Quicksilver

Boston’s a dollop of hills in a spoonful of marshes. […]

The hills of Boston are skirted by endless flat marshes that fade, slow as twilight, into Harbor or River, providing blank empty planes on which men with ropes and rulers can construct whatever strange curves they phant’sy.

**

Yesterday was so one of those days! In where you couldn’t sleep before the flight – already exhausted on pickup, before you’ve even arrived at the airport or sat through briefing. I spent the whole afternoon in Tango-Echo, waiting for a major technical issue to be resolved (something to do with the actual electrical flight controls). We boarded as normal, sat on ground with the pax for around an hour.. pax disembarked to board another aircraft, went by immigration, crew control sent 4 of the 15 crew to airport standby, other flights or home… then the rest of us were sent back to the same aircraft to pretty much standby in case they managed to fix the problem. After 6pm crew control called us again and sent everyone home, I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved – was half-asleep on a chair and was wondering how I was going to operate a Jeddah and back!

Today I feel comparitively off the roof! Renergised. A decent night’s sleep is  multiple somersaults and happy magic tricks and fields of flowers. The difference in my face is nothing short of astounding – I’ve never met anyone else in where their fatigue features on their mug with that much fervor. It’s the weekend, but there’s a potential snag – a Sheikh (a former Interior Minister) died yesterday, so 3 days of official mourning has been declared. Still unsure if this means music at all the bars and clubs will be totally cut off completely, tonight only, or tomorrow only. 😦

Next month is going to be so chilled! Basically all I have only leave, and a Singapore-Brisbane! Microwavable relaxation right there.

The rope clutches a disk of New England sky.

I was talking to a girl about accommodation possibilities etc and she told me many crew are living in Dubai now. It’s surprisingly pretty affordable. The three main areas are apparently JLT or Jumeriah Lake Towers (where Basel is living), the Marina, or Discovery Gardens. Right after she told me that I saw a notice at the briefing area for shared apartments at JLT, full furnished and all-inclusive of utilities, internet etc. 4800aed per month. I don’t want to be just talking about it anymore, I want to make it fucking happen! Relocating seems more and more of a conceivable idea.

For my leave I need to be getting into this IATA course, and learn to drive. I get an awesomely shitty second-hand car and become comfortable with the idea of driving to the airport, and then find a place. Abu Dhabi is 40mins from the airport; Dubai is around an hour. For the potential leap in quality of life, 20 extra minutes on commute time is a small price to pay, no? 🙂

**

Humble and Shy climbed out the window on bedsheets tied together. Passive just jumped the two floors. Tragically, Docile died on the way down. I am aiming to become full of it. After observing other people I’ve come to realize that it’s acceptable. Even revered. And life’s short (so I hear) so why waste time on niceities.

**

Finished World Without End. Wept a little after the last page and hugged the book. Just started Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. Cried on the first page. At the risk of sounding toss-ish, when I get into novels like these it really throws me into a tumble and spin. Books rock my rocks. I genuinely pity the fuck out of people who don’t really read anything. I was living in 1327 England yesterday; today I’m in 1713 America. Like I want to stalk writers and do something filthy with them, like a groupy following a rock band. Filthy as sucking out their brains and eating them in a munching of their consciousness. Or a blowjob. OK, OK, fine. Probably not either of those, but definetely a hello and a signed copy. 😛 Morbidly jealous of a fictional character with the ability to visualize spatial complexities (an architect). Would I function more to my liking if I was born a man..?

Words are down and there they are – black, white, accessible. One-way conversation. On paper it sticks. How I’m grateful.

He hadn’t really known what to expect of America. But people here seem to do things — hangings included — with a blunt, blank efficiency that’s admirable and disappointing at the same time. Like jumping fish, they go about difficult matters with bloodless ease. As if they were all born knowing things that other people must absorb, along with faery-tales and superstitions, from their families and villages. Maybe it is because most of them came over on ships.

Quicksilver is a substantially more complex read than World Without End, as in, I need a dictionary on my pillow! But what satisfaction, full of words like “doppelgänger” and “mephitic”, worlds in such perfect context, and words I’d forgetton existed…

He goes down to where the long wharf grips the shore. Among fine stone sea-merchants’ houses, there is a brick-red door with a bunch of grapes dangling above it. Enoch goes through that door and finds himself in a good tavern. Men with swords and expensive clothes turn round to look at him. Slavers, merchants of rum and molasses and tea and tobacco, and captains of the ships that carry those things. It could be any place in the world, for the same tavern is in London, Cadiz, Smyrna, and Manila, and the same men are in it. None of them cares, supposing they even know, that witches are being hanged five minutes’ walk away. He is much more comfortable in here than out there; but he has not come to be comfortable.

Air: Letters from Lost Countries

Found a short review of a an ongoing comic book series called ‘Air‘ in my flatmate’s issue of Marie Claire – written by the same author as ‘Cairo’, a graphic novel I remember seeing in a store on Pitt Street (Sydney) last month. I’ve read some more reviews of the series online now and I’m looking forward to getting my mitts on at least the first issue. Comic books are something like sci-fi or fantasy novels for me – a category of reading material that I eventually expected to become more interested in.. only perhaps I haven’t had the right introduction to yet. For my next Sydney layover I’m going back to King’s Comics for Ender’s Game, and to maybe ask the guys who work there for a recommendation for a hardcover title to fondle over..

I’m drawn to Air. Firstly, the main character of Air is a flight attendant, based at Schipol, and I like finding references to flight attendants in everyday pop culture, where either someone is making a mockery of the job or over-glamorizing it; it’s normally one extreme interpretation or the other. And apparently this is the first ongoing Vertigo series with a female main character – Blythe. She’s not a brunette, but that’s ok.. in one issue Blythe visits a mythical country wedged between India and Pakistan, Narimar, that no longer exists on maps following the Partition of 1947. How awesome is that?! From the basics it only sounds better and better – the genre of the series is described as ‘magical realism’, a make-believe tree with roots in with real world, which appeals to me completely (I think I’d lose interest in any story that floated too far off the ground).

The concept behind “Air” came from Wilson’s own experiences after being grilled by a flight attendant in Amsterdam for the many visas in her passport. The airline staffer found it conspicuous that Wilson, an American, had traveled so much. “And by the fact that I was living in the Middle East,” Wilson told CBR News. “MK [Perker] claims that this was just an accident, and that the idea was clearly percolating in my mind beforehand, because ‘Air’ expands radically beyond simple airport hijinks. Who knows where stories come from, in the end? Living abroad (no matter where) will do one thing to you, guaranteed: destroy your ability to accept what you’re told without question.”

Indeed, “Air” pulls a lot of rugs out from under a lot of commonly accepted beliefs, “which was certainly my experience living in another culture,” Wilson remarked. “‘Air’ is political in a very different way than ‘Cairo’ was, and has a much broader focus. In ‘Air’ I’m pushing my own boundaries — I’m looking at the relationship between paganism and monotheism, which for a Muslim writer is just enough rope to hang oneself with; between politics, technology and symbolism, between maps and territory. But that’s awfully abstract. The meat and bones of ‘Air’ is a really fast-paced, surreal adventure with cliffhangers galore.” – G. Willow Wilson talks ‘Air’

Cover art of issues #1-13 here.

In the Air with Willow Wilson and M.K Parker : Vertigo Spotlight

Walking on Air | Graphic Novel Reporter

London

London, London, London!

I was paranoid that I might fall really sick for this flight like before, but no fear, I made it free of any bodily qualms. And what an Obvious Oscar saying this.. but it was brilliant!! In a silly way I almost wanted to find the city wretchedly hollow and meagre.. only because I wouldn’t be expecting it! But alas, of course I was completely enthralled.. and tickled pink.. by everything. Although the weather sucks, but even that was entertaining because the fact that it rained is such a typical trait.

One good thing about London (and Paris) is going directly from the aircraft to the hotel. I still don’t know how it manages to work that way, but hey, it saves time. It was early evening when we got in on 08/08/08 (nice one) so of course I went to see Heathrow’s new Terminal 5, so I had a whole day in the city on Saturday.

In the morning I got up early, had the buffet breakfast and was out at 8:30am. I took the Hotel Hoppa service that runs from hotels (in my case the Park Inn) around the airport to the terminals. One-way tickets are £4.

Heathrow Express linked to the terminal earlier this year and takes 15 minutes to reach London Paddington station. They have safety cards in each seat pocket, heh. I paid £11.90 for a return fare. I spent maybe 20 minutes being kind of lost once I got into the city, but you know, everything is in English and I had lots of maps so I quickly got the hang of getting around. The Transport for London site is seriously useful. Travelling around the city is surprisingly affordable too (albeit a little time consuming). I got a day pass for travel within zone 1 & 2 (the innermost central zones) for only £5.30 (off-peak). You can use the same pass for the underground, the buses, and the riverboats. I love the quirks of the underground. There are service updates broadcast continually to inform travellers of what lines/stations to avoid, what services are running smoothly etc. One train I got inexplicably ceased service at the station one stop before my station… Sometimes you just have to get off a train.. and wait for the next one without changing platforms?? A guy tried to explain this to me was but I couldn’t quite grasp why. Apparently this confuses even Londoners though, so I don’t need to feel bad, heh.

Can you tell I can’t get enough of transport infrastructure!?

It’s hard to decide what to do first! I was getting overwhelmed just thinking of everything there is to see and do, so I just picked Portobello market (Notting Hill gate tube), as it only operates wholly on Saturdays. Unfortunately this was where my camera ran out of batteries, but it wasn’t too terrible as I relax more if I don’t have to think about taking hundreds of pictures! It’s oh-so-crowded but oh-so-worth-it. They have every kind of antique imaginable in shops lining both sides of street – vintage sporting equipment, gramophones, clocks, and beautiful framed city street maps c. 1700s and 1800s. After a huge stretch the road evolves into a farmer’s market (I bought fresh avocados, mangoes, nougat, and raspberries) and then a flea market with retail stores on the outer edges and stalls inside.

After the market I took the tube to Kings Cross St Pancras station. St Pancras is marvellous – the building itself is a beautiful renovated framework of baby-blue (too bad about my camera), and as of November last year it’s home of the Eurostar, with direct services to Lille, Paris and Brussels. They also have transfer journeys to Amsterdam, Nice, Marseille etc.

From there I walked down Judd St to Brunswick Centre to find Skoob Books, a second-hand bookstore that’s supposed to be one of the best in London. I found six books – three travel writing novels, and three on planning (‘Planning London’, ‘Cities Are Good for Us’ and ‘Studying the Built Environment’). Which is what I was hoping for, as I can’t find books here! 🙂

And would you believe it, that was an entire day. I began my trip back to the hotel at 4:30pm, and had to take a famed London cab from Heathrow so I had enough time to get ready for the flight back. All in all I hardly bought anything, but my suitcase still weighed a tonne from the books and all the brochures I picked up, heeeh. There’s still a million things I want to see and do (Tate Modern, Camden Market, London Eye, Harrods, London Transport Museum,Bond St, Picadilly Circus, Tottenham Court Rd, Trafalgar Square, Brick St, Oxford St, Elephant & Castle, 30 St Mary Axe, Notting Hill, every London pub). But no fear, I shall return! Or rather, just put me down for everything imaginable, with the exception of the Zoo and Maddam Tassauds (lame!).

I wish I would describe with eloquence and wit.. how the city makes me feel.. without sounding completely tragic and stupid. I always feel like my lack of education prohibits me from being able to communicate ideas effectively. I want to describe the vibrancy and the contrast of the streets, the architecture, the people. The highly decent-looking man shaking a crate of potatoes at the market, the rows of houses with stairs all leading below street-level, the world-famous underground sign, the ‘mind the gap’ umbrella I bought, the ten boisterous guys at Edgeware Rd (all dressed up as Superman, Pink Panther, a bear, a tennis player, etc), the endless brown bricks, the seamless side-by-side blend of old and new architecture, the utter European-ness, utter Western-ness. The pound notes, the Brit accents, the politeness and the endearments people use, even for complete strangers. Love it all.

**

But alas, both flight sectors were just brutal. Try this: we have 5 crew for coral economy class. With one crew as galley operator, that leaves 4 for service, which is completely normal. The issue is the aircraft – the A340-600, which we use for the London and Paris flights. 244 passengers in coral economy, which amounts to 61 (!) passengers for me alone. We had the most anal cabin manager I’ve ever come across, he was completely overbearing and pushing on us the whole flight, it was toooo much. Plus an auditor was in my section on the way back. You wouldn’t believe the stress that can come with this job. If I had known what it was going to be like and it wasn’t a London flight I would’ve called sick for sure. I can’t handle people constantly pushing me; I can’t take bullshit from both the passengers and the crew.

**

I just checked AIMS anyway, and thankfully they changed my standby (which was starting now) to an off day! Very good news as I have no clean uniform to speak off and am still mentally unstable from the last sector. Four days off in a row now, and Bangkok on Friday (which I am still attempting to swap to something else). I literally slept a whole day and night recovering, I just woke up at 5am this morning! Now I’m going to make an avocado sandwich, have more tea, unpack, shower, and plot my time. 🙂