Friday, June 2, 2023

“Way up in the dangerous air”

Steven Millhauser, “Flying Carpets,” in The Knife Thrower and Other Stories (1998).

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

comments: 2

Slywy said...

“When the newspapers reported a successful launch, it often simply meant that the balloon had lifted off on time and no one in the crowd had been killed. Lunardi’s reputation was badly damaged the following year, when on 23 August at Newcastle a young man, Ralph Heron, was caught in one of the restraining ropes, lifted some hundred feet into the air, and then fell to his death. The impact drove his legs into a flowerbed as far as his knees, and ruptured his internal organs, which burst out onto the ground. He was due to be married the next day.”

— The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
https://a.co/ePoehky

Michael Leddy said...

That reminds me of the ghastly footage of the man trying to fly from the Eiffel Tower.

Carpets, at least in this story, are far more reliable. : )