The one thing to read this weekend is this NYT interview with Rick Steves. His answer to “what you would do if you couldn’t travel any more” was pitch-perfect:
I would welcome the day, strangely, when I could not travel anymore, because it would open a gate of things that I’ve not done because of my love for travel.
Which is my feeling as well. You can love what you are doing and still be OK not doing it any more because, and this is Rick again, “[t]his world is such a beautiful place to experience, and there are dimensions of experiencing this world that I have yet to try.”
Mozi is a splendid idea for making serendipitous encounters happen. On the other hand, can you truly call these encounters serendipitous if they needed an app? (ᔥMatthew Haughey)
United Airlines IAD→SAN flight is full, the person in front of me is talking about sickle cell disease, and I know a good chunk of people on board. I should also be looking at the #ASH24 program instead of writing this but oh well.
For some light weekend reading, may I suggest this Chris Arnade quartet:
The inconsistencies in capitalization are entirely Arnade’s.
I am at ACR Convergence all weekend, but here are some quick shots:
There’s no space in Bangkok left untouched, no discarded patch of land underneath a tangle of elevated roadways, no plot too harsh and uninviting, that doesn’t have at least four or five vendors pitching something, be it food, motor parts, lottery tickets, keys made on order, outdoor tailors, and haircuts. No placid backdrop your eyes can rest on to give your senses and brain a break.
File this one under “paragraphs of note”. Chris Arnade at his best.
I’ve updated my now page. The update includes where I am right now, which is Savannah, Georgia, where I am attending a medical conference. But you can’t escape DC: I was sitting at the bar having lunch when a couple couldn’t help overhearing where I lived as I was chatting with the bartender. “Hey, we’re from DC too”. Small world! Where in DC? “Oh, we live downtown, we’re both lobbyists.”
Of course they were. One for a private healthcare equity firm, the other for medium-sized pharmaceutical. We did not delve deeper.
Fall mood.
Today’s Chris Arnade Walks the World newsletter features a guest post by Lilly Lynch, whose writing I’ve followed on and off for almost a decade now. Georgia has never been on my list of must-visit countries, and is even less so now after reading her post. So it goes…
🚂 I have just completed a too-long Ipsos survey about Amtrak and felt that this was the right emoji to use. Living in DC and traveling often to New York and Boston I dream of a high-speed train, the kind Japan has had for 60 years, zipping through the East Coast. Acela is not it: boarding is haphazard, the seats are grimy, the food is an embarrassment and I could tolerate all of that if not for the 70–80 miles per hour it averages. By comparison, average speed of Shinkasen trains is 150–200 mph. Sad.
Matthew Yglesias had a good writeup of the topic a few years ago, and of course nothing has changed since then except for Amtrak getting an additional sheen of “sustainability” that will make them want to change even less. The Ipsos poll even asked me about “land cruises” — slow rides through scenic routes with stops for sightseeing — but did not mention high-speed rail at all. The questions revealed Amtrak’s priorities: wallow in mediocrity, hide behind low carbon emissions and don’t give a rat’s ass for improving service.