May 3rd, 2006
114732588624493147
Carefully crafted slogans and smiling faces
As Brad Pitt observes in Fight Club, the reason they put oxygen masks on airplanes is:
[because] oxygen gets you high. In a catastrophic emergency, you’re taking giant panicked breaths. Suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate. It’s all right here. Emergency water landing – 600 miles an hour. Blank faces, calm as Hindu cows.
I’m a little dazed that it’s actually happening, but I’m on my way to France. I’ve never been to Europe, though my grandparents saw much of it at the tail end of the Cold War era when I was a boy. Those were the days when you could go all the way to the boarding gate to say goodbye to someone, and often even had a chance to run along through the terminal and see them in the plane at the window, until a wall of glass would ultimately drive two young lovers apart.
I flew to the Ozarks with my grandparents for my great-grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. I think I was six. I remember it was my first time on a plane and I say by the window, which unfortunately made me air sick. Luckily I got past all of that and rarely have trouble nowadays. It seems unthinkable how sheltered my life would be otherwise.
Someone asked me the other day if I could do a British accent. The problem is that I don’t think I’ve ever even heard a real British person talk who wasn’t in a movie. SO leaving James Bond and Monty Python aside, I don’t believe I have a reference point. This left me quite surprised when I boarded the plane and had all these smiling British people greeting me. To be honest I know very little in the way of useful things about the country of my forefathers, but this first impression sure made me feel welcome. After traveling to so many East Asian countries where I have to learn a new bunch of tones and character sets, coming to a new English-speaking country almost seems too easy. I’m completely prepared to fall flat on my face as far as French is concerned. Despite several months’ lunch time study of grammar, I doubt it’s left much impact. Maybe two days’ of immersion will snap me into the correct, throaty pronunciation.
Another sticky point that I’ll mention only once is my nationality causing problems. I’ve been told that I look American more times than anything else, and I’m certainly not hiding it today with my “I (Heart) NY” t-shirt and my standard travel jacket, the 2000 Structure jeans jacket with an American flag on the right arm. Oh well, at least I’m honest. I’m guessing people will be assholes to me if that’s their nature no matter what I wear. I’m resolved to make the best of it and be an ambassador of goodwill for my country and be all smiles the whole week. Now if I can just get selected scenes from European Vacation out of my mind.
…
I’ve been meaning to finish uploading music to my iPod. I’ve had it for five months now and still not processed all of my music, particularly electronica and pop. I kind of want some upbeat 70s and 80s fare right now. However, to compromise I’ve been listening to Oasis, since this is British Airways after all, and I do have an eighty minute connection at Heathrow. Another amusing travel tidbit is that British Airways must have the same in flight caterer as Air China, because I think I heard that the options for today’s lunch are beef or beef. The cabin smells like the Giant Food that Mom used to go to.
People want to make recommendations and give advice, it’s only natural. However, after hearing the same thing twenty times (even from the same person) it’s hard not to become just a little paranoid. I’ve been told about professional pickpockets so many times I think I’m going to go crazy. I know people mean well and all, but it’s hard to enjoy a vacation if you have to feel like you’re going to be robbed blind, especially at the markets. I suppose it’s remotely reassuring that I have very little of value worth taking, aside from my electronics, which are always going to be in front of me in my camera bag. I’d like to see someone try and take my tripod, though, just so I can club them with it. I wonder if my hotel room or my knapsack is a safer place for my many rationed envelopes of miniature, colored currency?
Sean Bean has a regular column in BA’s High Life magazine and aside from bemoaning the state of American professional sports, he mentioned how useful dumbwaiters are when you have the “company of a young lady” in your hotel room. Goldeneye is playing on select routes apparently. If only I were so lucky.
Listening to Live Forever, I started thinking about when the CD came out. Music is remembered by the photographic image of the back of the album cover. At first I thought 1997, but now, of course that was Be Here Now. Definitely Maybe was 1993. That’s thirteen years ago, fifty percent of my time on this planet. Fortunately, my life seems to be moving with a great deal of acceleration. Imagine what I’ll be doing thirteen years from now…
It seem as though I lucked out, Goldeneye was playing on one of the fifteen-some channels of programming available. Unfortunately, I missed the first twenty minutes or so, and the very somber post-baccarat scene, but the remaining portion of the movie was quite enjoyable. I think it has to be tied with OHMSS as my favorite Bond. After a six-year hiatus, Bond was back with a fresh face and no expectations. This provided Brosnan with the opportunity for his driest and most Dalton-esque Bond. Something that works out very with the sorted, tense relationship with Sean Bean’s character. Tony and I have nearly all the lines committed to memory. The game was also tuned perfectly and the highlight of Rare’s portfolio, in my opinion. When my mother gave me a Panasonic TV/VCR combo for that first Christmas of college, my roommate and I had our fates sealed: we were doomed to endless sessions of four-player License to Kill in the temple with the Dostovei (Dostoyevsky), the “Man’s Gun.” If only the movie’ll come on again, I can watch it in its entirety, and speak over the lines as they’re delivered along the way…
