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Registration Form (HTML)
Registration Form (MS Word)
The Seventh International Milton Symposium is swimming with head well above the water so far. We won a major regional grant to help with the production of the masque, and we will begin screening local talent for minor speaking roles, musicians, and dancers in December, to complement the British actors and director flying in to manage the performance. The program is filled with over 100 talks and includes panels on Milton and the Natural World, Milton and Early Modern Nationalism, Miltons Sonnets, Milton in Hypertext, and Miltons Sexualities. Plenary Speakers include Annabel Patterson, Victoria Kahn, John Hale, Joseph Wittreich, Neil Keeble, Thomas Corns, and David Norbrook. Please send copies of any last minute paper submissions (not proposals) to Sharon Achinstein <sa147@umail.umd.edu>.
Those who have been given notice that their abstracts have been accepted and all plenary speakers are asked to send us electronic copies of their abstracts (as part of an email message) so that the abstracts may be included among the IMS7 Web-pages, at this URL
http//ims7.bol3.com
I will be posting notices about transportation from Savannah, easily accessible through the Atlanta hub, to Beaufort. Savannah's airport is small, pleasant, manageable; the ride to Beaufort is an uncomplicated hour's drive, mostly on I-95 north. Those attendees who want to see Charleston or Savannah as well as Beaufort may want to rent autos in Savannah. We plan to supply bus transporteither chartered or through a commercial servicefor the round-trip coming into or leaving the Symposium.
We are aiming to keep most if not all of the Symposium activities located within walking distance of the best of local accommodations, and we have booked at total of about 70 rooms split between the Beaufort Inn (genteel ambiance and wonderful food) and the Sea Island Inn (breakfast and swimming pool, on the Bay), the two nicest places to stay in the historic district. A motor inn that provides breakfast or a bed and breakfast inn will be a bargain for any family staying as a unit, and the maximum charged is still lower than present convention rates, say, in Atlanta. We are encouraging attendees to patronize the Beaufort Inn and the Sea Island Inn and other downtown B&Bs and restaurants because the local ATAX (Accommodations Tax) has provided the Symposium with major funding for the masque.
We hope to provide a taste of the ambiance of Beaufort for the Symposium, and we encourage attendees to discover the joys of local kayaking or water tours, swimming in a wild ocean setting on nearby Hunting Island, walking the Old Point historic district to see where Nick Nolte stayed during the filming of The Prince of Tides, or seeing The Castle, where the cursing ghost of Renaissance French dwarf is supposed to live. There are also some excellent restaurants in Beaufort, opportunities for fishing or shrimping; and there are water excursions or tours of various mansions and plantations.
Unfortunately , since USC in Beaufort is not a residential college, there are no dormitory facilities, but, if you plan on renting a car, there are cheaper motels on the fringes of town. And, if someone would like to rough it and sleep in a cabin on the beach, or on the beach itself, I can talk to them about how to do that legally.
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[As of early December]
The program is shaping up nicely, with over 110 papers and plenary addresses scheduled over the four days, and lots of other receptions, optional tours, and a dinner or two. We will be received in several of the best-known landmarks of Beaufort (check out the long article in Travel and Leisure for this December, for current impressions of ambiance, or the New York Times of October 31, about food). I just presented us at a local Chamber of Commerce special meeting several days ago, and we feature prominently on the June calendar of local and regional events, right after the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, and two weeks before the local Gullah Festival on St. Helenas Island. The Chamber will be celebrating Flags over Beaufort, with a logo featuring the flags of Spain, Scotland, England, and France, each of which has flown over the town at one time or another.
The two chief hotels for the conference, the Beaufort Inn (together with the Craven House B&B) and the Sea Island Inn, are rapidly filling all their allotted spaces. There are other B&Bs near the center of town: the Rhett House (888-480-9530, luxurious), the TwoSuns Inn (800532-4244, less pricey), and the Port Republic Inn (843-770-0600, luxury guest suites). The Red Carpet Inn has a great location, near Bay St., but it is expensive for humble motel rooms. Within easy driving distance of the center of town, there are a Comfort Inn, a Best Western, a Howard Johnson, a Holiday Inn, an EconoLodge, and a Sleep Inn, all of which can be found by national chain 800 numbers, and there is the Atlantic Inn, 843-524-6024, which advertises Best Price in Town. The Beaufort Lodge, at 843-524-5600, is supposed to be cheap but Spartan. A student writes "The Best Inn on Boundary [843-524-3322] is cheap and nice. Their nonsmoking rooms are very clean, the water is filtered to the tap and shower, and every nonsmoking room has an air filter. I think my Mom and I spent about $50 a night there, when I came to register."
At any or all of these lodging places, ask for a conference rate for the Milton Symposium, and, if the management hesitates, give them my home number, 843-524-9407.
I won't give away what might happen in the production of Milton's masque at the Symposium, but I am dead sure that it will be exciting, unusual, well-performed, and perhaps even kinetic. And, because there has some re-scheduling, you will be able to see it two or three times, if you like it. As tantalizing bait, I will say that one performer who knows the masque already is "out to prove that chastity can be sexy."
Roy Flannagan
Food and Accommodations
Activities of Interest in Savannah and Charleston
Where You Should Eat in Beaufort, and not just for the Food [a column written by Roy Flannagan for the Low Country Weekly and published during the week of November 1]
You don’t go to certain restaurants or sandwich shops in Beaufort
just to be seen–it’s not a town that is dominated by fashion–but
you do go
to certain places to eat lunch or dinner for the fun of it, or for the
atmosphere, or for the ambiance (whatever there is in the air or in the
furniture or furnishings that make it the place to be at the time). My
list of places to be and places to eat is increasing, though it is
certainly limited and biased, and I do like to eat out (people with varying
incomes just expect to eat out often in Beaufort, more so than in
Ohio). My list is selective but incomplete, and I may well find one or
two
other great sandwich shops, seafood restaurants, or working-person lunches
between the time I write this and the time when it appears in print.
The general rule, the ground rule, for eating in Beaufort is that
these southern cooks are all generous. Usually any one helping is
equivalent to two helpings of cuisine minceur at Four Seasons in New
York. Sometimes it even pays to order one dish and split it between two
grown-ups, because otherwise you would waste half your food, even if you
are a big eater. Such is true at the local seafood mass-eateries Dockside,
in Port Royal, and at Steamers or the Ollie’s on Lady’s Island.
If you get up early, visit The Common Ground for a breakfast bun
and coffee in the morning. When the noseeums or mosquitoes aren’t
bad, you
can sit outside on the covered porch and perhaps you will see people
playing croquet or actors feeding each other lines for Midsummer Night’s
Dream. The Common Ground is the place to sit, inside or outside, in
comfortable overstuffed sofa or chairs or at tables. It is also a place
for a quiet conversation. The cappuccino is made from scratch, the
biscotti tasty, and the pastries sweetly overdone. Smoothies are also
a
specialty, and the flavors change with the menu.
A healthy lunch with the freshest grated carrots in Beaufort is
served with a well-trained staff at the Magnolia Café, close to
USCB near
the corner where Carteret changes its name, for no good reason, to
Boundary. Marine families crowd in on Thursdays for lunch, but otherwise
the place is popular but not over-stuffed. Ellen & Co. have all the
amenities, from fresh croissants and espresso to hand-dipped Edy’s
ice
cream and a home-baked congo bar a la mode with warmed caramel icing that
is decadent and delicious (call it “The Xiomara” and have it
instead of
lunch, sometimes).
Sgt. White’s (next to Piggly Wiggly and across the street from
Mama’s Furniture) is the best place I know of in town for soul food,
especially for a huge barbecue sandwich, or for fried chicken, corn bread,
and collard greens. The corn bread is sweet, and it comes as part of any
meal. Try mashed potatoes with Cajun okra gravy. If you look through the
counter, you can see the open flames of the barbecue fire. Expect good
prices and no frills. The booths are bare, there is no scenery outside
the
windows, but the lunchroom atmosphere is the same as it was, probably,
in
the Seventies.
Local people argue aggressively about what is the best barbecue,
and whether you need to go to Yemassee or Hardeeville to get it. Any
barbecue pit run by an ex-Marine is apt to be above average, as with Sgt.
White’s or Big Joe’s, at 760 Parris Island Gateway, which has
hunting and
fishing snapshots under each table top. If you have the appetite of a
high-school football star or a brick-layer, try the little lunchroom,
LT’s
Diner, next to the Low Country National Bank near the entrance to Lady’s
Island. The better sort of construction crew eat there because they are
guaranteed to get filled up at lunch. The shrimp-burger sandwich dinner
is
not cheap, but the shrimp-burger alone seems to enclose an acre or two,
or
at least most of the size of a large plate.
Plum’s is a great and refined place to each lunch, even if you
have a quiet little dog that lays under your table while he or she is
semi-legally parked on the deck. (It is now legal to take a small dog
to a
restaurant in New York City: it should be all over Beaufort, as well.)
Try
the wonderful shrimp rollups for lunch and the loin of pork for
dinner. The locally-made ice cream can be served to you at your table,
or
you can go with a load of fat-guilt to the back passageway and order it
up
separately. A large serving comes close to a pint of Hagen Daas in its
saturating power: don’t try it unless you have heavy exercise planned
for
later in the day.
Blackstone’s moved from Bay Street and is in its new location on
Scott Street (which begins with an apostrophe as Scott’s Street on
Bay
Street and ends at Carteret as the less-pretentious Scott Street), formerly
a hardware store with open spaces, a great choice of places to eat lunch
most any day, or Sunday breakfast. You always have good conversations
at
Blackstone’s. Upstairs is quiet during lunch. Everything on the menu
is
worth trying, but the shrimp in salads or shrimpburgers are always fresh
and almost crunchy, and the crab burgers are just lightly battered and
don’t seem fattening at all. The bowls of shrimp and grits are legendary,
with baked cheese on top, but one should run a marathon within two hours
after eating one complete helping. Ask about half-portions of some of
the
heavier meals. Don’t forget the pecan-saturated pancakes for Saturday
breakfast, and take a sticky bun with you for tomorrow’s breakfast
at home.
The Beaufort Inn is a refined place to drink (Jimmy Buffett and
Elaine May have both been there in 2001), at the bar. Say Hi to Terry,
if
she’s on duty, and talk to her about Rabelais and Homer. After drinking
for a short time, go eat glorious and expensive reservation food. The
bar
area is non-reservation eating. Anything with fish or beef or lamb in
it
is excellent, and the wine list is deep and fruitful. If you have guests
visiting, take them to the wonderful breakfast buffet on Sundays.
What used to be Bistro DeJong’s and now is Bistro 205 (after Peter
DeJong re-located in California) hasn’t really skipped a beat since
Peter
left: it still serves high-end salads and in-house sushi for lunch, and
it
maintains an excellent wine selection. It is at 205 West St., about a
block from Bay St. Prices are a little more tolerable at noon, but dinner
for two will be at least $60 with drinks. The food and the wine are worth
it for an occasional splurge.
Fuji’s on Lady’s Island has great speedy Japanese lunches,
with
bowls full of nicely flavored chicken, shrimp, or beef slices at a
remarkable $4.95. And the Firehouse Books & Expresso Bar, about four
blocks from Bay Street and next to the Public Library, a combination of
bookstore and restaurant, very fashionable-looking, provides the quietest
outdoor eating in Beaufort, away from the heavy traffic. It is a good
place for a poetry reading or a quiet business meeting–outside or
at the
tables inside.
On Ribaut Road, La Nopalera is authentically Mexican, with icy Dos
Equis on tap and enormous sizzling platters and huge ovals of frijoles
and
guacamole salads and tortillas. It is Mexican unpretentious, it is
inexpensive, and it collects Marines, high school students, and large
families. On Saturdays there is a mariachi band.
Speaking of food and music, if you like Ella Fitzgerald or
intimate jazz trios, go to Aluette’s Sandwich Shoppe on St. Helena’s
Island, just next to the turn-off for Penn Center. Aluette is a very
pleasant lady with a MA from the University of Maryland and an earlier
career in teaching behind her. Aluette has a taste for Ella and Louis
singing together, and a penchant for mixing the very freshest and best
chicken, crab, or shrimp salad I have tasted locally. Try her excellent
hummous, too, but she will not tell you what makes all her tasty dishes
so
good, except that she will admit to finding her own combinations of fresh
herbs and spices, “a little of this and a little of that.” Her
sugar
cookies that taste like brown-sugar cookies with nuts, made by Mrs.
Williams, are great, and don’t forget the home-made sweet potato
pie or the
velvet cake.
It is not an open secret that Kim at the Sea Island Wine &
Provisions, two blocks from the bridge on Carteret, makes some of the
most
delicious sandwiches in town, with exotic meats or fish, or vegetarian
pesto, mozzarella, and a drizzle of olive oil. The baguettes are better
than some you find in Paris. The wine selection is varied, never boring,
sometimes remarkably inexpensive, and always good. If you would like to
know what prime beef tastes like, or marinated duck breast, or triple-cream
Danish blue cheese with a name like “Castello,” Kim and Andrea
will have them.
The Maryland Fried Chicken place (what, do they fly the chickens
in from Maryland?) across from the complex of public buildings at the
corner of Ribaut and Route 21, is famous in Beaufort for frying your turkey
on Thanksgiving. For some reason, the deep-fat fried turkey seems less
greasy than the oven-baked variety, and the meat inside seems
tenderer. And the Jamaican Pepper Pot, on Boundary Street in the area
of
Pigeon Point, serves up tender chicken and goat prepared as hot as you
like, Jamaican jerk style, with side orders of beans and rice and
cabbage. You may well be called “Darlin’” there.