I’ve landed this one so many times. From sun and warmth and Naarm to grey and cold and Berlin — You talking about the taxi drivers, Frances? I’m talking about the … never mind.
Tag Archives: Planes
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Glory over Baltic Sea
I thought it was called a Sun Dog. Similar, but different. It’s a Glory. Last time I saw a glory was flying into London to work with Onyx on Take This, For It Is My body, early morning end-October last year. That time, the plane raced along at its centre, as a shadow on the ground.
It’s an early morning thing, and cold morning one. This time I wasn’t sure it was real or just my eyes diffracting the scratched plastic and glass of the window. It came and went for some minutes, waning and waxing then departing as we altered course. It wasn’t very pronounced, but still, sun glory over the Baltic, flying from Helsinki to Berlin on the last leg of my first return to Naarm / Melbourne in a decade.
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Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok, Night
I find a quiet byway and stretch myself out. Old habit of transfers, me on the floor in an airport. Later, I go to the bathroom and give my face a scrub and moisturise, brush my teeth. New habit of transfers. My nose is Australian Red from the sun, and compression socks scratch my sunburn. Also a new habit — the socks, that is.
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Tail Cam
Home for the next nine and an half hours. Tail Cam view of Cathay Pacific Airbus A350–900 flight AY5834, Melbourne to Hong Kong. The food was well up to remembered standards of Cathay.
MEL
Status
Arrived. Panda’s taking the long way around, tho’.
Straya! Naarm [-o-]
Aside
Next week, I’ll be flying to Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. It’s been a long time. I’m going over to work with the deadly S.J Norman at Arts House for their two pieces, Rest Area (which I did production for in Linz last year) and Stone Tape Theory, doing production and performing.
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Berlin, Night Flight from London
Straße des 17. Juni, Tiergarten and Siegessäule, Potsdamer Straße, Unter den Linden, Alexander Platz and the light of Berlin smudged across my eyes at 1:30am.
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London, Night Flight to Berlin
London Orbital, Merstham, M23 and A23, Brighton Rd, Coulsdon, Beddington Sewage Treatment Works, Croydon, Thornton Heath, and into London smudged across the horizon.
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Linz Hbf, Waiting for the 🚞 Part of 🚌🚞🚌✈️🚌🚋
S.J wrote and talked with us about aftercare for Rest Area. Kali Rose said the snake I ran over on my e-bike was a good omen, and she’s never going to let that go. I arrive in Vienna, cafés I’d aimed for are closed for lunch so I find myself in Café Jelinek, a bit off Mariahilfestr. neighbourhoods I’ve biked through before. A second breakfast, after our all-’80s singing one in Landgasthaus Rodlhof on 3 hours sleep, raked from the work and hungover, is a big mug of coffee, croissant and honey, bowl of fruit and yoghourt, 4 slices bread with cream cheese, chives, tomatoes, all for 9,50 €. On the plane, easyJet to Schönefeld, they offer me two seats, ’cos I’m mad tall. I fall over myself into it. 4 hours later, a half before midnight and the Danube churning in my lungs, I arrive home. Katrin has left dinner on the table for me. Aftercare all the way.
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I was flying into Chicago at night Watching the l…
I was flying into Chicago at night
Watching the lake turn the sky into blue-green smoke
The sun was setting to the left of the plane
And the cabin was filled with an unearthly glow
In 27-D, I was behind the wing
Watching landscape roll out like credits on a screenThe earth looked like it was lit from within
Like a poorly assembled electrical ball
As we moved out of the farmlands into the grid
The plan of a city was all that you saw
And all of these people sitting totally still
As the ground raced beneath them, thirty-thousand feet downIt took an hour, maybe a day
But once I really listened the noise just fell away
These lyrics. How she sings them. Just my regular reminder to self that after 24 years Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville is still one of the best albums ever.