amanda freaking palmer blew my brains out last night

[foxtongue]

Flying Virgin Air felt like reaching into tomorrow. Intellectually I knew what sort of experience it was going to be, I'd read articles about the in flight interactive computers and seen shiny, smiling pictures of people enjoying the interior of the plane, but I didn't understand how, as an experience, it would be so comfortable and intuitive, yet subtly new.

I loved it. I loved the psychiatry precise Buddha Box ambient music, the violet lights softening the iPlane cigarette-white edges of the comfortably wide seats, the oddly flawless hand-set/computer-keyboard controller, the look&feel of the touch-screen design, and even the this-close-to-annoying mock trendy animation that explained what to do in event of a crash. Everything about the flight was a visceral reminder that we're already in the future and you would have crashed that flying car anyway. I felt like a target market perfectly catered to, coddled, even in business class, with a desire to do it again instilled in me immediately, a thousand times more powerful than any advertisement could.

Clicking the handset out of the armrest, I clicked through the computer system, poking at everything that was available. (No one else signed onto the seat-to-seat chat, unfortunately, but it was enough that the option was there.) Finding a Music section, I braced myself for a tedious, arduous list of tenaciously popular artists, only to be pleasantly surprised. I found jazz, indie, rock, pop, techno, classical, and opera - everything I listen to at home, alphabetically listed all the way to Frank Zappa. Satisfied, I leaned back and shrugged out of my shoes. My schizophrenic play-list was a lovely thing, (inspiring me to want a long, intimate dinner with whoever programmed Virgin Air's music selection), matched in beauty only by the ridiculously cotton pink dawn beginning to break so perfectly outside my airplane window.

Comments

[a-dream-tiger.livejournal.com]

I remember my first Virgin America flight to SF Decompression a month or two ago. The first thing I noticed was at the airport how the difference between a standard issue, sanitary and efficient customer service/baggage check counter and the carpeting, flowers, stylish computer and soft James Brown funk music at the Virgin counter. I already felt like a different and better class of traveler right away. I felt welcomed instead of processed.

The rest of your evaluations match with mine, including the music selection eclectic enough to satisfy my odd proclivities and also an interesting independent film short collection and boing boing TV clips (video free in first class). Since I was in first class on the way down I turned on the seat-to-seat chat to perhaps reach my 3 friends further back. I instead got the following random exchange:
Guest 12F - "What are you listening to up there"
Tiger 1A - "Is this Dane and the Burners?" (thinking they knew my seat and were trying to say hello)
Guest 12F - "No."
Guest 12F - "Are you British? What are you eating?"

I bowed out before it had a chance to progress to a tawdry "What are you wearing?" sort of exchange. ;-T

I feel like that airline makes me want to fly with them as soon as possible and whenever possible, even if I don't have plans to go somewhere. Instant and thorough brand loyalty, for certain. Having me looking forward to the flight itself, rather than the trip is quite a feat for them.

The music at the counter was a nice touch too.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I really liked the staff, too, how they chatted to each other was completely different than with other airlines I've flown with. None of them seemed harried or annoyed or like they wanted the flight to just be over already.

"Um... Hi. I'm wearing a kilt. She said to come show you."

[a-dream-tiger.livejournal.com]

I completely forgot to mention my post-9-11 awkward befuddlement when the person greeting me on the plane held up the boarding line and insisted, practically physically, that I turn left and step into the cockpit doorway to show off my kilt to the evidently Scottish copilot. Definitely a different mood from the staff.

[ericastratton.livejournal.com]

it sounds like you took a magic flight inside a giant Macbook.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

That's a very good approximation, yes.

[kindelingboy.livejournal.com]

I have a suspicion that my three flights taking me to NWT will be nothing at all like this.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

The only drawback was that the only way to pay for anything was by credit card.