What We Loved This Week: Book Passage, Seatmate Chitchat, and David Sedaris’ ‘Standing By’

Travel Blog  •  World Hum  •  08.13.10 | 6:05 PM ET

Eva Holland
I’m in the Bay Area for a few days, visiting with friends and colleagues at the Book Passage Travel, Food and Photography Conference, and it’s been a treat so far—the in-person writing community is one of the few things I’ve missed since moving to the Yukon nine months ago, and it feels good to reconnect.

Michael Yessis
This line from David Sedaris’ Standing By essay in the New Yorker made me laugh out loud:

Fly enough, and you learn to go braindead when you have to. It’s sort of like time travel. One minute you’re bending to unlace your shoes, and the next thing you know you’re paying fourteen dollars for a fruit cup, wondering, How did I get here?


This one, too: 

I should be used to the way American dress when travelling, yet still it manages to amaze me. It’s as if the person next to you had been washing shoe polish off a pig, then suddenly threw down his sponge, saying, “Fuck this. I’m going to Los Angeles!”

Terry Ward
Normally, I’m antisocial on transatlantic flights, opting for sleep over chitchat. But this week, on a late night United hop from Dulles to Frankfurt, I met a reporter on his way to an embed in Kabul and was glad I opened my mouth. It makes me wonder how many fascinating characters have gotten only a drooling, lolling head tilt from me in the past.

Erin Byrne
It’s always the same miracle to land at San Francisco International Airport: As you descend, the straight concrete strip disappears underneath and you glide forward. The steel structure surrounding you vanishes and you are walking on water.

Jim Benning
I’m also at the Book Passage Travel, Food & Photography Conference, and in addition to enjoying talking travel writing with old friends and colleagues, I’ve loved exploring Book Passage bookstore once again. It’s one of the country’s great independent bookstores, and I’m reminded yet again, even as I hear more about the rise of e-books and online book sellers, of how much I love roaming the aisles of a great brick-and-mortar bookstore.



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