Come Fly the Friendly Skies!

What you have to understand about the way I view the world is this... My Grandmother was a lady. Not only a lady, but a snazzy lady. Not only a snazzy lady, but a post WWII housewife. Not only a post WWII housewife, but a mid-century modern hostess. I didn't realize it until a few years ago, but the personal style of Bette Ann Parman pretty much wrote the book from which I take my personal style.

What does this have to do with travel you say? Not much necessarily except that I believe every facet of life should be at least 1% glamourous. Even if you have to make damn sure that you are that 1%.

Thusly I have always had a rather skewed view of what it means to travel by air. I wasn't even alive during the golden age of modern travel, but in a way I was raised to view it as an event. When I was little we always dressed up to go on the plane. To this day I still have dreams of sashaying down the jet way in my heels; a scarf over my hair and a hat box suitcase in my hand.

Obviously this is not at all practical for the modern traveler. The fact is you will be seated next to someone who insists on claiming both armrests, you will be surrounded by screaming babies, and you will realize half way through the packet that your peanuts are about 15 years old.

So as I prepare for my flight home for the holidays I'm trying to have a new outlook. I refuse to cave to the pressure and drag all of my luggage on the plane with me like some people. That's right, I'm checking bags, (and I dare American Airlines to lose them.) I'm going to put on some makeup, throw on my pashmina and attempt to Zen my way through the day. I'm going to do my best to pamper myself through my flight so that I arrive home in a single, and relatively sane, piece. And maybe, just maybe, if I succeed, I will inspire a few others to fly glamourously.

Perhaps someday we will get back to that happy time when flying was a joy, not a downright pain in the ass.

Have Yourself A Gorey Little Christmas!

Anyone who knows me at all well will also know that I adore Edward Gorey. Until last night I thought it possible that I had seen every Gorey illustration there was to see. But lo and behold, I was ever so wrong.

My roommate S. helped me ring in the holiday season with a lovely little book entitled, "The Twelve Terrors of Christmas," written by John Updike and illustrated by my dear Mr. Gorey. This slender volume is a crisp narrative on all the nightmarish fiends lurking behind the glossy holiday facade; such evils as "Santa: The Man" and "Santa:The Concept." The pen and ink drawings are classic Gorey and I may even have a new entry in my top ten with the print for "O Tannenbaum," (you can hear it slurping water from the bucket at night!)

This book has just been reprinted for the holiday 2007 season, so for all of you with a slightly darker sense of humor be sure to add this to your annual christmas reading list.

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Kitsch is the daily art of our time, as the vase or the hymn was for earlier generations. For the sensibility it has that arbitrariness and importance which works take on when they are no longer noticeable elements of the environment. In America kitsch is Nature. The Rocky Mountains have resembled fake art for a century. – Harold Rosenberg

No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition. – Milan Kundera