THE NEW YORKER
The Issue of December 17, 2007 arrived in my mail this morning and I thought to myself, perfect timing, I'll keep it to read oin the plane trip to New York tomorrow night. But I was so taken by the cover that I opened it to see who had created it (Bob Staake) and before I knew it I was reading the magazine!
Because we are about to make a " journey into night" which will have us arriving in the US hours before we left NZ I was intrigued by the following story.
The night flight to Paris leaves J.F.K. at 7 P.M. and arrives at de Gaulle the next day at about 8:45 A.M. French time. Between takeoff and landing, there’s a brief parody of an evening: dinner is served, the trays are cleared, and four hours later it’s time for breakfast. The idea is to trick the body into believing it has passed a night like any other—that your unsatisfying little nap was actually sleep and now you are rested and deserving of an omelette.
Hoping to make the lie more convincing, many passengers prepare for bed. I’ll watch them line up outside the bathroom, some holding toothbrushes, some dressed in slippers or loose-fitting pajama-type outfits. Their slow-footed padding gives the cabin the feel of a hospital ward: the dark aisles, corridors; the flight attendants, nurses. The hospital feeling grows even stronger once you leave coach. Up front, where the seats recline almost flat, like beds, the doted-on passengers lie under their blankets and moan. I’ve heard, in fact, that the airline staff often refers to the business-class section as “the I.C.U.,” because the people there demand such constant attention. They want what their superiors are getting in first class, so they complain incessantly, hoping to get bumped up.
There are only two classes on the airline I normally take between France and the United States—coach and something they call Business Elite. The first time I sat there, I was flown to America and back for a book tour. “Really,” I kept insisting, “there’s no need.” I found the whole “first-to-board” business a little embarrassing, but then they brought me a bowl of hot nuts and I began to soften. Pampering takes some getting used to. A flight attendant addresses me as “Mr. Sedaris,” and I feel sorry that she’s forced to memorize my name rather than, say, her granddaughter’s cell-phone number. On this particular airline, though, they do it in such a way that it seems perfectly natural, or at least it does after a time.
There is also a rivetting 14 page story by Hugh Eakin called Treasure Hunt - the downfall of the Getty curator Marion True. An astonishing tale.
And a story by D.T.Max on the brief, brilliant life of Malcolm Lowry,. Then a piece on IQ with a New Zeland connection by Malcolm Gladwell that opens with a reference to James Flynn, a social scientist at the University of Otago, NZ and his research on this subject.
Of course the splendid listings section at the front of the magazine which has details of all the theatre, opera, art, movies etc currently playing is invaluable but makes us realise that even if we were going for a month rather than two weeks we still would only be able to scratch the surface of all that is available in the arts field. And then there are the bookstores..........
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