Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The willow is too close to the house.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Republicans don’t trust women.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Medium Cool – Vacations!

Medium Cool – Vacations!

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Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

Since I’m away on a trip, let’s talk about vacations.  Movies, books, TV shows – where they protagonists are on vacation – and/or books, movies, films that provide a great sense of place, and perhaps leave you thinking that’s someplace you would want to visit.

While you are (hopefully) enjoying Medium Cool this evening, I’ll be at yet another celebration event, this time triple birthdays.  I’ll be good once we get back to the house (my niece has a HUGE new house set on 5 beautifully landscaped acres, so I’m sure we’ll be outside) but first I have to sit through eating inside at Olive Garden with 18 people.  That’s 3 strikes.  Inside. 18 people. Olive Garden.

As I was writing this, my sister got a passive aggressive text from her daughter, wondering why were didn’t come over today for lunch and drinks by the pool, but of course no one had invited us.  I have never seen such a clusterfuck of poor communication, which has been happening since I arrived on Thursday.  I, of course, being merely a sister / aunt and not a host / mother / son / daughter/ birthday person / graduate have not received any information about any of the plans ahead of time.   Isn’t there a movie called Family Vacation?  I assume it’s a horror film, yes?

Reader Interactions

129Comments

  1. 1.

    zhena gogolia

    Two for the Road, Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. About to watch it again soon. Best song Mancini ever wrote.

  3. 3.

    Barbara

    A little esoteric, but Archipelago, with Tom Hiddleston, as the bewildered son in a dysfunctional family on vacation in the Scilly Islands.  I really liked it, but definitely not to everyone’s taste.

  4. 4.

    Suzanne

    Agatha Christie mashup: Evil Under the Sun. The movie made me understand the beach vacation.

    Thematically related: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which still makes me laugh out loud.

  5. 5.

    oatler

    The Laff Channel has been showing “RV” the past week, with Robin Williams and  Cheryl Hines.

  6. 6.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Isn’t there a movie called Family Vacation?

    Long ago when I used to read the National Lampoon, there was once an amazing short story called “Vacation ’58” by John Hughes. I was awestruck. The fiction writing in Lampoon often amazed me.

    Some years later it was adapted as an OK movie called National Lampoon’s Vacation starring Chevy Chase, who I mostly don’t like very much. That started a bunch of “Vacation” movies, of which Christmas Vacation is the only one I actually enjoy Chase in.

    I don’t think there’s one called Family Vacation. There was a European Vacation. I watched about 10 minutes of it, which was all I could stand.

    /curmudgeon

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    Who doesn’t love the classic spring break movie, Where the Boys Are (1960) ?  George Hamilton? What a dream boat! 🤣

    Hey, my sisters and I were teens when that movie played on television, over and over.  We had zero taste but loved the beach movies. Did I mention we were teen girls?

  8. 8.

    Ken

    Does Dorothy Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon count as a holiday?  Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane find a body in their honeymoon cottage.  It was a play first, then a novel, and there have been a couple film adaptations.

  9. 9.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    My daughter once made me watch Dead Snow, which is a Norwegian movie about a bunch of kids on a skiing vacation at a remote cabin which also for some reason has a bunch of angry zombie Nazis living nearby. Does that count as a vacation movie?

    More in the spirit of the thread, how about Only You, a 90s rom-com with Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr? It’s a hoot. Takes place in Italy, Rome I think.

  10. 10.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Does anyone else remember a series of Honeymooner episodes that took place in Europe? I saw those back when there was still a Jackie Gleason show. On some flimsy excuse, the Cramdens and the Nortons somehow get a trip to Europe, creating mayhem in multiple countries.

    I was amazed to learn that there were only 39 Honeymooner episodes. I thought it went for years.

    (just learned that those sketches originally aired in the 50s, but when I saw them they were part of the Gleason show sometime in the 60s).

  11. 11.

    Scout211

    Another fun movie about vacations is What About Bob?

    That was Bill Murray at his best.  I still can’t believe that Anna was played by Kathryn Erbe.

  12. 12.

    oatler

    And Soon the Darkness is a vacation movie of sorts, along with Summer Rental.

  13. 13.

    eversor

    SO and her sisters and nieces are all on vacation to the Philippines.   This is not a “we are seeing grandma and grandpa” vacation as it was sold to me as but turns out is a ladies beach with grandma and bar crawl for a few weeks.  So no husbands or boyfriends to be there.

    This I am fine with.  Everyone needs that sort of fun.   However, and this is a doozy, I got drafted into pet sitting all the pets despite not being fully told of this.  The other guys in their lives firmly said no, despite many having houses and yards, so I now have the pets of all the single ladies on this along with my fur daughter.   And now “The Cat Wars Have Begun They Have” in my apartment.   I also have the golden doodle here for a friend.

    We are still in the turf wars part of it where everyone is establishing their own cattitory.   With my little one frantically running around confused as fuck.   The golden doodle just sitting on the couch obvlious to it all.  Had to order a ton of food, litter, and other things from Chewy as non of that was brought here and the damn car is now at Reagan Airport.  Also not possible to play the new Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom.  Combine this all with going through virtual job interviews all this week and next week and I think I’m going to have to lay down some rules about this pet sitting mess.  It was like The Hobbit where the dwarves just keep showing up.

  16. 16.

    p.a.

    The Out of Towners, 1970.  Neil Simon.

    Not really a vacation, but an Ohio couple travel to New York for hubby’s new job and experience a day of hell.

    Guess there was a remake in 1999.

  18. 18.

    Ken

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Does anyone else remember a series of Honeymooner episodes that took place in Europe?

    No, but that reminds me that there were a couple I Love Lucy story arcs* where the Ricardos and Mertzes went on vacation. I remember one skit where they were in a hotel next to the tracks, and every time a train rumbled by the bed would skitter across the floor.

    Also, returning to my question of whether a honeymoon counts as a vacation, there was The Long Long Trailer with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball.

    * Did I Love Lucy invent those too?

  20. 20.

    Ken

    @p.a.: experience a day of hell.

    I suppose we’re not counting as “vacations” the 80% of horror movies where the premise is that the victims are spending a holiday  in some remote location.

  23. 23.

    Phylllis

    Sideways and The Holiday. Solvang is like a classier, not tacky Helen GA. And I know that Kate Winslet’s cottage from the movie doesn’t actually exist, but something much like it has to, don’t you think?

    Also, Oxford, UK. In homage to the end of Endeavour, and what is surely a final farewell to Morse.

  24. 24.

    Kristine

    The houses, hotels, and train ride in the Daniel Craig “Casino Royale” and “Quantum of Solace” (Mathis’ ‘we’re sorry about the torture” payoff house). At least two of the houses are available for vacation rental.

    Currently watching “Knives Out: Glass Onion,” during which everyone’s vacation takes a turn. It’s still a lovely location and I would happily stay on an island like that.

  25. 25.

    Brachiator

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Long ago when I used to read the National Lampoon, there was once an amazing short story called “Vacation ’58” by John Hughes. I was awestruck. The fiction writing in Lampoon often amazed me.

    I didn’t know that Hughes wrote for the Lampoon.

  26. 26.

    billcinsd

    @eversor: Will they give you a big trophy of a cat’s rear end for the catastrophe this seems likely to turn into?

  27. 27.

    billcinsd

    I would nominate the first Evil Dead as a good holiday movie. A bunch of young adults head out to a cabin for the weekend, find the Necronomicon and hilarity/horror ensues

  29. 29.

    RSA

    @Ken: I suppose we’re not counting as “vacations” the 80% of horror movies where the premise is that the victims are spending a holiday  in some remote location.

    Yeah, that’s kind of a horror trope. I’m trying to think of good ones… Hmm.

    Among novels, there’s James Dickey’s Deliverance, and Scott Smith’s The Ruins, in which young folks encounter sentient predatory plants. Should Dan Simmons’s Summer of Night or Robert McCammon’s Boy’s Life or some of Ray Bradbury’s novels be included, if parts of the novels center around school vacations? Maybe.

  31. 31.

    kalakal

    A couple that spring to mind

    Shirley Valentine Greece looks lovely, the cast is great, and Tom Conti has the world’s worst Greek accent

    Local Hero a work trip becomes a holiday and I’m including it because I love it – so there. And Forsyth gets the local culture perfectly

     

  32. 32.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    I wasn’t invited either.

    Maybe they heard about your attire (or rather absence of it) below the waist.

  33. 33.

    Poe Larity

    I picked up On The Beach from the library as a kid as the cover had some people on a beach somewhere looking like some vacation adventure book.

    I didn’t go back to the library for a long time.

  36. 36.

    patrick II

    Albert Brooks — Lost in America . Albert and his wife Julie Hagarty quit their jobs, buy  a Winnebago and hit the road. Unfortunately one of their f first steps is Vegas where Albert boes their savings . Hilarity ensues. Albert’s droll humor isn’t for everyone, and this movie  has  a b deeper  message  about the  American  dream, but it works for me.

  37. 37.

    RSA

    I’ll chip in maybe the most obvious movie entry, Roman Holiday, for a great sense of place and giving someone the feeling that it’s somewhere worth visiting.  Even if the “holiday” part wasn’t planned by any of the characters.

    Two German words come to mind in this context.

    Fernweh, “a pain to see far-flung places beyond our doorstep,” a descendant of Wanderlust and the opposite of Heimweh, or homesickness.

    Sehnsucht, a yearning desire, which is sometimes tied to travel.

  39. 39.

    cope

    @Brachiator: He and I were in the same high school class so I knew him socially. Also, one of his best friends dated one of my sisters.

    As an avid NL reader in the 70s, I appreciated how he appropriated place names from the north Chicago suburb where we all lived. He died way too young and it’s wistful thinking to wonder what further stories he had left to tell.  Some of his work hasn’t aged particularly well but you can’t deny his talent.

  41. 41.

    brendancalling

    Dad and bonus-mom are in vacation in Israel. I don’t endorse this for so many reasons.

    My kid just had a weeklong vacation here with me in Philly. It went pretty well, we had a lot of fun.

    I’m traveling to Nashville in mid-July, spending a week and playing a festival with my old band, AND my old band is backing me on a set of my own.

  43. 43.

    eversor

    @billcinsd:

    Oh I’m going to guilt/blackmail/force them into taking me out for the good old French mussles in a pot, fries, and Belgian sauage at the place I like.  Repeatedly.

    In their defense though as they have a layover in Tokyo both ways I’m sure multiple super expensive bottles of Japanese Whisky will show up when they return.  It will be glorious, but that’s then, for now the fur will fly!

  44. 44.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @kalakal: Was here to mention Local Hero. Does Roman Holiday count – technically the Hepburn character is on a diplomatic trip.

    Also, since we’ve had a couple Audry Hepburn but no Grace Kelly yet – To Catch A Thief – rich widow and daughter visit the French Riviera where they meet a jewel thief played by Cary Grant.

  45. 45.

    oatler

    TCM used to show Picasso Summer, with Finney, Mimieux, and trippy Picasso cartoons.

  46. 46.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Oh and Rob Reiner’s follow up to his directorial debut starting John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga: The Sure Thing. 

    Or his directorial debut This is Spinal Tap. 

  48. 48.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Also Lost in Translation starting Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. Two Americans adrift in Tokyo

  50. 50.

    Glidwrith

    Hotel Transylvania, a fun break for monsters to hang out safe from the terrifying humans.

  51. 51.

    Jackie

    The Long, Long Trailer with Lucy and Desi Arnez. Our family vacations when I was a kid made me identify with this movie in so many ways! Not funny at the times, but relatable…

  53. 53.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @PaulB: Can I virtual hug you? I’m going to see where I can watch Enchanted April and Shirley Valentine, 2 of my favorite movies from beforetimes. There’s so much content these days it’s easy to forget the gems you saw once or twice and loved.

  58. 58.

    TiredOfItAll

    @patrick II:  It’s the wife who blows all their money at the roulette table (“C’mon, Twenty-two!”), and then she has to get a job in a burger place (with a pimply teenage boss) and Brooks gets a job as a crossing guard.  Hilarious, hilarious movie.  “Blowing the nest egg” has become a phrase in my house because of this movie.  Never been to Vegas, but I like to go to the track.

  59. 59.

    Dangerman

    Dear Abby, I like Olive Garden. Is something wrong with me? Signed, Just Passed One; Executing Bat Turn

  61. 61.

    Splitting Image

    A Room With a View deserves a re-watch.

    You can’t vacation in Edwardian-era Florence, but you sure as hell can want to.

  65. 65.

    p.a.

    Tolkien might have wanted to kick me in the nuts for thinking it, but I’ve always considered The Hobbit and LOTR on one level travelogues of his world when he had no further hopes of getting the rest of his Middle Earth Through the Ages works published.

    “Look!  See!  See the world I have created… “

  67. 67.

    prostratedragon

    @Ken:  The Long, Long Trailer is hilarious, an extended double entendre. Highlight: driving up that mountain. Their Comedy Hour series included a trip to Japan —still a fairly radical idea in the early ’60s— and one to Sun Valley. That might have been the one with the wandering bed.

  69. 69.

    Craig

    The original Michael Haneke version of Funny Games is a good reason to never go on a family getaway.

    Also Mad Max sort of fits.

    The novel of The Spy Who Loved Me is a weird nightmare vacation as well. POV of a girl graduates from a Swiss boarding school and decides to ride a Vespa from Maine to Miami. Shit gets weird in the Poconos, Adirondacks in a motel. James Bond doesn’t even show up for 126 pages. Weird ass book.

  70. 70.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Craig: I just discovered “Funny Games” a few months ago, and good lord! I only watched clips and it freaked me out.

  71. 71.

    Steeplejack

    @eversor:

    How in the absolute fuck do you end up with the car at the airport for “a few weeks”?! That’s what Uber was made for. Or maybe you’re going to go pick it up at some point. Either way, this is chipping away at your techbro genius image.

    Good luck with the menagerie.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @kalakal:

    I guess Deliverance is the ultimate non fun vacation.

    I laughed out loud.  Even though I had to walk out of that movie.  I have only done that with two films.  The other was Apocalypse Now.

  76. 76.

    TheOtherHank

    I just watched Tucker & Dale vs Evil which turns the teens-on-vacation-slasher-movie genre on its head.Also, I think Hot Tub Time Machine should count.>​​​
    ​
    ​

  78. 78.

    Another Scott

    OpenThread – the text of the debt ceiling bill is out – 99 page .pdf

    3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Fiscal Responsibility
    5 Act of 2023’’.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    I think the ’60s beach movies with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello count as vacation movies. Of particular note is the wretched, wretched Ski Party, which has the eye-popping spectacle of James Brown and the Famous Flames performing “I Feel Good” in colorful ski sweaters. 😯

  80. 80.

    prostratedragon

    Summertime is a nice romance with Karherine Hepburn as what they used to call a spinster* on vacation in Venice.

    *Think the term or idea was on the way out when this was made.

  81. 81.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Craig:

    The original Michael Haneke version of Funny Games is a good reason to never go on a family getaway. 

    The darkly hilarious comments continue.

  82. 82.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Steeplejack: That makes me want to mention my favorite Elvis movie “Girl Happy.”  Spring break in Ft Lauderdale counts as vacation.

  88. 88.

    Betsy

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    @PaulB:

    I came specifically to see if someone had already mentioned Enchanted April!  I LOVE THAT film.  That is a great “relief/escapism” movie.  So sweet and funny.

    I think the setting and mood is VERY familiar to us all post-pandemic — in 1919 a passel of weary Londoners, grieving, traumatized, and shell-shocked after the Great War, escape rainy Britain to the Mediterranean where sunlight and enchantment and mild naughtiness await.

  90. 90.

    Steeplejack

    @James E Powell:

    LOL. Whatever works. I’m pretty sure the Animals (my favorite British invasion group after the Beatles) are also in that movie, but I haven’t seen it in a while and they’re not listed in the IMDB credits. I don’t think Eric Burdon was wearing a ski sweater.

    As a tween/​young teen I loved those movies—girls! music! comedy!—but even at the time I had my doubts about the life lessons on dating and dealing with the opposite sex.

  92. 92.

    Mike in NC

    Our brief vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains is ending. Very cold and wet today. Power failure at the Grove Park Inn. Looking for an escape route for tomorrow afternoon.

  93. 93.

    Steeplejack

    @Mike in NC:
    Driving home on Memorial Day?! Gird your loins: your escape route will resemble Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.​

    ETA: The Sighthound Hall mob is driving back to NoVA from Rehoboth Beach, half of it on Delaware’s charming two-lane roads, followed by a logjam on the Bay Bridge. That’s probably worse.

  94. 94.

    BlueGuitarist

    Read the title and first line as referring to vaccinations….
    Bleary from work chores all weekend, and all day tomorrow…
    oh, vacation, like the Go-Gos song, but I have another song in mind:

    “Black Diamond Bay” is one of Bob Dylan’s cinematic songs (from the 1976 album Desire)
    the first character introduced might be on vacation on an unidentified island,
    (“her passport shows a face from another time and place”),
    she warns “there’s danger near”
    Other characters are all oblivious to the danger,
    seeking money, “thinking of forbidden love,” etc
    a volcano erupts, and,

    “as the island slowly sank
    the loser finally broke the bank
    in the gambling room
    the dealer said ‘it’s too late now
    you can take your money but i don’t know how
    You’ll spend it in the tomb

    One character commits suicide, pointlessly, as  they all be dead soon anyway
    The last verse adds a first person voice, sounding just like all those oblivious characters.
    While that makes it seem bleak
    – listening to it now it feels like a climate crisis song –
    but imho it sounds great, and listening to it feels like a vacation (song is 7 1/2 minutes) 


    https://youtu.be/73N211qQCZU

  95. 95.

    Mike in NC

    @Steeplejack: Yep. MapQuest told us the drive to Asheville would be five hours. Nine in reality. Luckily we have no jobs to report to on Tuesday, so there is no hurry to get home to see the cats.

  96. 96.

    Steeplejack

    @Mike in NC:

    MapQuest! You jogged my memory. I saw your comment the other night well after the fact and wanted to say that I have found Google Maps to be more accurate than MapQuest. I can’t remember your destination now, but I ran the numbers on both apps from my home to that destination. Google Maps showed me current traffic conditions and what seemed like a reasonable time estimate. MapQuest had me doing 70 mph door to door to make it in the estimated time. Not gonna happen.

  97. 97.

    NotMax

    Trying not to repeat from above, if you squint they sort of count as at least containing a vacation motif:

    Bhaji on the Beach
    My Life in Ruins
    Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
    Weekend at Bernie’s
    The Impossible
    Goodbye, Mr. Chips
    La Chèvre
    It’s a Gift (W.C. Fields!)
    Zorba the Greek
    Leave Her to Heaven
    Cockles (TV)
    Fawlty Towers (TV)
    .
    Broad trashy fluff: EuroTrip

  98. 98.

    Steeplejack

    I am waiting for the stroke of midnight so that I can do the Monday Wordle and Washington Post crossword. There’s nothing on TV I want to watch; it’s the usual holiday mess of some channels doing the usual, some doing special programming. I have been dipping back into Season 1 of Astrid, but I can’t do that because I have to pay enough attention to read the subtitles. Not good for multitasking.

  99. 99.

    TiredOfItAll

    And for anyone who enjoys travel writing, I highly recommend a book from the mid-80s, titled “Around the World in a Bad Mood: Music in Every Room” by John Krich.  The author is an ex-pat living in Portugal, I think, who was the one time food critic for the Asian Wall Street Journal.  (Not to be confused with another book with a similar title by a flight attendant.)

  100. 100.

    Steeplejack

    Wordle 709 Mon.

    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Boom! On to the crossword.

    ETA: This is a big win for me. I’m a solid 4, get an ego boost if I hit 3.

  103. 103.

    bjacques

    @Kristine: that location (not the mansion) is the Greek Island of Spetses, scene of a much earlier movie The Magus. It’s 2-3 hours by ferry from Athens, by way of the port of Piraeus.

    Some classics:

    If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, a 1960s paean to package tours—this one a bus trip through Europe—featuring an appearance by singer Donovan.

    Withnail and I (“We seem to have gone on holiday by mistake!”)

  105. 105.

    JWR

    @p.a.:

    The Out of Towners, 1970. Neil Simon.

    Oh My God!

    Damn straight it’s not a vacation movie! ;) But I loved it as a 12 year old kid just the same.

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    @TiredOfItAll

    Travel(ish) books?
    On the Road and The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac.
    Baghdad Without a Map, Tony Horwitz.
    In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin.
    Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon.
    Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose.
    .

  109. 109.

    frosty

     @TiredOfItAll: Two travelish books about bird Big Years:
    Kingbird Highway. In which a teenager hitchhikes back and forth across the US multiple times in the early 70s to try to break the Big Year (most birds seen in one year) record. A great travelogue and it sent me back to remembering my hitching at the same time. The good rides, the sketchy ones, the ones so sketchy I knew in five seconds I wasn’t going to take it.
    The (Big) Year That Flew By. In which an older guy sets off to break the world Big Year record. Lots of local color, lots of work with guides, lots of plane rides. He had to see an average of 17 a day for 366 days. He picked a leap year, because of course he did.​

  111. 111.

    James E Powell

    One of the best & funniest things I ever read is “A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again” by David Foster Wallace. He describes his experience on a Caribbean cruise.

  112. 112.

    eversor

    On Olive Garden, and the other places that litter shitty burbs right around airports, if you travel it’s OK.  It’s not great, most of it is not good (throw in stuff like Outback, Fridays, and more here as other guilty offenders) but it’s not a bad deal and it’s by your hotel for the conference and it’s not going to break the per diem.  Which is the attraction to it.  I hated it, but I’ll eat it.

    Back when I traveled way too much Olive Garden was a known item.   None of it is remotely authentic (or compares to the places back here in DC that are going to run you 100+-200+ a person before drinks) but it is what it is.  The unlimited salad, soup, breadsticks is just fine and clocks in at 8 bucks a meal.  That’s, not bad, and if you ditch the breadsticks it’s not bad for you.  Just don’t order off the main menu.  Just as Friday’s is tolerable if you stick to wings, slaw, and salad and still cheap.  But it’s better than the complementary food at the conference.  Also better than what you get if you are in a cheap hotel (sure as fuck beats hitting the vending machine).  Finally more affordable than busting per diem to go to the nice hotel and get a nice meal.

    These places exist on that and that there is nothing else to do there.  Sure you can strip down to your boxers at night and bash the vending machine and then raid the complimentary area in the morning, but that’s even less of a “food product” than just taking a cab and crashing Olive Garden.  It’s also slightly more social.  For the locals it’s the only thing within “you can go and drink and drive home” range.

    One time I got sent out to a Holiday Inn because it was in walking distance to an office park and I had to go there and unfuck the firm the owned it.  Was miserable, till I realized there was an Arby’s across the highway and man oh man did I bolt across said highway for Arby’s.

  113. 113.

    kalakal

    Two of my favourite travel books

    Down Under Bill Bryson laugh out loud funny

    A Time of Gifts Patrick Leigh Fermor *

    in 1933, aged 18, Fermor travelled on foot from Hook of Holland to Constantinople.

    It’s simply sublime, I cannot recommend this book highly enough

    * Vol 2 is Between the Woods and the Water

  114. 114.

    Jacel

    @SiubhanDuinne: Tati’s “Mister Hulot’s Holiday” was a favorite film of my parents. Hulot struck me as resembling my father a lot. My mother would sometimes feel reminded of scenes in that movie, start describing a scene, and be so overcome with laughter in the telling that I had no idea of what was in that film.

    In my teens and 20s there was at least 10 years that I attempted to see “Mister Hulot’s Holiday”, but I would either be ill, doing a performance myself when the film was scheduled, or hear about a screening too late. In the later 1970s when I lived in LA a rep theater was showing it several days. I made plans to go see it with friends each of those days, on a double bill starting with Tati’s “Traffic”, a later film I had already seen a few times at that point. The first night I and friends watched “Traffic”. Then there was a long wait until someone from the theater said that they received “Hulot” on a 16mm print and they couldn’t get their 16mm projector to work. All the audience was given rain check tickets. I used my ticket to come with other friends the next day, saw “Traffic” yet again, then waited through a lengthy intermission until the theater manager announced that they had obtained another 16mm projector, it ran the film, but the sound wasn’t working. They provided rain check tickets to everyone that night, but said that many in the audience had assured them that “Hulot” was worth seeing without sound, being in the silent film comedy tradition, and anyone was welcome to stay for a soundless screening. I stayed — this might be as close as I got to experiencing a film I’d tried to see for nearly half my young life.

    The audience that stayed, especially those who knew the film, rose to the occasion. It was like “Rocky Horror Picture Show” engagement. From the opening credits, people hummed the theme music. During the opening scene at a train station’s platform, viewers reproduced the incomprehensible gibberish coming through the station’s loudspeakers. After about 15 minutes, the audience-supplied soundtrack abated. By the end I loved the film, as my parents had, even without the soundtrack.

    A few months later I used my rain check ticket when “Hulot” came to a related rep theater and both saw and heard “Hulot”. At last!

  116. 116.

    Misterpuff

    The original Westworld, which I took to be a satire on taking animatronics to the next level to tweak Unca Walt’s nose, much like Rollerball was a satire on the thrall of major league sports, its appeal of disguised violence and aggression and corporate bread and circuses. But in its new iteration Westworld became a satire on our immersion into technologies (social or antisocial) introduced by a visit to theme park, its appeal of disguised violence and aggression and corporate bread and circuses.

  117. 117.

    Steeplejack

    @Jacel:

    A great story. I well remember the days before DVDs or even videocassettes, when you had to hunt down classic movies and get your ass out to see them when someone happened to screen them.

    The two great sounds in Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday are the theme song and the sound of the swinging door. Plong?

    ETA: Streaming on HBO Max (or whatever it’s called now), Criterion Collection and Kanopy.

  118. 118.

    Jacel

    A favorite vacation related film I saw was the French comedy “Le Voyage En Douce” in which two women travel together and tell each other stories from their lives (with varying degrees of credibility) that are depicted as they narrate . Though my fondness for this film (and a few others from that time, including Woody Allen’s “Stardust Memories”) might be due to the enthusiastic necking I enjoyed with my then-girlfriend during many of the minutes as the film screened.

  121. 121.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jacel: I remember seeing “Hulot” at a college campus screening in the 1980s and being seemingly the only person in the audience who enjoyed the film. I don’t remember much about it except that it was very funny in a silent-comedy sort of way. But the other students watching… I don’t know, they didn’t get it.

  122. 122.

    TiredOfItAll

    @frosty: Thanks to you and others for all the book suggestions. As a fledgling birder, I will check these out in particular.

  123. 123.

    Nancy

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I don’t need to watch “Dead Snow.” I just love the phrase “angry nazi zombies.” The words and the image in my head will make me laugh out loud off and on all day.

    Thank you.

  125. 125.

    Nancy

    @Craig:

    I read that as a teenager. That’s a long time ago. The mysogyny of the writing led me to never pay to see a Bond film.

    I suspect that Ian Fleming didn’t get enough attention during his formative years so he became a ________(fill in your favorite expletive).

    Occasionally they came on TV while I was in the room so I can say that Sean Connery was well cast. I appear to be on a roll.

  126. 126.

    Mike G

    Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson

    Inspired me to quit my job and backpack around Europe for a few months.

  128. 128.

    mirobird

    Steve Coogan made  four movies with Rob Brydon called The Trip, The Trip to Spain, The trip to Italy and The Trip to Greece. Brydon is a restaurant critic who takes the Coogan character along on his expense paid travels.

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