Louis CK is right – The in flight internet not working sucks! Just kidding, I am pretty psyched that I’m currently miles above clouds and writing my thoughts. Something immensely poetic about that.

I guess I might be liveblogging (with some delay, since this will be posted upon my landing at the next airport). We’ll see if I keep this up for the SPE event. It would be good, probably, to gather my thoughts each day.

The last event I went to – the powerhouse books portfolio review – I kept notes in a little black notebook, but I haven’t found the time yet to decipher them into a piece of readable writing. I’m still going to be taking notes in my book, but hopefully having a little downtime in between reviews, lectures, and other happenings will allow me to write out my thoughts in a more timely manner.

My current view consists of seas of brightly lit clouds. It’s a beautiful day to fly, I must say, but this particular view isn’t as interesting as take off was (and landing usually is). Got me thinking of aerial (and satellite) photography, which makes sense.

Now, aerial landscape photography can be beautiful, but it’s not my favorite. I really love images that help me intuitively understand how society is physically shaped. Images of meticulously designed complexes and organically developing neighborhoods. These images aren’t often the most crafted – I mean, not in a cliche art world aesthetic. They share more with commercial and/or scientific record photography.

For instance, just when leaving the savannah airport I counted at least three huge housing developments. One was in a lovely (in a sad sort of way) circular pattern that looked like some kind of fleur-de-lis for the information age. Another was a square affair – created of interlocking cubes. The third had the kind of winding streets that I suppose seem infuriatingly confusing on the ground (intended to be quaint, perhaps) but from the air showed the planning that went into them. All of these developments had about 10 houses in them each – and empty lots for at least a couple hundred. It didn’t seem as if there was any new construction going on either.

I had read an article recently about exactly this (and we all know about its place in our current economic crisis) and understood and believed it – but I still found myself sort of startled by seeing it for myself, and from such a perspective. On the ground it isn’t immediately clear what has been done to this strange space, but seeing these isolated little road and plot patterns within the trees, then seeing more and more before lifting into the clouds – well, it rubbed it in. I’m sure the situation is similar all over the country (though perhaps areas near airports have an above average rate of planned communities?).

I think that if I was an anthropologist I would want to fly all the time. Maybe I should spend more time on google earth or whatever finding areas and patterns that interest me. I wouldn’t profess to have any sort of scientific method, but I do enjoy assembling visual data sets.