In college, I knew a girl who got turned on by airports. She and her boyfriend would go on dates to the tiny, Columbia, S.C., airport. They'd wander around, maybe have lunch, check out the departure times, talk about where they'd go one day.
The rest of us -- most, anyway -- hate airports. Sure, travel used to be elegant and easier, but that was only a million years ago and it's not coming back in this day of full-body scans and eternal security lines. Travel is wonderful, but airports tend to be the low point in my opinion.
(Airport bars are another matter altogether, a sublime and surreal oasis in a sea of annoyance and unintelligible speaker announcements, but that's for another day).
Anyway. I opened the mailbox the other day and discovered Issue #11 of "Les Carnets de Rastapopoulos," which I believe translates to "The Notebooks of Rastapopoulos" (who is apparently the criminal mastermind in The Adventures of Tintin, a Belgian comic).
This issue, published by Robert Gauvin, out of Canada, focused on airports and airplanes: personal stories and tales of others' travels -- people left in airport concourses for years, living in the between-worlds of nations.
It's an old-school zine, created with a typewriter and xacto knife, copied, stapled and mailed. A little glimpse into a topic-specific section of one person's fascinations. The contents of a thought process, suddenly turned out onto paper and mailed to you.
Les Carnets is free, and you can find Rob at:
Les Carnets de Rastapopoulos
2-7 Larch St.
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1R6W4
