Airportness: The Nature of Flight

Description

Airportness takes the reader on a single day’s journey through all the routines and stages of an ordinary flight. From curbside to baggage, and pondering the minutes and hours of sitting in between, Christopher Schaberg contemplates the mundane world of commercial aviation to discover “the nature of flight.” For Schaberg this means hearing planes in the sky, recognizing airline symbols in unlikely places, and navigating the various zones of transit from sliding doors, to jet bridge, to lavatory. It is an ongoing, swarming ecosystem that unfolds each day as we fly, get stranded, and arrive at our destinations. Airportness turns out to be more than just architecture and design elements—rather, it is all the rumble and buzz of flight, the tedium of travel as well as the feelings of uplift. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Preflight Ride to the Airport Curbside Boarding Pass Security Walk to the Gate People Watching Attack Waiting Workers Art Gate Change Gate Lice Fishing Shirts Runway Holding Takeoff Window Seat Sunrise Armrests New Planes Airplane Reading I Consider the Lavatory Snacking Initial Descent Connection Play Sparrows Twitter Breakfast 747 Colin Farrell In-flight Entertainment I: Somewhere In-flight Entertainment II: The Force Awakens Airplane Reading II Plane Sighting Higher Still Entanglements In-flight Entertainment III: United 93 Old Planes Gender Water Landing Arrival Destination Baggage Exit Home Acknowledgments Bibliography Films Web resources Music Index