When
in the course of human events it becomes necessary to avoid the outrageous
price of fuel and hold the conference closer to home, the town of Purewater,
Kansas sighs, plants its feet firmly on the loamy prairie sod, and rolls
up its sleeves to get to work. Thus the latest Postmodern Village Conference
was held on and about our very own university in Purewater, just off
the beaten track that is Highway 72, a few miles from Upthe Creek Reservoir,
just east of the abandoned missile silo. You can't miss it. And a record
7,000 didn't, many of them arriving, road-weary but green, on carbon-fiber
Cannondales and vintage Schwinns, in spiffy new Priuses and wheezing,
veggie-powered Mercedes 240 diesels. It was almost like coming home,
if this indeed were anyplace like it.
Of Bunco and Beauty Queens
Straitened
circumstances lead to a panoply of creative solutions. Purewater, while
a wonderful college town, is not particularly well prepared to be a
convention town, and our last-minute plan to call upon local residents
to open their homes to conference-goers was such a resounding success
that we're considering using similar scenarios in the future. If discoursing
on the etiology of contemporary Marxist/feminist interpretations of
anorexia-nervosa on the body-as-text over Malt-O-Meal and Postum with
the Stalwarts, a dairy-farming and alfalfa-growing family just 20 miles
outside town, is fun, imagine how enjoyable it'll be to, say, shoot
the breeze about the nuances of neo-formalist verse as Ivory Tower apologia
with a yak herder in Bhutan? In the meantime, special thanks should
be extended to Mrs. Bessie Stalwart, whose homemade buttermilk biscuits
almost made up for 5000 years of patriarchal oppression.
The home of Mittens DuBois-Dugan was especially well appointed for
her house guests, with conference-driven Bunco every night and a game
of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey the head of which was strategically replaced
with a picture of Barack Obama. That's stickin' it to The Man, Mittens!
The trophy wives trucked in for Russell O. Meier's presentation caused
a bit of a scene when they all went shopping with Lilly B. Allgagg's
gaggle of BDSM drag queens, though. 
Rumor
has it the ad-hoc group bought up all the dog leashes and styling products
in the Alco, along with its sole pair of size 13 stiletto heels, but
police were not called and would not have been able to respond as Sheriff
Swineherd and both his deputies were busy dragging the reservoir for
any stray Independence Day revelers.
Surf
& Turf meets Town & Gown
All-in-all, the 15th Annual Postmodern Village Conference brought together agricropolis and academe in a completely new way. Conferees from the EU were bolstered by a favorable exchange rate; Randy's Rack O' Ribs (motto: "You Bring the Babes, We'll Give the Bibs") even opened up a register for Euros only. Down at the Roadapple Ranch-house Dick Gleng deserves credit for supplying chicken-fried snakes for our herpitvores and savory vegan ribeyes for everybody else.
Collateral Damage
Visitors
to this site are encouraged, however, to donate to the William S. Burroughs
Memorial Stadium Fund after the Wheat Camp Ho-down gnarled up all the
grass. Who knew square-dancers needed cleats?
Special thanks should also be extended to the Purewater University Fighting Systems of Oppression whose collective athletic presence aided tremendously in the set-up and take-down of conference facilities. Of particular help was the lacrosse team's willingness to shampoo the flavored lubricant out of the carpet of the arena's executive suite. A good hosing was provided by the Purewater Fire Department.