new! more tasty

i raced from my deviance lecture to catch a chicago flight, but wound up delayed by a bit of rain. i've been cramming too much wholesome sociological goodness into my talks recently, so i'm trying to make some judicious edits before my talk at noon tomorrow.

while working and waiting, i made five random airport observations:

1. i was surprised to see karl lagerfeld driving a courtesy cart through the G-concourse. i'm sure it was him. or maybe it was yves. you just can't get eyewear like that in minnesota.

2. i enjoyed a delicious can of foco mango juice with my mongolian beef airport lunch. although it was only 30 percent mango (the remaining 70 percent appeared to be sugar), i can aver that, as advertised, the product is indeed more tasty than almost any other juice product. if they put it in a sexier bottle, the jugo de mango might give pomegranate a run for its money.

3. some have suggested that the flight restrictions on liquids were orchestrated by an evil consortium of hotel gift-shop operators. after sacrificing my 4-oz hair goo to the war on terror (3 oz. would have been ok), i began to notice the ever more fashionable haircuts of the american male business traveler. most guys my age were combing their hair forward and then applying industrial-strength product to fashion a look that is at once boyish and tousled, yet completely disciplined (or, at least, completely resistant to hurricane-force winds). i got the sense that my feathered seventies look wouldn't fly in very many industries these days.

4. it seemed as though there was more relaxed joking among airport staff than i'd seen at any time since 9/11. i saw several male workers enjoying a lunch break together, flirting with the restaurant workers, and happy to chat with weary travelers like myself. i don't know whether such good feelings are a fluke, a trend, or a mirage, but it was good to see the tension ratcheted down, if only for a moment.

5. my hosts eric and dani have been most gracious. i knew dani was from orange county, california, so i said i'd been resisting calling her dani california since she must hear that all the time. nope, she said, nobody had ever brought that up. either the chili peppers are off the cultural radar these days or chicago is working their grad students too hard.