Wednesday, January 14, 2015

A Man, A Plane, Valparaiso

From Wikipedia

"Valparaiso is Don DeLillo's second play, in which a man suddenly becomes famous following a mistake in the itinerary of an ordinary business trip which takes him toValparaíso, Chile, instead of Valparaiso, Indiana.... The central character, Michael Majeski, tries desperately to establish his own identity by throwing himself under the spotlight of celebrity. The piece is composed entirely of interviews, for a range of different media, and culminates in the protagonist committing assisted suicide with a microphone lead on a TV talk show."


From CNN today:

"Imagine boarding your next flight and having the entire           cabin to yourself.
In this age of overstuffed planes, where we squeeze our bodies into cramped seats and jockey for overhead bin space, it sounds like a dream -- one that would never happen.
But it did -- sort of -- on Monday for a man who boarded a long-delayed Delta Airlines flight from Cleveland to New York to find that all his fellow passengers had been rebooked on other flights.
The man, Chris O'Leary of New York City, did what most of us would probably do. He chose an aisle seat near the front of the plane and stretched out. He chuckled at the absurdity of his situation. And he got a flight attendant to snap pictures of him, with rows of empty seats in the background.
Then he began tweeting.
    "They rebooked everyone but me on another flight to LGA, so I am literally the only person on this plane," he posted.
    "No, I'm not joking," he tweeted a few minutes later. "I'm the only one on this plane."
    [...]
    "It was definitely the most memorable flight I've been on in recent memory if only for the sheer lack of passengers to become bothersome," he told ABC News. "There were no screaming babies, no one listening to loud lyrics or reclining their seats or taking off their shoes."