Roger Ebert, Travel Writer

by Meg Nesterov on

Last week, the world lost one of the all-time great film critics, when Roger Ebert passed away at age 70. He was mostly known for his love of movies and long career reviewing them at the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as his witty and wide-reaching Twitter feed. Roger was first and foremost a journalist, and he applied his curiosity and ease of language to many things, including travel.

If you can’t imagine how a film reviewer can effortlessly evoke a place, start with a piece he wrote in 2010 on a changing London and a particularly Dickensian hotel at 22 Jermyn Street, later published in a shortened form for the Guardian‘s travel section. He writes of his 25 years of being a guest at the small hotel, many encounters are positively cinematic, such as meeting the hotel’s owner, who appears in his guest room proffering a drink and colorful anecdotes about the neighborhood’s characters. He worries about what the loss of businesses like the former Eyrie Mansion (established in 1685) will mean for the neighborhood: “Piece by piece, this is how a city dies,” and paints a rich study of a place and time.Ebert delved deeper into London with another essay on walking around the city with his grandson in search of the perfect hot chocolate (“You always need a serious objective when you’re walking.”), the essay itself a later version of a book he collaborated on in the 1980s, called the “Perfect London Walk.” In the essay, he parallels walking, writing and travel. “When I set out I have a general destination in mind, but as I poke around this way and that, I find places I didn’t know about and things that hadn’t occurred to me, maybe glimpse something intriguing at the end of a street…”

Ebert’s life and career took him many places from a Chicago movie theater, including South Africa and France. He published a book on the latter about his film festival experiences in “Two Weeks in the Midday Sun, A Cannes Notebook.” You can read excerpts from the book online, which provide some fun details on the glitzy, star-studded event, as well insights about culture clashes and what such an event does to a place.

Ebert’s other passion came through in a plea for more Americans to travel abroad, where he also reveals his long-time friendship with Paul Theroux, the famed travel writer. They debate the idea that travel broadens your mind and Ebert settles on the idea that “the way you broaden your mind through travel is to stop traveling and stay somewhere,” a good argument for slow travel. While it might be nothing new to the readers of a travel blog, imagine how it might have changed the thoughts of someone just looking for a review of the latest Bond film? Every traveler (and moviegoer, to some extent) can relate to “The bittersweet pleasure of being somewhere where nobody knows you, and nobody can find you.”

Ebert’s last movie review was, appropriately enough, for the film “To the Wonder,” which spans several continents, but he finds it to be covering a landscape between the characters rather than places. A few days before his death, he announced that he’d be scaling back on his regular reviews, taking what he called “a leave of presence.” This is a concept I’d like to keep in mind for my next trip: slow down, focus on what’s truly inspiring, reflect on the great moments of the past, and come back refreshed and recharged. Or at the very least, I’ll take time out to see a movie.

[Photo credit: Associated Press]

Galley Gossip: In Defense Of Old And Weary Flight Attendants

by Heather Poole on

“Wouldn’t it be nice to be served by flight attendants that are actually excited to come to work? Yes, safety training is important. But there is no reason to believe that a fit and alert 29-year-old should perform less safely in an emergency than a weary, overweight 60-year-old.” –Bill Frezza, Forbes.com

If you want to talk safety, Bill, let’s talk safety. But what’s with using “weary” and “overweight” to describe 60-year-old flight attendants? Maybe the point you were trying to make in your article about airline bankruptcy is that new labor is cheap labor. What you’ve seem to have forgotten is times have changed over the last thirty years and some airlines now deliberately hire older people in an effort to save money on retirement and pensions. And did you know new flight attendants start out making between $14,000-18,000 in the first year? Each year we’re given an across-the-board raise with most flight attendants maxing out around the 13-year mark. Flight attendants don’t cost the airlines half as much as the airlines would love the flying public to believe.

Going back to safety, Bill, let’s ask the passengers on board US Airways flight 1549 how they felt about the crew who evacuated a plane full of 150-plus passengers after the aircraft ditched into the Hudson River. The entire crew of the “Miracle on the Hudson” (including Captain Sullenberger) was over 50, leaning closer to 60. I’d say they did a wonderful job of getting passengers out safely. Personally, I’d be more concerned with my fellow passengers moving quickly than I would be about flight attendants of any age – after all, we are only allowed to work if we can pass a yearly recurrent training program. Passengers just have to buy a ticket.

Now, as for being excited to come to work, it’s true that sometimes it’s hard to love passengers who verbalize how miserable they feel about flying, especially when these same passengers go on to wonder why we aren’t younger and prettier. Last time I checked, flight attendants were people, too. I know it’s hard to believe but we, too, are allowed to grow old just like passengers. I’m talking to you, Bill!

But Bill is not alone.Chicago Sun-Times columnist Joe Crowley one-upped Bill with a few sexist tweets about flight attendants, female pilots and pretty much women in general after he became upset that his flight was delayed due to the crew being illegal to work (apparently he and Bill have differing feelings on weary flight attendants). He tweeted something snarky about the flight attendants’ mandatory crew rest followed by, “I’m more likely to see a Squatch before I see a hot flight attendant. Then again, I think the airlines are hiring Squatch’s to do that job.” Wait, it gets better. He added, “Chick pilot. Should I be OK with that or am I just a sexist caveman?”

I’m going to have to go with sexist caveman. Of course Cowardly – er, I mean Cowley, deleted his twitter account soon after he got into it with a female journalist over the comments.

In my book, “Cruising Attitude,” I mention that ageism is not only alive and well at 30,000 feet but those who still hold these outdated beliefs have no problem expressing them to the very people they’re talking about. Once, right after I told a passenger that my mother was also a flight attendant (she’s “junior” to me, meaning she started flying AFTER I became a flight attendant), he informed me he found it unsettling to stare at postmenopausal women pushing beverage carts for three hours – as if buying an airline ticket entitled him to eye candy. Of course, he wasn’t much to look at either. But I’d take nice, thoughtful passengers over good-looking, younger ones any day!

Bill wraps up his outdated rant against flight attendants with this: “Take a good look at the superannuated attendants next time you board a legacy airline. They are as tired of flying as those of us that have been doing it for thirty years, but it’s the customers who pay the price.”

Maybe it’s the recession, because people always find this one tough to believe, but it’s the customers who are NOT paying the price, since ticket prices are cheaper than they were twenty years ago. This is why service has gone downhill. This is also why there are less flight attendants on board to help passengers. And if I or one of my more senior colleagues looks tired or weary, I apologize. Keep in mind it might have something to do with the airlines cutting back to save money. They’ve decreased my layover time in an effort to save money on hotels. Most domestic layovers average 9-10 hours these days. Add a delay and it’s 8 hours behind the locked door. That’s barely enough time to eat, sleep AND shower. Personally I think it should be illegal to work flights that are longer than our layovers, but hey, that’s me. What do I know?

[photos courtesy of santheo and alexindigo]