here is something claustrophobic about planes, about being cooped up in a metal tube high up above the clouds with two hundred people all staring at the same direction. I‘m not afraid of flying but with the years I learned to hate it. The only joy that, which I found brutal. As it turned out the reader was a guy I knew way back from activist circles. The bewilderment at this random sky meeting seared the title in my memory. On the last plane back from TLV, a woman sitting in the window seat to my right kept marking lines in a poetry book from a boutique publishing house. To my left was a young female-presenting person who held a book with the most beautiful dark crimson shine which mesmerized me. After hours of inconspicuously glancing over, I finally caught the title, alas it was in Italian; if only I knew Italian. Walking down the aisle, a young man was reading a shabby philosophy book from a series I used to love. As for myself, I was reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s latest: , “Airport book” edition. Clean, sharp and slightly technocratic design that clashed with Kolbert’s warm writing style, complete with back cover endorsements from Obama and Gates. None of which diminished my delight.
