Travel Blog: News and Briefs
Happy Birthday, Mickey Mouse and ‘Steamboat Willie’
by Eva Holland | 11.18.08 | 4:05 PM ET
Eighty years ago today, Disney’s world-conquering mouse made his big-screen debut—traveling onboard an old-fashioned riverboat. Here’s the seven-minute clip that eventually spawned a global theme park empire, “Steamboat Willie”:
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Yahoo! Buzz‘The Shawshank Re-Redemption’: Travel Movie Sequels That Could Have Been
by Eva Holland | 11.18.08 | 1:42 PM ET
The National Post’s Chris Knight has some fun pondering what most movie sequels would look like if they were required to pick up precisely where the previous flick left off, as the latest James Bond does. Among the more appealing travel-themed sequels he envisions? “The Shawshank Re-redemption, featuring the wacky hijinks of Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins as escaped convicts on the lam in Mexico.”
Of course, the rule would create some stinkers, too: “If Indiana Jones IV followed right after the end of The Last Crusade, it would consist of little more than everyone riding out of the desert and going back to work.”
Calvin Trillin on ‘The Best Texas BBQ in the World’
by Michael Yessis | 11.18.08 | 11:32 AM ET
When Texas Monthly named Snow’s, a relatively unknown barbecue joint in Lexington, Texas, the best in the state, many people were surprised. Among them: Trillin. The New Yorker’s food guy writes: “I felt like a People subscriber who had picked up the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ issue and discovered that the sexiest man alive was Sheldon Ludnick, an insurance adjuster from Terre Haute, Indiana, with Clooney as the runner-up.”
Louvre to Display Abstract Sculpture by TV’s Wally Cleaver?
by Michael Yessis | 11.18.08 | 9:20 AM ET
The AP reports that Tony Dow, Beaver’s brother on the iconic television show “Leave it to Beaver,” will show a piece of his art at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts exhibition in Paris. San Francisco Chronicle pop culture critic Peter Hartlaub follows up and says Dow’s work will actually be on display at the Carrousel du Louvre Dec. 11-14.
Air Traffic Controllers: ‘You Have to Ask Yourself, How Close Was That to a Midair Collision?’
by Valerie Conners | 11.17.08 | 1:36 PM ET
World Hum contributor Terry Ward sheds light on life as an air traffic controller in a piece for AOL Travel that features the perspectives of a veteran controller, a trainee and a union rep. All three paint a bleak picture of the industry, and offer (at least to this flyer) some terrifying recollections of near misses in the sky. “We all have the suspicion that someone’s going to mess up,” said the trainee. “I just dread that thought, and that’s part of the reason I have trouble flying.”
World Hum’s Most Read: Nov. 8-14
by World Hum | 11.14.08 | 5:53 PM ET
Photo by spcoon, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Our five most popular speaker’s corner stories for the week:
1) Confessions of a Cross-Border Shopper
2) The Death of the Mile-High Club (pictured)
3) Vagrant Ruminations of a Compulsive Traveler
4) Why I am Still Going to Bali
5) Affairs to Remember—On-Screen and Off
What We Loved This Week: Cafe Tacuba, Nantes and The Orwell Diaries
by World Hum | 11.14.08 | 5:51 PM ET
Julia Ross
I loved this week’s New Yorker cover. Sure, I voted for Obama so I appreciated the sly wink at his victory, but the image also elicited a swell of affection for my hometown. My earliest memory of Washington—from the summer of 1974 when my family moved here—is of a nighttime visit to the Lincoln Memorial. It overwhelmed me as a 7-year-old, and remains my favorite of the city’s monuments for its reassurance that the country is stronger than the sum of its parts. When I glimpsed artist Bob Staake‘s stunning homage, I was reminded that Washington projects the American idea like no place else.
R.I.P. Forbes Traveler
by Jim Benning | 11.14.08 | 4:59 PM ET
Media Bistro reports rumors that the pub is folding, and a contributor tells us an editor there confirmed it today. What a shame.
$20 a Barrel? Don’t Tease Us.
by Eva Holland | 11.14.08 | 11:11 AM ET
A Calgary economist is predicting that oil prices could slide as low as $20 a barrel in the coming months, down from $150 this summer. If he’s right, that’ll be one more reason why the road trip isn’t dead.
Bob Dylan, Rock ‘n’ Roll Pilgrim
by Eva Holland | 11.14.08 | 9:57 AM ET
The couple that lives in Neil Young’s childhood home in Winnipeg is used to die-hard music fans stopping by—but they never expected to see Bob Dylan turn up on the front porch. Homeowner John Kiernan told the Globe and Mail about the stranger who arrived a couple weeks back: “I was thinking I gotta do laundry, I gotta rake leaves: it’s Sunday afternoon. I’m thinking this guy has great boots on ... I look at him and go, ‘Oh my God. We’re talking to Bob Dylan.’ At which point, I said, ‘Do you want to come in and see the house?’”
More Family Lanes Coming to Airport Security Lines
by Jim Benning | 11.13.08 | 1:36 PM ET
They’ll be in every airport security checkpoint in the nation by Thanksgiving. Oh, if the pilgrims could see us now.
Will Barack Obama Bring Buzz to the Hawaiian Plate Lunch?
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.13.08 | 1:31 AM ET
It could happen. The President-elect, born and raised in Hawaii, grew up loving the cheap, carbo-rich traditional Hawaiian lunch of white rice, macaroni salad and some kind of pan-Asian protein—kalua pork is a favorite.
Thanks, ‘Tarmac Task Force,’ for Nothing
by Valerie Conners | 11.12.08 | 3:39 PM ET
It’s taken a government task force nearly a year of negotiating to determine that, well, little will change for unlucky passengers stranded for hours on grounded flights. Passenger rights advocates describe the task force’s voluntary guidelines as “business as usual,” as they allow airline members to create their own response plans, and set no time limit on how long passengers stuck on the tarmac can stay confined before being allowed to exit the plane.
‘There’s Something Romantic About City Bloggers’
by Eva Holland | 11.12.08 | 11:41 AM ET
That’s how Benji Lanyado kicks off his guide to the best in home-grown city blogs in the Guardian. He goes on: “Even in the world’s most media-saturated cities—where there are thousands of pages of listings, tips and reviews—there are hundreds of bedroom bloggers doing it for themselves. Often nobody is telling them what to write or paying them for their time, which makes for some of the most original content online.”
The Quichua Cacao Farmers Behind Kallari Chocolate
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.12.08 | 9:33 AM ET
The $5.95 bars of rich, smooth Kallari artisan chocolate sold at Whole Foods come from an island on the Napo River in Ecuador’s rain forest. The Quichua people have been farming cacao for generations and then selling it, but now they’ve cut out the middleman and are making and marketing the chocolate themselves. The New York Times reports that they may be the only cacao farmers in the world who make and market their own chocolate.
