Don’t Pack Light
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Washington, 2007
We Wasserstroms attend Syracuse University commencement every year even though we haven’t sent a student through there in decades because there is such a thing there as the Wasserstrom Award for Something or Other set up in memory of my grandfather and my grandmother really likes us to be there when it’s given out. I’ve never been before because I until now I’ve had the luxury of not living above the Mason-Dixon line. Now that I’m here in the City I don’t really have an excuse, so off I go. Not that I’m nto perfectly happy to do it, you know, my grandmother, who is 86, is always pretty hilarious during these family things.
The only reason I haven’t left for the airport yet is because I have to wait for the cleaners down the block to open at 7 so I can get my nice clothes. (My grandmother has suggested that I “look nice” about 500 separate times, in phone calls and in emails.) So, I’m sitting here pondering my trip, initiating all the scrabulous games that will have to keep me entertained all weekend and, of course, packing. And so I have this kind of funny realization. My bag of gear eclipses my bag of clothes and whatever but like 100%. It’s bigger. It weighs more.
I’ve basically brought the same shit with me on trips for the past year or so, though there are a couple recent additions that, out of context, seem pretty crazy. I’ll start with the normal stuff though.
- Mix and match combination of cameras depending on length of trip, type of trip etc, but not usually fewer than 2.
- Film
- Computer
- Various cords and chargers
- Cellphone tap
- Digital recorder
- Between 1-3 New Yorker magazines
- Mobile broadband card
- Sketchbook
- Drawing pens
That’s the real list. I’m not even kidding about any of it. And all of this shit fits neatly into one of those camera-and-computer bag/backpack type of things, and I carry it all on with me lest things get manhandled or broken. I often have to stand shoeless at security, explaining what various things are, that this is not a video camera, it’s a still camera, it’s not digital so I can’t turn it on, etc.
You may be wondering why I need a cellphone tap and accompanying recorder when I travel, or, perhaps, why I would need these items at all. Broadly speaking, I need them for the same reason I need the sketchbook and the various back issues of the New Yorker: I get ambitious when I travel. When I travel, I expect to use the extra time sitting on planes and in airports, waiting out delays, etc, to do all the things I’ve been meaning and wanting to do but haven’t had the time or inclination in the midst of the daily grind.
So the tap and recorder. There are all these stories I have bouncing around in my head that, if I actually get around to writing them, could be sold to any one of the news sites I’ve written for in the past couple years. So they’re for all the phone interviews I would conduct doing the reporting for these stories.
- Total number of potential interviews: 23
- Total number of trips I’ve brought the recording equipment on: 4
- Total number of Interviews conducted: 0
But, you know, maybe this time will be the time. Anyway, I have to go to the cleaners and then get to JFK. Talk soon.