{"id":15541,"date":"2010-01-31T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/hameblog\/2010\/01\/31\/last-flights-day\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T07:49:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:49:43","slug":"last-flights-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/2010\/01\/31\/last-flights-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Flights Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
I was asked at short notice to do a reading yesterday for an arts fair called Hidden Door<\/a> — a maze-like, multi-floor affair that was pretty darned cool. I decided to read from Finitude<\/a><\/em>, since that’s the thing I figure I should still be actively promoting.
I didn’t want to just drone away, though, reading a teaser from my book then asking people to buy it. So I decided to make a game of it.
In one section of the book, the characters are faced with something called “Last Flights Day”: The International Climate Coalition Government has declared that air travel is too damaging to the environment (which, in the book’s world, is already very precarious) and that a particular day will be the last opportunity for long-distance travel. On Last Flights Day, you have to choose: Where will you go, once and for all?
I handed out fake airline tickets I’d made, each stamped with a unique number, and asked the audience members to tell me where they’d choose to go and why, and I did a draw later, giving out a blank book I’d made and a copy of Finitude<\/em>.
\"\"<\/figure>\n


<\/a>The whole thing became a lot more fun — on both sides, I think, as the audience was personally engaged with the central idea in the chapter I was about to read, plus we were playing back and forth, dismantling some of that “I am up here and you are listening to me” hierarchy.
People’s responses surprised me: I thought they’re be about family, but a lot of them were about place<\/em>, where they’d want to spend the rest of their days.
Here’s what they said:
#591088: New Zealand
<\/strong>Because you can only sensibly get there by flying; although apparently when you get there it looks just like Scotland and the weather’s just as bad.<\/em>
#<\/strong>591080: France<\/strong>
To live happily ever after in a château.<\/em>
#591081: London<\/strong>
To find myself and make the films I love.<\/em>
#591089: Moscow<\/strong>
To walk home through a tropical North Europe.<\/em>
#591085: Boulder, Colorado<\/strong>
It is beautiful, liberal, and has great summers + winters.<\/em>
#591086: Sydney<\/strong>
Then I’d be home, & to be stuck there would be ‘no bad thing’.<\/em>
#591091: Home<\/strong>
It’s where I want to be and stay.<\/em>
#591098: Australia<\/strong>
Fun & sun & surfing.<\/em>
#591094: Sedona, Arizona<\/strong>
Sitting on top of a red rock mountain — place I was totally content. Could go every day!<\/em>
#591092: Abu Dhabi<\/strong>
My birthplace, which I have no memory of. To see an oil state, post-oil. To race my girlfriend back to Scotland on foot.<\/em>
#591100: New Zealand<\/strong>
To be present to people and place. To learn to love.<\/em>
#591093: Wick<\/strong>
To be with my beloved in our nest. <\/em>[Hmm. Who was that now?]
I should create some kind of open bulletin board, ’cause I’d love to read lots more of these! Feel free to send me your Last Flights Day destination<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was asked at short notice to do a reading yesterday for an arts fair called Hidden Door — a maze-like, multi-floor affair that was pretty darned cool. I decided to read from Finitude, since that’s the thing I figure I should still be actively promoting.I didn’t want to just drone away, though, reading a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}