For the first time in history, the majority of Americans have passports. Meanwhile, the travel book remains a pariah among publishers. This seems illogical. But a novel creates its own world, and puts readers into the lives of others. A traveler thinks: Why should I read somebody’s account of a place I can visit myself?
Speaking of human, we mentioned to our pilot neighbors that Hania and I met in London 50 years ago next month. Rochelle said, “Wait,” and dug into her bag, extracting after a few seconds a large green canister from Fortnum & Mason. “Happy anniversary,” she said, handing us what turned out to be delicious pistachio and clotted cream cookies.
Yesterday afternoon in the garage we came across our neighbors getting bags out of their trunk, which was amusing because a few days earlier we had seen them in the same spot putting bags into their trunk. Then they were flying to London; now they were back; Rochelle still in her pilot’s uniform. Her husband, who is also a pilot, showed us the video of their arrival a few hours earlier at MIA, the plane greeted, as it taxied to the gate, by celebratory arcs of water in honor of Rochelle’s retirement. We hadn’t known that she was retiring but obviously the airport had. In a business that is seen as increasingly impersonal and joyless, it was heartening to see an institutional acknowledgement of the human.
Henry Morgan, the humorist who appeared on game shows in the 1960s, once said that he woke up every morning grateful that he didn’t have to go to school. He would have really hated going to school in August.
An excellent essay Sunday in the NY Times Magazine on the cult of Anthony Bourdain. (The biopic Tony is now out, though it depicts just one formative summer in Provincetown.) The author of the essay, Aaron Timms, presents a sharp overview of Bourdain’s life – he describes his Hanoi dinner with Barack Obama as an “encounter of the high-liberal megafauna” – and offers a brilliant analysis of his lasting popularity, which, Timms claims, is based on our fascination with, and envy of, his transition “from a life of work to a life of play.” His post-kitchen vocation – writer, traveler, eater, TV star – “was still ‘a job’ in the strict sense,” Timms acknowledges, “but it had none of the drudgery of work as most people experience it.”
Travel writers, reading those words, could all relate. Though most of us get the envy without the adulation.
Tommy John, the former major league pitcher for whom a now common elbow surgery is named, has entered hospice care. He has written a letter of thanks to fans, former teammates, and the man who developed the surgery, Dr. Frank Jobe. In a just world, it would be known as Dr. Frank Jobe surgery.