Re: [-empyre-] preparing to land

[bioport <bioport@gmx.net>]

26-07-2006, 07:41, Jordan Crandall wrote:

> The scene is a familiar one.  We're on a plane, descending.  Tray table
> up.  Seat back upright.  The entire cabin is silent.  Live images of
> moving clouds fill the video monitors (thanks to a camera mounted on the
> nose-cone), affording us the spectacle of the very sky through which we
> speed.  We are inside the plane's own movie.  Spellbound.

> [....]

nice piece, Jordan. excuse me for being trivial but
your little prose reminded me a lot of my ex.wife who
behaved like that _all_ the time whenever we had to
fly somewhere (and at that time it was quite often).
she, more like the cat in one of Malaparte's short
stories of "Sangue", indeed started to talk in despair
(instead of falling silent - like the human being /
Malaparte's thesis). the steward, all friendly
compassion, offered to ask the captain what was
happening. back to our seats, he handed her a soft
drink then smilingly apologized that "the street was
under re-construction". 

what did he say? he gave a metaphor to the frightened
who did not know precisely what she was afraid of
because flying is not an inherent dimension of the
human being. "we" don't know what this monstrous
violent alien metal bird (875000 pounds, Boeing 747)
can do or cannot do in the air. only if you know how
to pilot planes you know and most of the rumbles that
occur during a flight (including being thrown back and
forth by winds) can be cast with joy (even from
challenging a situation). 

"beneath" flying, machine-angst has always captured
humans and i bet you could have observed similar
behaviours in 1903 on a back seat of a Model A Ford.


best,
/malik