Spendthrift Shoestring

Friendly Flight Attendants

What happens when you chat with friendly flight attendants in the galley? If you're lucky, you learn about future route development plans. The very sweet flight attendants on my Virgin America flight from JFK to San Francisco last night told me that Miami, Boston, and Chicago are all on deck, and that Honolulu and various destinations south of the border are also in development. The flight attendant said "South America"! As in BA? Lima? Santiago? My imagination is running wild. (Or was "South America" mistaken shorthand for Mexico? In any case, I'll be waiting for more information.) And sure, I could have Googled such plans, but somehow when information comes from actual employees it is more compelling.

Plus, one more time: friendly flight attendants. Doesn't it seem like a long time since you encountered genuinely friendly flight attendants on a domestic US flight?

Hectic

Things have been insane over the last few weeks and posts have accordingly been few and far between. I expect to return to more regular posting schedule soon.

US Television Goes Aussie

I've been predisposed to Australian comedy television since I chanced upon an episode of Kath & Kim on a Qantas flight in 2004. The characters' plain absurdities, hilarious mashings of language, and constant invocations of celebrities make Kath & Kim a genius series.

The next great Australian comedy series I discovered down the pike was We Can Be Heroes, a mockumentary about the search for Australian of the Year. Creator Chris Lilley plays five different candidates for the prize, hailing from five different Australian states. His portraits are over-the-top irreverent and incredibly funny.

In Chris Lilley's subsequent mockumentary Summer Heights High, he plays Jonah Takalua (a delinquent Tongan youth who draws lots of obscene graffiti), Mr. G (a wildly inappropriate and self-aggrandized drama instructor), and Ja'mie King (an outrageously arrogant rich Sydney North Shore girl reprised from We Can Be Heroes). The characters are broadly offensive, and this is part of their charm. They provide a comment on the degree to which racism undergirds daily life, and they do so in a way that renders the offensive characters' behavior suspect as opposed to self-evident.

And now an adapted Kath & Kim is coming to NBC in October. We'll see if Molly Shannon and Selma Blair can successfully transfer Kath & Kim's inane hilarity to the American suburbs. Also coming to US television this fall is Summer Heights High, which will be on HBO from November. Regarding Summer Heights High, I think it's just a matter of time before the term "bogan skank" enters the American vernacular and this song becomes the club classic it so desperately deserves to be.

St. Ives in the New York Post

My short piece on St. Ives appears in the New York Post today. Here's a link to the article, which was given the very appropriate title "South by Southwest."

To celebrate, here are some images from my trip to St. Ives in early July.

St. Ives at low tide.

Porthminster Beach.

Cornish flag a-flyin'.

The beautiful countryside near the village of Zennor. Ignore the garbage and recycling bins.

Between Zennor and St. Ives on the South West Coast Path.

Delmarva, Virgin America, Islip

I've spent the last two weeks in a strange vortex, going from working madly on some projects to serious chill-out family time and back again. I spent a day in New York taking care of some business and a week and a half on the Delmarva peninsula doing very little. This was my third time visiting Chincoteague, a town just south of the Maryland-Virginia border on the Delmarva peninsula. This year the area was greener and lusher than I'd remembered.

We got to Chincoteague with Virgin America via Dulles. Matt's first comment on board: "I like it. I just feel like I'm going to Tomorrowland." And in fact the experience is a curious mesh of fun technology and an aesthetic that looks and feels very much like yesterday's well-scrubbed version of the future. But on balance, I'm a fan. The flight attendants appear to enjoy their work. The instant messaging component of the entertainment system is gimmicky but irresistible. The best component of all is the menu ordering system, which allows passengers to order and pay for food and drinks from their seats. Plus fares appear to be very reasonable. I'm hoping for smooth growth for the airline.

Then, in returning to Delmarva from New York, I flew from Islip to Salisbury, Maryland. Despite having lived in New York for five years now, I'd never previously flown in or out of Islip. In this case, my decision was motivated by budgetary constraints. My one-way from Islip to Salisbury, Maryland via Philadelphia cost about $130. The fares I was seeing from JFK and LaGuardia were over $600. I took the train to Ronkonkoma and caught a $5 van shuttle from the train station to the airport. Evidence of the latter can be seen here:

Sugar-Dipped Rose Petals

Last night I had the good fortune to dine at the Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley, for the first time ever. It was lovely, especially the incredible salmon cakes with a delectable mayonnaise. The thrill of novelty of the evening for me, however, was in the half-handful of sugared rose petals tossed over my little scoops of sherbet for dessert.

Gourmet budgeteers should note that the Chez Panisse Café features three-course fixed menu dinners for $31. That's a great deal given the quality of the grub at hand.