Episode 18

Occupiers of Interzone

2015–07–26

TOC

• Input
• Hello
• Airports

Input

Miles Davis - Generique :: Instantly make your life a Noir film

There are two versions of this track on Spotify. It’s from a soundtrack, and the (wordless) album is available under the French and German titles. The one linked above is from Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud, but the version from Fahrstuhl sum Schafott includes minor glitches and compression errors. Of course. They add a subtle texture which I love and which have become part of the track for me.

Radio Etiopia :: An excellent soundtrack for so many occasions. Just play any episode.

Hello

Hello from anywhere.

Airports

I’m in a cafe in San Francisco, with a ridiculously heavy bag, about to take it to the airport and head to New Orleans for two weeks. I’ve got people down there, and more persons of interest joining us at some point, and the social complexities are way outside the scope of a public document, but New Orleans is worth visiting under any circumstances. I’ve showered and shaved and attempted to make myself as clean to the TLAs as possible.

I have this vague memory of a time when the overwhelming thoughts that crowd one’s mind before a flight were of the form “did I remember to pack X” and not “I wonder if X will make it through airport security”.

Also because I’m delivering a fuckton of books to my friend down there, I’m actually doing the “and one personal item” thing, because I know that rule #2 of air travel is Don’t Check Any Luggage You Want To Keep. As someone who carries a bag (usually overfull) always, this feels like a scam to me. No Really, this isn’t a bag, it’s a PERSONAL ITEM. The last time I did this was for a production gig where we had to do all the gear in carry on and my Personal Item was a tripod. So we’ll see how this goes.

There’s this weird in-between time before you have to go to the airport wherein you are useless to get anything accomplished because you’re looking at the clock every few minutes to make sure you aren’t supposed to leave yet and recalculating the time it will take to get to the airport and trying to remember if you took all of the knives out of every pocket and wondering if you should have worn the underwear that say PERSON OF INTEREST in metallic print and practicing your best TSA friendly smile. I may have different priorities from most of you, I suppose. But still, there’s this hurry up and wait zone, reminiscent of the military or club production, where really all you can do is repeatedly check twitter or drop stream of consciousness into a text file, which is why you’re getting a newsletter, now of all times.

Yeah I’ve not been writing this much, I’m sorry. But I never promised you any sense of regularity.

Now in the airport proper. Nothing in my bags excited the bluecoats but apparently my left knee was suspicious. I had a half-formed thought on the way through The Procedure about how TSA could be seen as an occupying force on Interzone, but then the robot only printed the second half of my itinerary and there was a Discussion. I’m on one of the last flights out tonight, and the boarding gate is an oddly lonely place despite being full of people (Please take this opportunity to click on one of the soundtrack links above for the full vibe). No one is really here. It’s approximately 40% lobster people with white sunglass shadows around their eyes, 20% people wearing what look like inflatable stabilization collars. There’s a guy who looks like my old mate Dave as he looked in college. Could be, for all I know. Hi, Dave, if you read this in the future. I’m afraid to come talk to you for fear it’ll collapse spacetime.

There’s a certain architectural sameness in (I guess a certain class of ) airports. I was looking up at the struts in the ceiling above the BART -> Airport membrane, and having flashbacks to the ceiling I spent several hours staring at in Charles De Gaulle when the bluecoats made us miss our connection there because one grumpy woman didn’t like the looks of my traveling companion. They all have this pseudo-geodesic look, like someone just skimmed the photos in a Buckminster Fuller book and skipped the actual ideas. It’s like looking at the skeletons of The Future as it was during a broad period.

Your assistance is requested in ensuring security. This is the final boarding call. We have oversold the flight and it would really help us if someone could check a bag? Someone? Anyone? This is the final boarding call. At this time we would like begin the pre-boarding. No, but, I need to re-edit, you see, I have this newsletter and – At this time we would like to welcome aboard all remaining passengers.

This is the final boarding call.