So we are giving you the air

[austin_dern]

A couple of further miscellaneous things about my plane flight: on the first leg I had the seat immediately behind Business Class. They and First Class get served alcohol, and if there's any left over at normal meal services they go to the seats just behind offering. I didn't want any champagne -- basically, I don't drink, and I only accept when I am bumped up into Business or First Class because if you don't have a drink they'll keep asking, like telemarketers of wine -- but the other people in the row also rejected it. As did the people behind me, and the people behind them ... the last I heard the flight attendants were going on, looking without success for anyone to take their offered champagne in plastic cups. It amused me, anyway

Midflight there was snack service, consisting of (I took notes; since I started doing this journal I find I write notes about nearly everything) a bag of ``sun'' chips, one Amay's brand almond cookie, and one ``fun size'' (see the Ozy and Millie strip about that) Twix. It was just a single Twix bar, which seems to go against the whole ``Twix'' philosophy and name. When the attendant handed it to me, I said a reflexive, ``Thank you,'' to which he answered, very crisply, ``Yes, sir.'' It felt like an overreaction.

One of the radio channels rotated between two shows of Artists Talking About Whatever They Want, With Music. One of the presenters was Phil Collins, who was happy to present a selection of Phil Collins songs. The other show was Bob Dylan, who had a wonderfully eccentric collection of music from tin pan alley songs up to contemporary tunes. It highlighted for me how Bob Dylan has joined Elvis Presley and William Shatner, in that their impersonators are busy exaggerating other people's impersonations, rather than having anything to do with the person being impersonated. Also it seems like more talented people have more eclectic tastes. And I think I'd be willing to listen to Dylan as a radio host for pretty near anything, even if (maybe because) his comments on songs ranged from fascinating biographical tidbits through to perfectly odd statements such as this one I wrote down about Judy Garland: ``Like Prince, she's from Minnesota.'' It's true, I guess, but it's quite the leap to try processing seven hours into your flight.

Trivia: The prisoners in the Bastille when it was stormed were four forgers, two lunatics, and one young noble. Source: A History of Modern France, Volume 1: 1715-1799, Alfred Cobban.

Currently Reading: The Persistance of Vision, John Varley.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Sounds nice. warphammer has gotten me into Bob Dylan this year, and is now making headway on convincing me to buy some Dire Straits as well. It'll be all right though. I'll counterattack with some Ramones in due time.

As for Bob Dylan, his imperonators are busy doing Dylan 1966, not Dylan 2006, whom are quite different individuals. William Shatner is busy being a William Shatner impersonator it seems in some ways. At least that's what every Priceline commercial says to me.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

My most recent musical revelation is an old-time radio Internet station that plays a lot of singles from the 1900s through 1940s. There is a lot of aggressively catchy music in that era, and a surprising diversity of topics for the songs.

And yeah, Shatner's most recent work has been as the comic exaggeration of himself. It'd be kind of sad except that he goes into it with such a cheery gusto, although I would like to see some more of the thoughtful, reflective acting he did so very well on the original series.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Mmm. I'd like to give it a listen, though so much of my computer-based music listening is "Trim the Never Played list down" (1077 songs at present) and "Listen to the DJ streams on SecondLife." Always looking for more options, though.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Wow. On my iBook I've got ... oh, that's not so bad; 103 songs. Though a good number of them were included with the computer when I got it, and a few are duplicates.