Bring On The Yellow Sea Plane

I just got back from desde Desdemona, where I spent 5 days.

It really does take two days from anywhere to get to desde Desdemona. Last time, I ended up in a hotel waiting for a flight. This time my first flight was canceled, leading to a flight in a 19-seat beer can to Boston, a layover, a flight to Miami, a layover, and another flight to the yellow sea plane. You get it. No matter what the schedules may say, two days' travel.

And what did I watch during the commercial portion of my voyage? American Airlines plays CBS TV shows instead of movies. These are free though the headphones are $2 if you don't have your own. In short: the shows are all advertising for CBS and they are separated by advertising for American Airlines and/or CBS. Are they crazy? Do they really think somebody is going to get home and watch a sitcom they never heard of before, because s/he saw it on the plane? It's like thinking passengers go to the grocery store to search for the precise brand of free pretzels the airline gives you.

My passive viewing of these sit coms-- they were the only show in town once my laptop's battery expired-- reveals something quite troubling, that people of no apparent occupation and undeclared financial status have houses with small, working class exteriors, but the interiors are gigantic, extremely well decorated, nicely furnished and uncluttered. The apartments in these shows are even more gigantic and even better decorated. The rooms are not filled with life's detritus. The bedrooms have beds the size of football fields. The characters have silk pajamas and sheets. They have no books and no papers and garbage. In other words, to watch these shows, you have to suspend your disbelief entirely. How else can you think that people with no apparent work and no apparent trustfunds have apartments that make your own dwelling seem, well, tatty and inadequate?

These are the kinds of critical, negative thoughts that inform me that it's time for me to visit desde Desdemona and restore my sanity. They become even more pronounced while I'm travelling. Was it Club Med that used to advertise it was "the antidote to civilization?" This time I really needed the antidote to TVs in back of minivans, to lack of silence, to the Government's assertions of "facts," to the main stream medias' "news." And, of course, I found it.