To a large extent, this is already possible. If you catch an international flight, once you go through security, the airport opens up into a sprawl of lounges (airline specific) and duty-free stores. Sea-tac already looks like a giant mall in this respect, and if I may continue my rhetorics of honesty, I'm a little surprised the author left out talks of all things duty-free. Duty-free stores are better than malls because there's no tax and prices are lower than anywhere outside the security check/waiting area. Perhaps in the future, people will buy international plane tickets just so they can go to Duty-free areas and save money on Christmas presents.
(Does this look like a picture from inside a mall or an airport? The answer could be considered both. Dutyfree mall in Bangkok airport)As if having to walk through a mall before boarding your flight wasn't bad/tempting enough, (I ended up buying a shit-ton of Sake at the duty-free shops during my 4 hour lay o
ver in Tokyo, along with generic souveniers for friends back home -- like the white teeshirt that only has the big black kanji for "Japan" on it) the temptation to shop does not end once you get into the air.If these malls in airports aren't enough to confuse notions of place, then verily the Sky Mall catalogue and the Sky Mall announcements over the in-flight intercom are. I'll be honest, I don't do well on airplanes, especially flights of 10+ hours. As a result of my inability to cope in a flying coffin made of thin metal travelling at 300+ mph some 4 or 5 miles above ground, I am always doped up and about to sleep or totally passed out before the plane leaves the ground. I assure you this is all legal, and if you suffer like I do, talk to your doctor -- lorazepam + scotch = sleep x 13 hr.
Having said all that, when I'm on an airplane, I'm already rather placeless -- no need for the stewardess to hand me a skymall catalogue and try to solicite money for strange devices. The point here, as it regards to place and placelessness is that you never stop playing
the part of consumer. Even on airplanes they try to constantly make you buy the stuff you can get anywhere -- and by anywhere I mean the internet. Skymall stuff is weird, and in a highly suggestable state, poor tourists like me can easily be conned into buying the latest Vilcus Plug Dactyloadapter. (Seen here in the photo, this thing is supposed to use electricity to promote health and well-being -- funny I was always told not to stick my fingers in electrical sockets. You can actually buy this thing in the Skymall catalogue -- I did not actually get tricked into buying one, but it was close.) If the Sandra Bullock movies about her always-dying husband weren't bad enough to remind me how little I was traveling regardless of distance, all these attempts to make me buy stuff and pay for drinks brings it all home. The Stewardesses actually walk up and down the aisles and take credit card orders after allowing the passengers a good thirty minutes to peruse skymall catalogues -- kind of like collecting your trash after 30 minutes of getting to eat the trash they give you. Even if the plane --the vehicle of travel itself -- has become a place for placeness (I think it has), at least the food will always remind you where you are. Even crappy restaurants like Denny's or Shari's, while they may come close, can't quite do it as bad as the airlines.
0 comments:
Post a Comment