Louisville: Not a Lot Like Bustleburg

I’ve now been to Kentucky!

Louisville’s airport was a little bananas with constant gate changes and lack of signage (“Is this the United flight to Houston?” “I think it’s the Frontier flight to Austin but the gate agent won’t say.”), but, overall, the city is not a Bustleburg.

You can see sunshine and blue sky, there are birds and trees, and the zoo animals haven’t all escaped. Uber took me past the University of Louisville which looks beautiful. Lots of fountains and green grass.

Meanwhile, Bustleburg’s Zugfield State College and Remedial A&M’s campus consists of dilapidated cement and weeds.

(They’re going to be fined for that illegal tree.)

Louisville has the Speed Art Museum…

…which was beautiful.

Bustleburg still doesn’t have a museum. They may be forced to have one, and Louisville gave them an idea. I noticed the Speed has 40-50 pieces on loan from an Indiana museum. When Bustleburg opens a museum, they, too, will borrow paintings, but they will “forget” to give them back.

What else? The vampire bats in Louisville are sleepy, mild-mannered zoo residents.

Meanwhile, in Bustleburg, bats are employed as security guards at Toxaco Chemicals. Tours of Toxaco are unpopular for some reason.

The Louisville zoo also has a Sumatran tiger, a jaguar, and friendly lorikeets…

Last I heard, Bustleburg’s zoo had ants.

Last, Louisville had a brilliant, amazing sci fi/fantasy writers/filmmakers/gamers con called Imaginarium.

I got to go! I met great authors, learned a lot about selling books at conventions from an author/magician named John Pyka and about the importance of newsletters from Sandy Lender, Kelci Crawford, Eric Moser, and Addie King.

I was also a speaker on lgbtq, dystopian, and humor panels and was told by fellow panelists and moderators that I did a really good job. So that made my month. :)

Meanwhile. Bustleburg has the notorious PanoptiCon,

It’s a “catphishing” sci fi convention where you come to town, and they find a reason to arrest you. (“Hey! Chocolate bars are illegal!”) The hotel conference rooms are then converted into jail cells.

Writers are sprung if they pay 57 dollars for lawyers who happen to be waiting in the lobby.

Incarcerated publishers are forced to listen to rambling, unrehearsed pitches for unwritten manuscripts and half-baked concepts. That happens at any conference, you say? At PanoptiCon, there is no time limit on the pitches and publishers who point out logical flaws risk being put in solitary.

In conclusion, I would much sooner recommend you visit Louisville than Bustleburg. And take vacation time next fall to go to Imaginarium. It was a blast. :)

(However, check out Bustleburg here!)