virtualDavis's blog

Oooomph! Another wheelie suitcase is bashed into your shins as the mob jockeys toward the overwhelmed attendants at the gate. They've just announced that your "red eye" home from a business trip has been canceled. That charming news after sitting in the terminal waiting for two hours because it was delayed! With your pulse skyrocketing and your hopes plummeting you jostle through the crowd while dialing your wife on your cell phone to let her know that you might not be making it home this evening.

Sometimes I realize that I've flagged too many things to blog and that the list is getting longer and I'm not catching up, so... I have to decide either to dump all the leads I wanted to blog or offer them up in mini-form. Here's my decision:

• Free Frequent Flyer Miles - "There are many, many ways to acquire free frequent flyer miles without actually flying on the airline giving you the miles.

Edward Albee tackled that "tiny speck of South Pacific lava" called Easter Island in the New York Times recently. In addition to a slew of fantastic photographs, Albees article is filled with wonder and youthful enthusiasm (despite his almost 80 years), a sort of open rumination on one of history's mysteries, a culture "which grew, fell into decadence and vanished." He encourages an extended stay (no less than a five day stay is acceptable, he says) to fully experience this island settled over 1,300 years ago by wayward Polynesians who originally named it Rapa Nui. It should come as no surprise that Albee, a thrice lauded Pulitzer prize winner, tells his story well. He describes the view from Rano Kau, one of three massive volcanoes which formed the island:

It took a little waiting for, but it did finally come. And then, inevitably, I missed it! But fret not, patient e-Margonauts, I'll not let you likewise miss it. Here's the skinny... Former e-Marginalia Travel Editor, Nana Chen, was interviewed over at Wayne Yang's blog. If you missed the opportunity to get to know this stellar photographer/writer/painter, then you better start clicking. Here are the links you need:

• Nana Chen Interview, Part I
• Nana Chen Interview, Part II
• Nana Chen Interview, Part III

Nana's photos have inspired many, and her interviews with notable travelers consistently capture honest, frank snapshots of the sorts of adventurers that fascinate us so. It's refreshing to have the magnifying glass turned on her for a change! Several memorable passages lingered in my mind after reading Yang's new posting:

"In moving so much, I’ve come to long for things that hold still, that give me a sense of stability. I know this is unrealistic, however. Life is not still and wanting it to be so is such a contradiction... [W]hen I finish something, be it a photograph, painting or story, it is there to return to."

"I’m merely a gatherer of words, sentences and expressions that, on good days, can be retrieved when I need them..."

At last I've had the chance to read the second installment of Wayne Yang's Nana Chen Interview over at eightdiagrams.com. It's more brief than the first installment (which inevitably makes me hope that a third installment might be in the pipeline), but it gives a nice snapshot of Nana's writing evolution/background.

"I answered an ad reluctantly.