2006jun20. Reading John McPhee’s Uncommon Carriers (amazon sales rank #84), which has a section devoted to Port Revel, a “ship-handling training center” where ship pilots go to learn advanced boating techniques. When pilots arrive at Port Revel, they scoff and laugh because everything is at 1/25th scale. But then get in the boats and find that scale doesn’t matter, they have just as much difficulty piloting these little ships as the big ones. There are some videos on the site that may work for you but my video capabilities have been lousey as of late. Perhaps you will see the tiny container ship. Inside the containers? Doll tennis shoes.
I went and saw John McPhee the other day at a City Arts Blah Blah Blah thing through the good graces of a friend who threw her ticket at me as she was feeling a bit under the weather. I actually had two tickets and dragged the other along in case someone wanted it.
1)
A man outside the venue asked if I had any extra tickets. This is good,
because he apparently needed a ticket.
2) I gave him the ticket.
He asked how much, I said, “keep it.” This is good, because it is like
karma.
3) I went in and had seats open on either side of me
the entire night. This is good, because I like having the seats empty next
to me.
4) I then realized that the empty seats meant he was
a scalper who sat around outside trying to sell the ticket, failed, and
bailed instead of enjoying the Magic of John McPhee & His Supertight Backup
Band Experience. This is good because fuck him.