Destination: California
Airplane Lands. Nation Rejoices.
by Michael Yessis | 09.22.05 | 4:30 AM ET
Yesterday’s emergency landing of a New York-bound JetBlue airliner in Los Angeles was a post-post-modern experience, passenger and New York Observer editor Alexandra Jacobs told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Translation: Passengers watched the live national television coverage of their crippled jet circling the skies over Southern California on their personal TV screens within the plane. The good news of the landing caused Cooper, who has been covering Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, to smile for possibly the first time in weeks. If you haven’t seen the video of the amazing landing, Crooks and Liars has it.
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Yahoo! BuzzNYC Gets the Stews. LA and DC Welcome Travel Movies.
by Michael Yessis | 09.22.05 | 4:20 AM ET
Plane Crazy, a play about “stew life” in the ‘60s, is in the middle of a nine show run in the New York Musical Theater Festival. New York Times writer Miriam Horn gave it a mixed review, but the show appears to have sold out every performance. I wonder: Is it a good play that does justice to the life of stewardesses in the early jet age, or do people just like the songs and the outfits?
Talking Travel Writing at Book Passage
by Jim Benning | 08.20.05 | 1:49 PM ET
Jen Leo has posted a report and photos from the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, which is taking place this weekend in Northern California. Tim Cahill and Simon Winchester are among those on the faculty.
Santa Cruz vs. Huntington Beach: A Pox on Both of Their ‘Surf City’ Houses
by Jim Benning | 08.19.05 | 4:13 PM ET
Oh, the battles that people and places will wage in the quest for the almighty tourist buck. The California cities of Santa Cruz and Huntington Beach are squabbling once again over the use of the moniker “Surf City USA.” The latest flare-up is the result of a state senator introducing a resolution to make Santa Cruz in his district “Surf City USA.” Not so fast, says Huntington Beach, which has filed trademark applications for “Surf City USA” and uses the name in its logo. A story in today’s Los Angeles Times details the history of the fight, which goes back 13 years. It’s ugly.
Portzline Debuts “Bookstore Tourism” Podcast
by Michael Yessis | 08.03.05 | 9:49 PM ET
It’s newsy, but it’s the kind of news we like. Larry Portzline, who created Bookstore Tourism and wrote a book about it, discusses how to kickstart your own local bookstore tour and spreads the word about an upcoming trip planned by the Southern California Booksellers Association. Portzline also has a Bookstore Tourism blog.
The Endless Road Trip
by Michael Yessis | 07.28.05 | 11:40 PM ET
It’s not easy being a member of the Samurai Bears. The Golden Baseball League team, which consists solely of Japanese players and has no home field, is in the midst of a 90-game, 96-day road trip around the American southwest. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing it,” pitcher Takaaki Igarashi said through an interpreter during a postgame interview with Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not that it’s really hard. I just get sick of eating hamburgers all the time.” Bolch caught up with the Bears during a recent stop in Southern California, and he chronicles a journey “fraught with comical misadventures and lost-in-translation moments.”
Public Radio’s “Bookworm”
by Jim Benning | 07.27.05 | 4:51 PM ET
Across the U.S. in 200 Days
by Michael Yessis | 07.13.05 | 9:57 AM ET
It’s taking Steve Vaught that long because he’s walking from San Diego to New York City. And because he’s carrying an 85-pound backpack. And because he weighs 400 pounds. It’s part of a plan to lose the weight he gained after a tragic accident. His story is both inspirational and heartbreaking.
Podcast Features James O’Reilly
by Jim Benning | 03.28.05 | 4:01 PM ET
The new travel blog Gadling featured a thoughtful audio interview last week with Travelers’ Tales Publisher James O’Reilly, who discusses travel writing and life at the California-based publishing company. Note: We added Gadling to our list of travel blogs on the front page.
So Long, Easy Going
by Michael Yessis | 01.24.05 | 10:05 PM ET
Easy Going, the famed Berkeley, California, travel shop and bookstore, will be shutting its storefront Tuesday, February 15. Easy Going will remain in business on the Web, but it’s still a loss for the community of travel writers and Bay Area readers. Owner Thelma Elkins will be throwing a farewell/celebration at the old storefront February 14 from 1 to 6 p.m.
An Apology To the World
by Jim Benning | 11.15.04 | 9:13 PM ET
University of Southern California neuroscience student James Zetlen wasn’t happy with the outcome of the U.S. election. So the 20-year-old snapped a photo of himself holding up a handwritten sign on a piece of notebook paper. It featured a crude drawing of the globe and a simple message: “Sorry world. We tried.” He signed it, “Half of America.” Then he posted the photo on a basic Web site he created: sorryeverybody.com. What happened since has been amazing, the BBC reports. The site has received more than 27 million hits—so many that the university asked him to move it to another server because it was using more than 80 percent of its server’s bandwidth. Zetlen’s site is now loaded with photos from other citizens offering their own snapshot apologies. And it has inspired a number of other sites, including several insisting the U.S. has nothing to apologize for. Whatever your politics, you have to appreciate the power of the Internet here: One student posted his thoughts and millions around the world took notice. As Zetlen says in the BBC story: “The internet was supposed to make communication between cultures, countries and peoples painless and easy. It was supposed to build bridges. But it doesn’t do this automatically; somebody has to reach out. Also, come on, it’s kind of amusing.”
Bush Won the General Vote, But Who Won the Traveler Vote?
by Jim Benning | 11.03.04 | 9:33 PM ET
You won’t hear any inside-the-beltway pundits talking about the “traveler vote” the way they talk about the “youth vote.” But it’s too bad exit poll workers don’t ask voters whether they had spent time abroad. Travel can change one’s perspective on a range of issues, and particularly America’s role in the world. I suspect the American-who-has-traveled-internationally vote went easily to Kerry. The majority of passport holders live on the coasts, and coastal states like New York and California were solid Kerry states. But the majority of American voters—as many as 80 percent—don’t hold passports. They’ve never had the visceral experience of seeing the U.S. through another’s eyes. So, regrettably, the traveler vote isn’t big enough to make a difference.
Retracing Steinbeck’s “The Log From the Sea of Cortez” Journey
by Jim Benning | 01.21.04 | 10:40 PM ET
Five people, including scientists and a writer, plan to leave Monterey, California on a wooden fishing boat in March to recreate the marine expedition made famous in John Steinbeck’s “The Log from the Sea of Cortez.” The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday: “The two-month trip will be chronicled by a Steinbeck Fellow, an academic position at San Jose State University held by freelance writer Jon Christensen. He plans to write a book about the expedition and create a daily Web log on the Internet for schoolchildren and others to follow.”
“Once Upon a Time, We Could Love an Airline”
by Jim Benning | 12.15.03 | 9:33 PM ET
The Los Angeles Times’ Susan Spano on Sunday offered a heart-warming recollection of Pacific Southwest Airlines, which was sold to US Airways in 1988 and is now the subject of a permanent display at the San Diego Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park. “The San Diego-based carrier holds a special place in the hearts of many, especially those who flew PSA in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the glory days when the airline summed up everything that was groovy and freewheeling about California,” she writes.
What do Visitors to California Want?
by Jim Benning | 12.01.03 | 9:41 PM ET
“Celebrities. Big houses. Conspicuous consumption. A sense of dipping their toes into a hedonistic way of life they’d seen fetishized on T.V.,” writes Rick Lyman in a travel essay in Sunday’s New York Times. Lyman lived in California for four years and tried hard to deliver on that when guests were in town. It wasn’t easy.