and their largely gay, male participants. But, argue Enta and Umbria, it is this effect, this need to belong and be hip and unabashedly camp (or even a bit vamp) that's driving otherwise well-adjusted hetero, Republican, suburban people into karaoke bars in droves, or, just as frequently, in Chevy Tahoes. Enta and Umbria's background music was disco-techno remix, but their floorshow was flamin'.

Fistful of Dimebag: the Heavy Metal Ethos as Reflected in Spaghetti Westerns, a Search for Origins in the Playlists on a Video iPod
by A.C.E. Murderface

Murderface rocked the house, but the paper's content was difficult to read on that tiny little screen. You can download the podcast at www.murderface.net. Point taken.

The Mercury Magnificent 7: A Hopalong Hoedown in Near Earth Orbit, or The Tom Wolfe Two-Step
by O. Wen Wistler

Wistler won the showdown contest with the previous paper and provided the best square dancing of the whole conference, bar none—also, and not coincidentally, the moniker of circular brand, O. Wen Wistler uses on his cattle ranch in rural Rhode Island. Interestingly, our own E.W. Wilder and Melissa Thompson had the "right stuff" to boot-scoot well enough to Wistler's live jugband, to earn them a blue ribbon and a case of Coors.

Moral Majority Minus One: Conservative Electoral Calculus in the Post-Falwell, Pre-Obama Age: An Essay in Interpretive Dance
By Olivia Graham-Newton

The best dancing of the conference was not presented alongside this paper, but this paper was presented as. This reporter would describe it, but there was far too much architecture. Suffice it to say, Graham-Newton does not suggest packing your bags in anticipation of the Apocalypse—at least not until the fall.