Literature
I set out to write about the Dreamliner because I was intrigued by its innovative features and near utopian promises, details and visions hailed as the airliner merged into general commercial service around the globe. On one of their dreamy spreads for the new plane, Boeing marketed it as such:
When I first began to write about the Dreamliner, I thought I'd take a round-trip flight on the new plane and write about it while flying and between the flights. (I might still do that at some point, for a different kind of essay.) But then I started to read about about the reactions of people who had now flown on the plane (e.g., "Oh my God, the toilet is amazing!"..."The windows are a tiny bit bigger!"), and I started to think that another way to approach the object of the airliner would be from a discursive distance, as it were?as a new piece of technology provoking surprisingly underwhelming reactions & responses, attitudes and affects that reflect the current comportments of air travel.
Then as I combed through the various reports and accounts of the new airliner, and as as I ruminated on the rather flaccid romance of commercial air travel as it has come to emerge in 2012, I found myself looking back at earlier airliners?two in particular developed in the 1960s, the DC-9 and the Boeing 737, two planes with very different lives and fates. Thinking about these planes, constellated historically and contemporaneously in relation to the Dreamliner, gave the essay a new shape and trajectory.
As the Dreamliner experienced electrical fires and was eventually grounded around the world, the essay took on yet another dimension, one having to do with the lithium-ion batteries that nestle in our pockets and threaten the new airliners. It's curious that we can cognitively separate a battery from an airplane, but to isolate a mere wing or window as problematic would seem nonsensical: it's the plane, stupid.
For now the Dreamliner remains grounded, its future uncertain. This is a good time to think about the airliner, while we can't yet fly on it.
- Alone, With Craft
A Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 First Class Suite The New Inquiry has just published a new essay of mine, called "Escape Velocity," about two stories that appeared on the Internet over the past couple months: the Boeing 777 made out of manila folders,...
- Conditions Beyond Control: Airport Weather
Here is the talk I presented at ASLE today: When I worked at the Bozeman airport in Montana, between the years of 2001 and 2003, the conditions on the tarmac could be intense: massive snow drifts or treacherous ice around the plane in the winter,...
- Two Ways Of Looking At Emergency Slides
This gem just arrived in the mail: An Air France A380 emergency briefing card, and some airport haiku, from my awesome & inspiring architect cousin, Emily White! One haiku reads: Passenger paradeMysterious upper deckWho is sitting there? In other...
- Status Unknown: A Local Airplane Mystery
Admirable researchers currently are working to determine the fate of Amelia Earhart's final flight. Meanwhile, I've got a local airplane mystery of my own to ponder. This morning another business jet roared overhead, banking just over the...
- Taxiway Views
A little story of mine was in The New York Times last week: "A Night Spent on the Tarmac, With No Complaints." It made an especially nice coincidental pairing with another topic of the moment: As if on cue, the past few days have offered a series of...
Literature
Welcome Aboard, Mind the Battery
My essay on the Boeing Dreamliner has been published over at The New Inquiry.
I set out to write about the Dreamliner because I was intrigued by its innovative features and near utopian promises, details and visions hailed as the airliner merged into general commercial service around the globe. On one of their dreamy spreads for the new plane, Boeing marketed it as such:
Imagine inspiring views wherever you sit. Imagine arriving refreshed, with new technologies that actually invigorate. Imagine a plane with a smoother ride, where bumps are softened so you can rest easy. We did. And then we built one. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It's more than a dream. It's Boeing. Welcome Aboard.If the airliner's reception was lukewarm (and in some cases probably not even noticed), this just made the case more interesting. As I was connecting through Houston earlier this month, I raced around the clamorous concourses in an attempt to see a United Dreamliner that was preparing to depart. When I got to the gate and stared out the window at the new plane, I was both captivated and a little let down: it's just another plane, another flight, ground-crew rearranging the baggage carts and cones, preparing for the next arrival. The Dreamliner's engines revved a vaguely alien hum as it prepared to roll toward the taxiway.
When I first began to write about the Dreamliner, I thought I'd take a round-trip flight on the new plane and write about it while flying and between the flights. (I might still do that at some point, for a different kind of essay.) But then I started to read about about the reactions of people who had now flown on the plane (e.g., "Oh my God, the toilet is amazing!"..."The windows are a tiny bit bigger!"), and I started to think that another way to approach the object of the airliner would be from a discursive distance, as it were?as a new piece of technology provoking surprisingly underwhelming reactions & responses, attitudes and affects that reflect the current comportments of air travel.
Then as I combed through the various reports and accounts of the new airliner, and as as I ruminated on the rather flaccid romance of commercial air travel as it has come to emerge in 2012, I found myself looking back at earlier airliners?two in particular developed in the 1960s, the DC-9 and the Boeing 737, two planes with very different lives and fates. Thinking about these planes, constellated historically and contemporaneously in relation to the Dreamliner, gave the essay a new shape and trajectory.
As the Dreamliner experienced electrical fires and was eventually grounded around the world, the essay took on yet another dimension, one having to do with the lithium-ion batteries that nestle in our pockets and threaten the new airliners. It's curious that we can cognitively separate a battery from an airplane, but to isolate a mere wing or window as problematic would seem nonsensical: it's the plane, stupid.
For now the Dreamliner remains grounded, its future uncertain. This is a good time to think about the airliner, while we can't yet fly on it.
- Alone, With Craft
A Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 First Class Suite The New Inquiry has just published a new essay of mine, called "Escape Velocity," about two stories that appeared on the Internet over the past couple months: the Boeing 777 made out of manila folders,...
- Conditions Beyond Control: Airport Weather
Here is the talk I presented at ASLE today: When I worked at the Bozeman airport in Montana, between the years of 2001 and 2003, the conditions on the tarmac could be intense: massive snow drifts or treacherous ice around the plane in the winter,...
- Two Ways Of Looking At Emergency Slides
This gem just arrived in the mail: An Air France A380 emergency briefing card, and some airport haiku, from my awesome & inspiring architect cousin, Emily White! One haiku reads: Passenger paradeMysterious upper deckWho is sitting there? In other...
- Status Unknown: A Local Airplane Mystery
Admirable researchers currently are working to determine the fate of Amelia Earhart's final flight. Meanwhile, I've got a local airplane mystery of my own to ponder. This morning another business jet roared overhead, banking just over the...
- Taxiway Views
A little story of mine was in The New York Times last week: "A Night Spent on the Tarmac, With No Complaints." It made an especially nice coincidental pairing with another topic of the moment: As if on cue, the past few days have offered a series of...