Author Archives: Danny Silverman

“Private areas aren’t so private anymore” says Boston Herald – The actual headline is even funnier. I don’t get it, though. I just do what I’m supposed to do at airports and never, ever have a problem. No bag searches, no pat downs, nothing. I don’t wear metal, I don’t wear huge clothing, I take everything out of my pockets and my computer out of my bag, I put it all on the conveyor, I wait for a signal to walk through the metal detector, and I never set it off, so I never require “secondary screening.” Come on people, it’s not that hard.

Flight adventures

As far as flights go, leaving at 6:30am is not the worst thing in the world. It was a while before I could go to sleep, but after the normal pre-flight annoyances, take off, and a hot meal, I was able to plug in my iPod, the earphones of which block out most of the sounds of the airplane, and get a couple hours rest. Well, as restful as an airplane seat — first class or not — can be. The weather was not the greatest and I didn’t get to see any of the spectacular views out of airplane windows that I love so much. Upon approach to St. Louis there was zero visibility through the fog, and I was worried about an instrument landing, but luckily visibility improved once we descended to, I dunno, maybe a hundred feet. So no missing runways or crashing into things. Always a plus.

The plane on the first leg was a Super 80, an old McDonnell Douglas model, with pretty much nothing in the way of luxuries. First class meant larger seats, some more leg room, and a meal pretty much equivalent to typical coach airline fare, which is fitting since these days American Airlines only allows coach passengers to indulge in, at most, a packet of peanuts. There was DC power, but I did not have the proper adapter. I also had not brought along any movies, as this was my first plane flight since canceling NetFlix. I had looked up my flight online, and to book it a few days beforehand on the AA web site would have been about $1800, which seems just slightly excessive (I was flying free with miles). Don’t get me wrong, I like first class, I like the leg room, but that’s pretty much it, and it is not something I would pay for.

When I fell asleep I had a strange dream that intermingled a lot with the reality of the last few days. I dreamt that I fell asleep (as I just had) and that I slept through my stop, and woke up in time to realize that my plane had just departed for its “final destination” of Las Vegas (a destination Kevin had mentioned last night). After a fairly stunning landing, involving going around casinos and through tunnels, sometimes backwards, in what I could only assume was the latest advertising ploy (Circus Circus! MGM Grand!), I ended up, not in an airport, but some type of mall. My first order of business was to find an ATM, because I didn’t have any cash, which, again, meshes with reality. I was looking for BofA but found Fleet, which is odd for Las Vegas, and also found Sue and Bob Pugash, which seemed a pretty random. Upon approach to the ATM I realized that money had miraculously appeared in my pockets, and while pulling it out I dropped a ticket stub which a child picked up and commented on. It was from either Waiting For Godot or Bend it Like Becham, don’t ask me why I’m remembering those two, and was dated a few years ago.

Leg number two boarded about twenty minutes after the first landed, and that flight was aboard an MD-80, which was pretty much the same as the Super 80 except for some minor cabin differences. Two oddities presented themselves. First, American no longer offers passengers pillows. Secondly, the second flight offered a breakfast course that was remarkably similar to the first. So I had two breakfasts. Eh, I was hungry. I guess waking up at 4:32am does that to you.

Traveling over New Mexico, I opened my window shade to see a patch of clouds that looked completely unreal — low to the ground with the sun casting a shadow that looked almost exactly like what you would get out of Photoshop if you were trying to fake 3-dimensions. More music, less sleeping, no interesting dreams, and some reading — this week’s New Yorker followed by the first chapter of Daniel Schorr’s Staying Tuned, his memoir about sixty years of journalism. Why is it all of the really interesting people grew up as poor immigrants in New York who have to struggle to get by? I might be on to something here…gotta file that one away.

We’re landing soon, and now all that remains is to decide if I want to shift to PST or stick with the Eastern Standard Tribe for my six day visit. And to remember to watch Scrubs tonight. Life without TiVo is complicated! Oh, and I do still need to find a flight home, preferably not getting in to Logan at 11:30pm, as my current one is.

Woah! Its the Grand Canyon on my right! Looks a lot smaller from up here…

Now approaching California. Is it still home?

Listening to America: The Book — on tape, looking for something to watch, confused about vacation suddenly appearing. Blown over by the idea that a woman in D.C. who started a conversation with Kelli about their curly hair turned out to be a Brandeis student. I’m sure that can be phrased in the form of a, “you know you’re from Brandeis when,” but I’m having trouble doing it.

Wolfe combines his powerful distaste for the decadence he has encountered, with an enormous respect for the animal quest for sexual dominance, which he believes is the transcendental fact of human existence. This is why the book is so strangely incoherent, while being so strangely compelling: Wolfe has found among the young habits he finds genuinely repulsive, but they are attached to an honest, almost Nietzschean, acknowledgment of the inner workings of status. Wolfe may be appalled by booze, crunking, and bling bling, but he has an awed (and entirely sexist and entirely homoerotic) respect for the animal powers of young men.

“Soul” and the American imagination By Virginia Heffernan and Stephen Metcalf. Start on Wednesday and read on through.