A few
months ago while thumbing through the New York Times app, I saw a headline for
“The Best Gear for Travel
2019.” Given the direction of
this here website, you would think something like that would interest me, but
instead I experienced a vague sense of unease.
Perhaps it
was the deflated feeling that comes with the realization that the New York Times, the sober organ that
weighed down the breakfast tables of my youth with its keen reportage and dense
black typeset, has become just another shill for Corporate America. Then again, the NYT has become more
and more
unreadable
over the past several years, so I think that particular ship may have already sailed.
Perhaps it
was the use of the word “gear” in the headline, implying that the reader is
preparing to hike the Appalachian Trail, when most likely she’s just headed to
a conference room at a Marriott somewhere. Of course, this kind of strategy has been used effectively for years to peddle
sport-utility vehicles to soccer moms, and these headline writers know their
craft.
Or perhaps
it was the implication that the inconvenience and anxiety of traveling can be
overcome, or at least neutralized, through the acquisition and utilization of stuff.
“If only I had the
right pair of travel underwear,” the thinking goes, “then I would be
able to endure the hell that is five and a half hours in a middle seat on Delta.”
I wonder to
what extent this is about control, or rather the illusion of control –
the idea that if I can somehow create an environment more comfortable,
convenient, productive, and/or pleasurable, it might obviate the fact that I’m trapped
here inside a metal tube, hurtling 37,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean,
completely at the mercy of the human beings who designed, manufactured, assembled,
maintained, refueled, and are flying the metal tube.
By the way, these days many of those tubes are not
made of metal but mostly of “CFRP,” or carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic, a tidbit of knowledge which does nothing to quell that particular anxiety.
In any
case. I suppose we all need certain illusions
to keep us sane and functional. Also I
figure if I name-drop a few companies in here it might help my site traffic. Thus:
The Last Annual Absolute Ceiling Business
Traveler Buyer’s Guide
Bose QuietComfort 3 Over-Ear Noise-Cancelling
Headphones, $350*, www.bose.com
One of the
main points of this website, if not the
main point, is to try to be more aware and
present while traveling for work.
Thus I feel somewhat conflicted recommending that you go isolate
yourself underneath a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Yet sometimes when on a plane or train one
does want to catch a movie or enjoy a podcast, and the
flimsy earbuds in plastic wrapping they distribute in economy fall short when
it comes to audio quality and ear canal comfort.
I bought my
pair of Bose headphones around 2006, and, apart from the leather-ish ear
cushions which have eroded down to the bare fabric, they work just as well today. The power system – involving a small custom
battery which detaches from one of the earphones and clicks into an external
plug-in charger, and which miraculously I haven’t forgotten in a hotel room
somewhere – is a little fiddly, but it still holds a charge just fine, and it’s
remained immune from extinction via the evolutionary “advance” of plugs and
cables over the years.
So thanks
and praise to the good people at Bose for resisting the strategy of planned
obsolescence. I like my
MacBook as much as you like yours, but when the Genius at the Cambridgeside Apple
Store informs me that the one I bought in 2010 is “like, vintage,” and that
therefore it would be actually cheaper for me to buy a new MacBook (which of
course comes with a next generation USB-C port, meaning I also need to buy an
adapter if I want to plug anything into it) rather than get my old one repaired,
I know what time it is.
Unfortunately,
and speaking of Apple, I find that I don’t use my headphones to listen to music
as much as I used to. I think this began
around 2016, when I started subscribing to their Apple Music streaming
service. In some ways this has been a
good thing: I can now listen to a lot more new music and see how I feel about an
unfamiliar act before plunking down $12.99 for an album based only on faith or a suspiciously
high Metacritic score. I still
do buy the occasional album via iTunes, mainly because I spend a lot of time on
airplanes and I want to be able to listen to them while offline. But generally I use Apple Music as it was
designed, streaming the songs via an Internet connection. And I’m sure that Apple is betting that those
remaining few islands of non-connectivity will soon be swallowed by the rising
waters of ubiquitous wifi, and that the quaint act of “listening offline” will
go the way of the cassette tape. Still,
I’m not sure how comfortable I feel about this whole thing. Does “renting” rather than “owning” music
change my relationship to it? To what
extent do I want to define myself by my record collection? And what happens when my “record collection” evaporates
into a bunch of server farms in the desert, only accessible to me for as long
as I keep sending money to Cupertino, CA?
To what extent does a third-party mediator influence my relationship
with music, and the artist responsible for it?
Of course, all the recorded music I’ve listened to my entire life has
been delivered via some kind of mediator, whether it’s a record label or a
radio station or Jack’s Music Shop in Red Bank, NJ. Still, when the artist/listener relationship
starts to drift towards the transient, the transactional, and especially the conditional,
I’m not sure that takes us in a good direction.
And, what
do you know: Apple
announced in June that it will be shutting down its iTunes software,
replacing it with “three all-new apps that greatly simplify and improve the way
Mac users discover and enjoy their favorite music, TV shows, movies and
podcasts.” Don’t worry, Apple assures
us, users will still have access to their entire music libraries. We shall see.
* Bose
doesn’t sell this model anymore, so this is an estimated price for an analogous
new pair.
Choosing a
bag for your work things can be complicated. To begin with, there's no consensus on what one should call it these days:
“briefcase” is out of style; “backpacks” are for schoolchildren; one is left
with the generic “work bag,” which sounds moronic and soulless. Whatever you call it, it should be functional
yet portable, practical yet at least a little stylish. So what are our
choices? The traditional rectangular leather
attaché with latches that could be sprung open dramatically in a courtroom seems
to have reached extinction. In my 20’s I
had a brown leather “messenger bag,” but those things tend to be pretty heavy
and un-ergonomic: my former boss once told me (with a disconcerting hint of
pride) that one of her shoulders had become several centimeters lower after
years of humping a bag like this from one airport to another. In the US, one sees a lot of logoed
hiking-style backpacks (Ogio seems
to have cornered the market on these). I
suppose all those zippered compartments are handy, but they tend to encourage
over-stuffing, and the Americans tend to make matters worse by dangling water
bottles, hand sanitizer, mini-stuffed animals, carabiners (?) and other bric-a-brac
from exterior loops. On the other end of
the spectrum, a friend of mine tells me he’s managed to strip down,
Kondo-esque, to a single, sleek neoprene laptop sleeve, which I can only admire
longingly.
My Frietag
backpack has a polarizing effect on my colleagues. The Germans all tend to like it. The Swiss are nonplussed, as you can’t swing
a cat in Zurich or Bern without hitting half a dozen Frietag bags. The Americans are a little confused but
tolerant. And every single one of my
French coworkers hates it. To wit, this
exchange with my colleague Eric:
Eric: “Tom,
when is your birthday?”
Me (eyebrows
raised in pleasant surprise): “My birthday?
Why, it’s September 2nd.”
Eric: “Good. I will buy you a new backpack so I don’t have
to look at that ugly thing anymore.”
I admit
that CHF 340 is steep, but Frietags have a lot going for them. They make all their bags out of the
tarpaulin-like material which they recycle from the side of container
trucks. On top of the ecological benefits (many Frietag bags also use recycled seat belts for their shoulder
straps), this also means it’s waterproof, it will probably last forever, and the
design and color of each bag are unique, in a “found art” kind of way. It’s certainly not going to get mistaken for
someone else’s bag going through security.
Frietag also has a cool website with stop-motion-animations of
their products, starring the people who work in their factory. If you find yourself in Zurich, go check out their
flagship store, which, on-brand, is made up of repurposed shipping
containers.
Mivolis Meerwasser Nasenspray, €1.45, www.dm.de
A doctor told
me once that no one would ever get colds if they used saline nasal spray every
day during the winter. I don’t know
about that, but airplane cabins are pretty dry, and this seems to help. My in-laws like to bring me these when they
visit.
FALKE RUN Socks, €15, www.falke.com, (they also have a great
store in the Munich airport)
I’m aware
that there’s a need for self-expression, or even self-definition, going on
here. We want things which will not only
make our travels easier and more enjoyable, but which will also say something
about us to the guy sitting across the aisle.
I can admit that at least part of my own motivation here is contrarian,
as if waving around my German nasal spray is somehow going to make me more
interesting / unique / better than your average American pharmaceutical executive.
The same
could likely be said about these socks from FALKE, an outfit out of
Schmallenberg, Germany, which has been making quality “legwear” (their word)
since 1895. In fact, the FALKE people are
already several steps ahead of me when it comes to brand-as-self, as evidenced
by their website: “The FALKE scene* is
made up of multilingual globetrotters, headstrong individuals, curious
explorers, fanatical perfectionists, sensitive creative types and incorrigible
aesthetes. Their imagery, their interior
design and their clothing are visible expressions of their instincts.” This
is what Brits in the advertising trade would call a “pen portrait.” Remember we’re talking about socks
here.
In any case, these
socks are truly fabulous. Soft and cushiony
but not too thick, left/right customized so they don’t bunch up around the
pinkie toe, with just enough elastic to grip your feet and ankles without
strangling them. I suppose you could run
in them, as the name implies, but they’re perfectly fine with a pair of
trainers or casual shoes.
* “scene!”
Okay, I
suppose no one really needs a cashmere hoodie.
But the cabin temperature on an overnight transatlantic typically
fluctuates +/- 20F degrees, so this comes in especially handy during the winter
months. When I’m home and the outside
temperature is 40F or below, I wear mine essentially every waking hour, so from
a cost/utility point of view, it’s probably one of the cheapest things I
own.
I’ve been
at this – trying to write about business travel and God and things –
for two years now, and I find that it doesn’t get any easier. On the contrary: paths between various destinations
become worn and familiar; the urge to execute the rituals of business travel – transferring electronics and liquids from bag to security bins back to bag with maximum
speed and efficiency – draw our attention inward. It takes more and more effort and discipline to
appreciate one’s experience, to try to observe the sacrament of the present
moment.
With this
in mind, I try (and I fail, a lot) to spend as much time as possible not
looking at my phone when I’m traveling. To try to avoid that blurry,
strung-out state when you’re mindlessly scrolling through Twitter, not even
recording half of the words traversing your screen, trying to capture something
you can’t quite identify and also know you’ll never actually find.
Of course,
if there’s an app that makes your life easier when you’re on the road, then by
all means use it. Likewise, if a piece
of “gear” will make you a little more comfortable in your travels, go for it. But while you’re at it, try to take a moment to weave in something
that is more than just a dopamine fix. Talk
to a stranger. Read and think about a
Bible verse if that’s your thing. Look
up and admire the ceiling architecture.
Call a friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Close your eyes and say a prayer of thanks to
the divinity of your choice, or to none at all.
