It's beginning to sink in that we may never travel by air again. Possibly by train, in our own sleeper compartment. But it's hard to imagine wanting to be squeezed into economy on a plane. If there ever is such a thing again. The big news this week is that Warren Buffet is fleeing airlines stocks, saying that the industry will never recover. The days of jumbo jets seem numbered, and if only smaller jets prove profitable, it will be only the rich who fly (like it was in the beginning). Our Prime Minister says that it will likely be December before casual international airline travel can resume into and out of Canada. And how many airlines are going to last that long? Detroit air traffic is down 3/4 from the same period last year, and it continues to shrink. And the domestic planes that are flying have from 1 to 10 people on board. The major airlines are asking to drop many smaller airports from their schedules, and this will likely be a permanent drop. So what that mean? Even more vehicle traffic between Detroit and Chicago, for one thing. The only way to travel for us this year, once restrictions are lifted, will be by car. And the only safe way to sleep will be in our tent at a campground. Once the roads clog up, that will be it for our excursions.
Stores that are reopening and are limiting the number of customers who can enter at any one time are finding that it is not profitable to even bother opening at all. Despite the bright and cheerful weather, there are some grim times ahead. And while things may eventually recover in a number of years, for us older folk who still hoped to get some travelling done before it became too exhausting, our days are limited indeed.
Good thing there is still a lot of music to listen to, and movies to watch, and books to read. These pastimes have saved our souls since March, and will have to continue doing the job for the foreseeable future. Speaking of movies, Deb's choice this week was an early Jackie Chan flic called Half a Loaf of Kung Fu. From 1978, it starts out as one of the silliest movies I have ever watched, with humour at a kindergarten level (those kids would die laughing, for sure). It was so juvenile that Deb gave up and walked out on it halfway through. I suffered on, but it got better and better. The humour found the right level, and the acrobatics, once the star learned his kung fu (from a book of images!), became unbelievably good. In the funniest scene, Jackie is fighting the big bad guy at the very end. He has dropped his instruction sheets during the fight, and as he fights he crawls around on his hands and knees studying the images. This is actually side-splitting; first because he learned from pictures in the first place, and second because he has to keep referring to them scattered in the dirt in the middle of his biggest fight of all. When he finally gets to the final sheet, it shows a man with about ten pair of legs moving in a blur. "I can't do that!" exclaims Jackie. But he can.
Now showing on Criterion.
My film choice for the week is Around the World In 80 Days. We are currently watching a doc about Brian Eno's early years first.
Today's art work is a good one for the season, as everything begins to bud and flower around here. This is the only Monet painting in the DIA. They used to have a large Waterlilies, but they sold it many years ago. Can you imagine? I have a b & w photo of it from a very old guidebook, and it looks as if it would be a showpiece of the museum today. Monet is one of my least favourite famous painters, but I do love this garden scene.
Rounded Flower Bed, ca 1876. Claude Monet. Oil on canvas, 22" x 32.5". Collection Detroit Institute of Arts.
Mapman Mike
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