Festival Musiques Ultimes 2, Part 2
Here’s a continuation of my travel diary written during a trip to the Festival Musiques Ultimes in Nevers, France.
Day 2 of the Festival
Before the festival began, we went for a walk down by the river, where Matt was attacked by a plant. It must have been some sort of stinging nettle. It left blisters which disappeared before the day was over. After this, we helped some German goths open a really old bottle of wine. Even though we were “big, strong Americans,” it took all 3 of us to get the cork out of the bottle, and we annihilated the cork with a pocket knife in the process.
The first band of day 2 was O Yuki Conjugate + The Sons of Silence = Spoke. They consisted of 3 nicely dressed men playing with bicycles and 1 knob twiddler. It’s amazing what kinds of sounds you can make with bicycles. Pretty good stuff, except for the dancy bits. Sam made faces at me during the performance. I made faces back at him. Karl made duck noises.
The second band was Batchas, from France . They had a whole row of mixing boards and effects, a couple of large gongs, a tall, homemade Japanese-styled instrument, a violin, and a couple of I.V. drips slowly dripping water into miked metal pails, from which they created mesmerizing soundscapes. This was better than their performance last year.
Next up was Co-Caspar, who I had never heard previously. The curtain lifted to reveal a bunch of dubious-looking objects hanging from the rafters. The main piece of equipment was a control panel, packed with switches and blinking lights. The rest of the objects were comprised of cannibalized bits of machinery and rubber gloves. At the back of the stage stood a man in a paper mache mask. He was holding a large, spatula-like knife and wore some sort of control panel belted around his waist. He looked for all the world like Michael Myers. Accompanied by a creepy drone, he slowly advanced to the front of the stage, where he used the knife to cut off his mask. This action revealed a bald man of around 50 with piercing blue eyes and the nearly blank expression of an executioner who secretly loves his work. He hung the mask and knife from a hook on the ceiling and went to the control panel, where he began fiddling with switches. During the course of the performance, various pieces of equipment came alive and were manipulated by hand. He stretched and squeezed the rubber parts to alter the tone and pitch of sound created by the machinery. At one point he put a wire in his mouth and used his teeth and lips to manipulate the feedback it produced. At points during the show he shoved a microphone into his mouth and impersonated an epileptic experiencing a gran mal seizure. He ended the show by pulling a plug, plunging everything into darkness. The crowd went wild.
June 6th, 2:39 PM, Somewhere between London and Penzance .
I’ll catch up on the last few days later. We’re on a bumpy bus ride to Penzance in England. This is the nearest big(ish) city to Mousehole, which we plan to visit tomorrow. I keep feeling like we’re on the wrong side of the road. I like England a lot better than France, mostly because I can read the language.
Now I will set back the clock a few days… after Co-Caspar we waited for a bit until finally Current 93’s intro tape started with a looped voice singing an incomprehensible but beautiful refrain. I keep meaning to ask David where he got the recording from. For this show, Current 93 did not rely on processed noises. The full line up for the night was David Tibet (of course) on vocals, Karl Blake on bass, Michael “you didn’t bring a tent?!?” Cashmore on acoustic guitar, and Joolie Wood on violin, flute, recorder, oboe, hurdy gurdy, bells, backing vocals, etc. Oh yeah, and Joolie’s son Sam the facemaker on bells for one of the encores. The did mostly songs from their most recent releases, but also performed When the May Rain Comes (a Sand cover) from Thunder Perfect Mind, and Horsey (one of my favorite songs). I’ve waited 6 or 7 years to see this band and it was well worth the wait. At dinner the night before, David Tibet mentioned that he likes wallowing in melancholy – and he does it so well. He manages to wallow in melancholy with a sense of humour and a smile on his face. For the encore, Lucifer Over London, Sam was coaxed onto stage to stand next to his mother and shake a tambourine-like instrument. He seemed to be enjoying himself. After the show he signed autographs. Gilles proudly showed us his Sam-autographed piece of paper and got us to sign a petition to drink beer (???). Then David beckoned us backstage, where we went up to the dressing room and Matt got David and Michael Cashmore to deliver the hinted-at encore which didn’t materialize during the show – a rousing rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon. Then Sam came into the room and started making faces at me and asking me to make duck noises. After awhile I got him to divert his attention to Greg, and then to Karl. Soon we were all making duck noises. A little later, penguins entered the equation – not just any penguins either; these were bonkers penguins.
Then we all (David, Karl, Michael, Joolie, Sam, Andrew, Kat, Anne, Sophia, Matt, Greg, myself, and a couple of other people) went to dinner. Sam made hats out of napkins and we wore them at the table. David invited us to stay at his place in London. This meant we didn’t have to look for a hotel!!! We got back to our hotel at around 1 AM, where we said goodbye to Sophia and promised to make sure she was awake at 6 AM so she could catch her train. The festival was wonderful. Yann and Marie-Pierre are to be commended.
Oh yeah, we ended up giving the champagne (from the stewardess) to David Tibet.
June 6th, 3:37 PM. Still on the bus.
We’ve left the city behind. Out the windows I can see sprawling fields of yellow flowers and green grass everywhere. We should be in Penzance in about 3 hours. Hopefully we’ll be able to find lodgings.
7:13 PM
Still on the bus. The road is bumpy. The trees are great around here.
8:01 PM.
Still on the bus. Gosh! is far!
10:31 PM.
Well, after 9 hours of travel we finally made it to Penzance and are now at the youth hostel. The hostel is in a mansion at the end of a beautiful, tree-lined road. Apparently there is a ley line going through the lawn and garden areas right outside. I believe it is known as St. Mary’s ley line. It is entwined with one of the ley lines which leads to Stonehenge .
We’re staying here for 3 nights at a price of around 15 pounds a night, which seems to me to be a pretty good price. All of our accommodations and travel have now been paid for the rest of our vacation. Pretty much, anyway. This was the third day of our vacation to be taken up entirely by travel. Tomorrow should be fun.
Time to relax and sleep for a few hours.
June 7th, 1:40 PM, Men-an-tol (side note: the Men-an-tol is a cluster of small standing stones mentioned in Charles DeLint’s The Little Country. Since the book is a work of fiction, we weren’t sure if there actually was such a place.)
The Men-an-tol exists! I found mention of it in one of the guidebooks at the hostel. We took a 15 minute bus ride and walked for over an hour to find it. Everything is so green. The country roads are lined with bushes and old stone walls. Every time we went near cows they all ran up and visited with us. Maybe they were hungry, or maybe they were mad. Who knows? The Men-an-tol itself consists of four stones – one doughnut shaped stone about four feet tall flanked by two pillars of similar height. A fourth stone lies on its side near one of the pillars. The stones are in a grassy clearing surrounded by low bushes. Off in the distance I can see an old ironworks, which we just visited. It stands silhouetted against the horizon. Beyond the ironworks the land slopes down to the sea. The view is excellent.
I can hear several species of birds and the breeze rushing through the bushes and around my head.
Oh… and we caught a whole bunch of neat black beetles with big, floppy feet.
11:00 PM, back at the hostel.
We stopped at the Men-an-tol studio (visitor’s center) on the way out and met a nice dog and a troublemaker cat. Bought some cards as well.
An hour or so later, back at the bus stop, we waited in the company of a small, white cat. The cat looked for all the world like it was waiting for the bus, but ran off to get in a fight with some other cats before the bus came.
Back at the hostel we ran into Frank, who we had met that morning. He’s a fiftyish Irish teacher who is in town to bury his brother who died of a massive stroke. Poor guy. He’s fun to talk to though.
Then we played ping-pong and I slaughtered Greg and Matt. What fun.
We followed this with a walk along the waterfront. There’s something about small town seafronts at sunset that strikes a chord in me. We’re back at the hostel again now. Walking all day is pretty tiring. Tomorrow we’ll try to get to Mousehole and Land's End. Goodnight.
Saturday, June 8th.
We Took a bus to Mousehole today. Mousehole is a small village surrounding an even smaller cove, in which indecent young children were swimming. After visiting a couple of tourist shops, we inadvertently stumbled onto Duck St., which is near the Gaffer’s house in The Little Country. We ascertained where he would live if he was real. After that we went out on the pier which stretches out into the cove (actually, there are two piers which enclose the cove like a pair of sheltering arms) and took some pictures.
Next we wandered down into a tidepool area so Matt could play with prawns and snails. After many minutes of fun we wandered further and found a neat cave full of hanging ferns and seagull nests. We didn’t find any pirates though. The trail we took back was overgrown with nettles. Since I was wearing shorts this was rather painful, but the pain only lasted for an hour or so.
Back in town, we stopped at a couple of craft shops. One of them had some beautiful –but delicate and expensive – fairies in the window. If I’d had more money I would have bought one.
We caught the bus back to and discovered that we didn’t have enough time to make it to Land's End. We ended up eating at a bad restaurant instead – their idea of a milkshake resembled warm Malt-o-meal. This experience was soon balanced out by the neat record store we found. We spent some time flipping though stacks of records, bought a few things, and headed out for St. Michael’s Mount, which ended up being about a 2 mile hike.
St. Michael’s Mount is a castle on a peninsula which I believe becomes an island at high tide. We arrived too late in the day to be able to enter the castle but the view was great anyway.
We were lucky to catch a bus back to because our legs were getting pretty tired.
Oh yeah, we saw a field full of rabbits on the way there and back. There must be a warren in the area. We’re back at the hostel now, lying on our beds. More later…
(Turn back the clock to Monday the 3rd)
This was a whole day spent traveling from Nevers to London. We took a train from Nevers to Paris, where we caught a Metro to Gare du Nord on the north side of Paris. This is kind of a rundown area – it’s dirty and someone tried to sell me pot. I felt like I was in Berkeley. It was at Gare du Nord that we realized that Greg had left all of our records on the train from Nevers. Needless to say, we were pretty upset. Matt and I waited at the Eurostar station while Greg retraced our steps to try and get the records. I was worried that he wouldn’t make it back in time to catch our train to London. He did make it back in time, but didn’t manage to get our records. I’m just glad I put my cds in my backpack.
Greg took this the hardest of the 3 of us because it was a pretty harebrained mistake. To this date he is still trying to contact the lost and found at Gare de Lyon in Paris, which is either closed or operated by non-English speaking French people every time he calls. Oh, well…
After he got back from his fruitless search, we got on the Eurostar train which would take us to London. This trip lasted over 3 hours, about 20 minutes of which was spent under the English Channel . We arrived in at 7 something (1 hour time difference between Paris and London), went through customs, and quickly found the tube (subway) station we needed to take us to David’s house. The trains in are older and louder, but seemingly more reliable than the ones in Paris. In no time at all we were at Walthamstow Central where we disembarked and called David. He answered the phone with, “Americans!” and told us how to get to his house. After a little difficulty and another phone call, we managed to make it there without being run over (because the British drive on the wrong side of the street. Ha ha.).
At the house were David, Anne, Kat, Karl, and lots of cats (Wiggle, Squiggle, Fitzgoblin, and several others). The house itself is amazing! There are bookcases and stacks of books in every room, and loads of original artwork hanging on the walls, including lots of original Louis Wain paintings and drawings, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound artwork, lots of Noddy dolls and related items, autographed Tiny Tim memorabilia, a wonderfully narrow, creaky staircase leading up to the second floor… The list goes on.
We sat around and talked for awhile, and ordered pizza. Soon we unrolled our sleeping bags on the front room floor and slept. We’d been traveling all day. The house was full of guests, since Karl and Anne didn’t live there either.
The next day (Tuesday, June 4th) we went into London accompanied by Karl and Anne. Our first stop was Skoob books, where we met photographer Ruth Bayer and David Knight (of Shock Headed Peters). The rest of the day was spent going to book and record stores, with Karl playing tour guide. We bought him pizza to thank him for showing us where everything was. He really is a great guy – always full of funny anecdotes. He even took us by the birthplace of William Blake (no relation).
At the end of the day we said goodbye to him at the train station where he had to catch a train to Sheffield . Back at David’s we watched a video adaptation of the M.R. James story, If You Whistle, He Will Come, and ate a lovely tofu-based meal cooked by Kat. David showed us more of the house and we listened to music for awhile. That night Greg and I took over the futon upstairs which had been vacated by Karl. We fell asleep listening to the Anne Briggs cd which has the version of Tamlin which inspired the Current 93 version of the song.
Wednesday, June 5th.
Greg and I bought the Sand/Current 93 cd from David today. Instead of giving the money to him, we put 6 pounds each in the Cat Protection League Fund bank (a cat piggy bank, of course). Our money is going to a good cause. Then we set out to explore without a tour guide. We stopped off a Skoob books again and got more record and bookstore advice from David Knight. He drew us a map showing where more stores were.
First we went to the Virgin Megastore and I think I spent around 114 pounds (around $170) – ouch! Then we went down and visited an almost endless stream of used book stores, followed by some good quiche at a café. Then we went to Tower Records (the Tower of London! Ha ha.) and I got an employee discount after the usual Tower delaying tactics and runaround. They even gave me a big Tower bag to hide my Virgin Megastore bag in. A little competitive maybe? After this we went back to Skoob so Matt could drop off a book he found for Karl. Then it was back to David’s place.
David, Kat, and Anne were sitting on the back porch drinking wine and eating cheese and crackers. We joined them and spent a while talking. It’s interesting experiencing the subtle differences between English and culture. Or maybe I should say language. It takes a while to get used to the currency as well.
After awhile, Kat left and the rest of us went inside and ordered Indian takeout food. When it arrived we ate (quite good) and watched an old movie called Dead of Night – more ghost stories – the house is full of ghost story books too. It’s no wonder David and Kat publish books under the name Ghost Story Press. David is also friends with Thomas Ligotti, and there is a collaboration between the two of them in the offing. I can’t wait!
Thursday, June 6th.
David got us reservations over the phone for our trip to Cornwall. All through our stay he has been an excellent host. He and Karl both have proven to be really likeable people. I’m glad I got a chance to meet them. He let us leave a lot of our stuff at his house and is going to let us stay there when we get back from too. What a guy. Especially since he just met us a few days prior to this.
Okay, now I’m caught up.
Sunday, June 9th.
We dragged all of our stuff down to the bus station, stopping on our way to stock up on Cornish Pasties – of the vegetarian variety, of course. We went out to look at the ocean while waiting for our bus to arrive. I can stare at the ocean for hours. Today is was gray and restless.
The rest of the day was spent sitting in cramped bus seats. My walkman stopped working (what do you expect for $7?) so I read some of Lord Dunsany’s The Curse of the Wild Woman. The green landscape rolled by slowly as we made our roundabout way towards London’s Victoria Station. At loads of people got on the bus and things were unpleasantly cramped all the way to the end of the ride.
At the station, we hopped on the tube and swiftly ended up back at David’s, where we talked about tentative plans for a Current 93 show in New York and David debunked nasty internet rumours started by whiny fans – rumours of the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” variety which don’t warrant inclusion here.
Then we ordered pizza and watched another M.R. James adaptation which featured the creepiest hurdy-gurdy playing ghost I’ve ever seen. Then we went to bed, curiously exhausted after a day of sitting down.
Monday, June 10th.
We went to Brighton today with Anne and David to visit Shirley Collins. Matt and I brought along a couple of cd booklets for her to sign. We met Savage Pencil at the train station so David could hand over an expensive krautrock record. Getting to involved another tube ride back to Victoria Station, and an hour-long train ride. Looking out the train windows, we were rewarded with many views of classic English countryside (rolling green hills, quaint buildings, etc.).
We arrived in Brighton and were immediately sucked into a couple of book stores on the way to Shirley’s house. A little later we arrived at Shirley’s and she invited us in to have biscuits, homemade ginger cake, and orange juice. We talked about our trip and and how the world is going to hell in a handbasket (maybe) – and she signed our cd booklets.
After this, she gave us a short tour of Brighton, which is slightly reminiscent of San Francisco, with its hills and seagulls. She took us to see the Royal Pavilion, which was (if I remember correctly) the Prince Regent’s palace-by-the-sea. After this she walked us down to the beach and said goodbye.
We sat on the beach awhile and played with rocks – the beach was mainly tumbled and ocean-polished stones.
Next we went and had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant called Food For Friends – calzone and lumpy pie! Mmmm. After this we found our way back to more bookstores, one of which looked like it had been hit by a good sized tornado. There were treasures to be found amongst the rubble.
After this store, David left us to catch a train back to London, while the rest of us went on to visit some more cd and book stores. We caught a later train back.
Eventually we got back to David’s, and are now sitting around scribbling in our journals. I am again struck by how nice everybody has been on this trip. I feel really welcome here.
(Side note: Rose McDowall had a baby last weekend. She named her Velocity Star.)
Wednesday, June 12th, 1:02 PM.
We’re sitting in a lounge at in , waiting for the interminable flight home. We’re about to board. I’ll catch up on yesterday when we’re on the airplane.
Okay, we’re on the plane now, so let’s go back to Tuesday. We (me, Greg, Matt, David, and Anne) started the day out by taking a 10 minute walk down the very English lanes of Walthamstow to visit Nick Saloman of Bevis Frond. Nick greeted us at the door, and after introductions, invited us in and offered us something to drink.
After this, he spent around an hour regaling us with drummer stories that would have made the creators of Spinal Tap quite envious for not thinking them up themselves. Bevis Frond’s current drummer tried to saw his arm off with a hacksaw. They discovered one of their earlier drummers down the street from a club after a show trying to lift up a manhole cover, thinking somebody had nailed his cymbal case to the ground. The stories continued. All of their drummers have been completely mad. I haven’t laughed this much all week. After the stories dwindled out, we wandered next door to Woronzow records world HQ and Nick gave us free cds. Just one more person on the long list of really nice people we’ve met on this trip. Too bad we’re missing the Bevis Frond show next weekend.
David had recommended a play called The Woman in Black a couple of days earlier, and while we were still at Nick’s, he phoned up the theater and had tickets reserved for us. The play started at 8, so we had a day to kill.
We set out with Anne to hit a few last places in London(she’s lucky – she gets to stay longer and go to Portugal afterwards). First we stopped so Anne could pick up David’s mail at the post office, then we got some pizza and picked up our tickets for the play.
Next we went to Tower, where Anne left us to go back to David’s. We went back to Notting Hill Gate station and visited Andrew King at the Classical Music Exchange where he works. We talked awhile and wandered next door to look at the soundtrack records. More money changed hands. After a couple of more stores we ran into Andrew again, with Kat, who had come to meet him. We took this opportunity to say goodbye to them.
Our next stop was the Fortune Theatre to see The Woman in Black. This is the first theatrical ghost story I have seen, and I was pretty impressed. The story involved many of the usual ghost story elements – death, revenge, and transferred curses. The interesting thing is that the two main characters of the story are a man who experienced the actual events and an actor who helps him figure out how to present the story for an audience. They end up rehearsing the dialogue and acting the story out to its finish – supposedly in an empty theatre. In the process a horrible curse is transferred from the man with the story to the actor.
The visuals were interesting as well – patterns of light playing across the walls to suggest train travel, backlit staircases, and a suddenly appearing and vanishing ghost.
(Back to the present for a moment: we just took off. Below me I can see the green, patchwork fields of England receding as we gain altitude. Cotton ball clouds stretch to the horizon. I must return here sometime soon.)
The play made good use of sound as well. Sudden screams and pounding noises made most of the audience jump more than once. Over all, it was a satisfying play, even if I did guess the ending.
After the play, we walked slowly back to the tube station. It had begun to rain and was not yet fully dark, even though it was after 10 PM (the sun sets really late this far north). Clouds billowed overhead and night-lit buildings glowed around us. This was London at its most beautiful. It was about as peaceful as a city this size ever gets.
Back at David’s, we sat up and talked some more about music before going to bed.
Wednesday morning.
We got up this morning and frantically got our luggage into a more portable state – stuffing books, records, and cds in wherever they would fit. We took some parting pictures of David and Anne, and David called a cab to take us to the tube station. He paid for the cab and gave us 10 pounds to get something to eat at the airport, since our funds have been (not surprisingly) reduced to pocket change. We will have to come up with a suitable way to repay him for his generosity. Less than 2 hours later we were at Heathrow. After reassuring the security people that we didn’t have any bombs, we were allowed into the lounge to wait for our flight.
At the moment we are still over and are experiencing some turbulence. .
One more Nick Saloman story that was kind of funny: Nick walked out his front door one day to find that a man from the cable company had dug a trench across his driveway, making it impossible for him to back his car out. When he confronted the man, he was told, “well, I’ll fill it in in a couple of hours.” Nick asked the guy why he hadn’t bothered to check with him first so he could have backed his car out. The man replied, “well, I didn’t know where you lived.” Nick replied, “I’m standing in my driveway.” To this the man responded, “I didn’t know where you lived before you came out.”
Idiocy is universal.
We just passed Newfoundland and are veering south towards New York . We should be landing there in less than 2 hours. I have 75 cents money in my pocket, and a small handful of British and French coins. Maybe I can get a candy bar, or maybe I can find an ATM in the airport.
We have to drag our stuff through customs too. I have to convince them that I have less than $400 worth of foreign goods so I don’t have to pay import duties. It shouldn’t be too hard.
7:21, British time.
We’ve been on the plane for about 6 hours. I’ve figured out that 5 days of this vacation were spent doing nothing but getting from one place to another, using planes, trains, busses, feet, cabs, etc. At least it gives me time to read and write. I have a hard time sleeping on public transportation though. The underground tube system in London stands out in my mind and the most impressive transportation we utilized. We never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a train, and the network of stations and tunnels got us everywhere we wanted to go in . Some of the trains are really deep underground. The escalators seemed to descend forever. We took the emergency exit stairs once and nearly killed ourselves from the exertion. I wish I had gotten some pictures of the escalators. London is a very easy city to get around in without a car.
Paradoxically, these last two weeks seemed to last forever yet take no time at all. We’ve done and experienced so much since we landed in France, but the days went by so quickly, as vacation days always do. There is still much more I’d like to do in the British Isles, but it can wait ‘til next time (it will have to, since we are now descending towards ).
8:33 PM, British time.
We’re flying by Grandma’s house on Cape Cod, which extends like a beckoning finger into the Atlantic. I haven’t been there in about 15 years. This is the first time I’ve seen it from the air. It’s really interesting.
5:40 PM, New York time.
Hellooo jet lag! New York is too humid. Customs was a joke. We’re on another plane, which we will be on for quite some time. I smell like Matt’s socks, or so I’m told. Greg smells worse. David’s bathtub was just too small. Ha ha. Airport pizza is $5.95 a slice here. We resisted. They’re showing time lapse cloud formations on the video monitors and playing bad new age muzak (redundant term). Almost time to go. I need a shower.
I’ve started reading Eye Killers by A.A. Carr. It’s good so far – a Navaho vampire story. Hmmm.
6:04 PM.
Some annoying guy is talking to Matt. He’s got to work on his, “don’t talk to me,” look. We’re still waiting to take off because the runway is really crowded. The guy talking to Matt is a real simpleton.
If I have to watch another airline safety video I’m going to strangle somebody with an oxygen mask or smother somebody with a flotation cushion. Wehopeyouhaveapleasantflightthankyouforchoosingamericanairlinesssss…. “and now we present the BEST OF EMERGENCY SAFETY VIDEOS – four hours of exhilarating highlights from 50 years of air travel.” I’d go mad.
The man who was talking to Matt is now making odd grunting noises. We’re still waiting for takeoff. If that guy grunts all the way through the flight I’m going to have to see how secure the emergency exits are. Oh – he just asked for a cup of water. Maybe that will shut him up. This is going to be a long flight. Good – the water helped. Except now he’s clearing his throat too much. Maybe if he didn’t talk continuously about inane things he wouldn’t have throat problems.
He just asked Matt if Mountain View is in San Mateo county. Is that reaching for conversation or what? Now he’s asking him if the last plane we were on was like this one. Poor Matt. “Are the people in Mountain View rather friendly?” Poor, poor Matt. I’m actually kind of enjoying myself at this guy’s expense. It must be the jet lag. Matt is being really patient with him. He should pretend to fall asleep, or pointedly start reading.
The flight has piped in music, which takes away the options presented by the availability of headphones on other flights. In other words, we have to listen to whatever crap the powers that be decide to inflict on us.
We were moving for a minute, but we stopped again. It is now 6:30 . We’ve been sitting here for half an hour.
Okay, now we’re moving.
Or maybe not. The odd guy is now reading magazine articles, which would be great if he weren’t reading them out loud in a mumbly little voice. It is now 7 PM.
Now he’s just plain talking to himself, between the increasingly rhythmic grunting noises.
1:33 AM, New York time.
I didn’t even know there were small children on board until I tried to go to sleep. They sure are loud. The flight was delayed for about 2 hours due to weather conditions. I think I actually got to sleep for an hour or two. We’ve just crossed into California and are beginning our descent towards San Francisco .
10:49 San Francisco time (aka 1:49 N.Y. time).
We’re flying over the Bay Area as we prepare to land. It’s quite beautiful from this distance – sparkling lights on a field of black. We’re almost on the ground… we just landed. Back in the Bay Area, for better or for worse. The guy in front of us has started rhythmically grunting again. It all looks so much nicer up in the air. Well, they say there’s no place like home. Whatever that means.
