Friday, December 19, 2003

The demise of paper and handwriting became totally evident on my return trip from Vancouver. I tend to scribble on whatever piece of paper is handy. I haven't kept notebooks for a long time, relying instead on an ever-present laptop. But you can't doodle math conveniently on a laptop, and the batteries don't last long enough anyway. I ran out of scratch paper (the backs of the NIPS program) on the flight from Vancouver to Denver International. DIA is supposed to have one of the best retail spreads among airports. Except that I could not find a single plain notebook for sale in four different airport book and news outlets. 11:40:33 PM

Since Hanna is about to add another 7k miles or so to her extensive travels, she may want to grab a copy of Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel on her way to the airport. I found my copy as the only enticing title at a alleged bookstore in Whistler. One can get great backcountry gear in Whistler, but the book supply is very limited, even worse than most airport stores. Our airborne companions outside the window look unexpected when scrutinized. In paintings and from the ground, they appear like horizontal ovaloids, but here they resemble giant obelisks made of piles of unsteady shaving foam. Their kinship with steam is clearer. they are more volatile, the product of something that may have just exploded and is still mutating. It remains perplexing that it would be impossible to sit on one. 11:34:36 PM