I’ve got to admit, I’m a creature of habit. Change eludes me.
So, for many years now, upon arriving at the airport, after making it through security, I’ve stopped at whatever newsstand is handy, and picked up a copy of the New Yorker to read on the plane. I’ve always found it a great way to lose myself in the written word while on a dreadful flight. (And aren’t they all dreadful?)
The other day, after waiting at security while they checked to make sure that Melinda’s box of ginger snap cookies weren’t some kind of explosive (yep, can’t make this stuff up) I hit the first bookseller. No New Yorker. Strange I thought, the New Yorker is probably the most prestigious magazine in the world. No worries, I wandered down to the next bookseller. Nope, no New Yorker here.
I picked up a copy of The Atlantic instead. Probably not quite as prestigious as the New Yorker, but close, and no slouch.
But then I didn’t read it. Well, to be honest I read a bit of it, but not much. It just wasn’t all that interesting to me.
Before I left the hotel that morning, I had pre-loaded a number of Substack posts into my browser. (Yep, I’m too damn cheap to pay for in-air WiFi, I need to save that money for my little bottles of booze!)
And those Substack posts, from a wide variety of writers are what did it for me.
It used to be the New Yorker, but now, why?
Substack is filled with writers from world famous literary giants, to undiscovered gems. Writing about every subject imaginable.
OK, so in fairness, there is a lot that isn’t great too, but with care one can find the very best, most diverse writing in the world, on this platform, today.
I fly again tomorrow, so I’ve got maybe forty posts opened in their own browser windows. I’ll have plenty to read about the success
had with NaNoWriMo ten years ago, to sharing her recipe for homemade eggnog, to Brother extolling the virtues of Wendy’s Hamburgers and Chili.What could be a better way to spend time on an airplane?
Flying used to be fun, but now, it's just an exercise in authoritarianism on the ground and in the air. To be fair, the TSA people are just doing their job as well as the air crews. But let's face it, the minute you step foot in the airport, you lose all civil (and uncivil) rights. I am a fan of the New Yorker too, which is why I have it loaded on my tablet. I don't need to go to the magazine vendors and pay the high street price. I can also go to emails as well as WBGlenn's postings easily. There's free wifi on the ground at the airport. While in the air, I don't bother with wifi. Instead, I have a collection of books and notes to go through or I might read the latest Masonic literature available that I've previous.y saved on my iPad. The times when it's been over-the-top stressful (like the time I flew home from a family funeral, the idiot/red neck TSA agent decided to go through everyting on my carry-on, then said "oops," and threw all my contents on the floor. I complained to a supervisor. "Did you see that? I didn't see nothing." I just settle in and take a nap when we ar airborne.
The entire airline industry has turned into flying cattle cars. I remember the glory days of enduring 11-12 hour flights on Northwest Airlines flying to and from South Korea, at least we could smoke (I smoked back then)....and then all of a sudden, that was taken away too. The worst flight was 17 hours in a C-130 from Germany to Delaware. No smoking on that flight, was probably the longest I had gone without nicotine. I was coming back from my time in the desert, six months in Kuwait. We flew from Kuwait to Italy, then Italy to Germany where we had a 24 hour crew rest. First thing I did was find the liquor store and bought a bottle of jack daniels (I hadn't had any alcohol the entire time I was in Kuwait) and spent my time in my visiting airmans quarters getting drunk. Then the flight to Dover, then a commercial flight to Houston, then a short 2 hour hop to Tucson AZ, where I was stationed. Every flight was terrible, until the very last leg, where (I guess) the crew saw I was traveling on military orders, and moved me up to first class. So, for my week long journey to get back home, the last two hours were briefly ok, with at least a couple free drinks in me.
Sorry, were we talking about commercial flying and the new yorker, not sure where that story fits into that narrative lol.