Airplane Entertainment

So why is it that I can be on an airplane with a good book, a notebook with a half-finished story, a half-written letter to a good friend, and a copy of the New Yorker and I still find myself drawn to the free TV being broadcast to the little individual screens at each and every seat? I watched "Deal or No Deal," which I'd never had any interest in seeing at home, and then followed that up with an "Identity" chaser. Two hours of mediocre TV.

During commercials I turned to A&E, which was airing their own movie "Flight 93" (not to be confused by "United 93," although I'm confused as to why we needed both.) (Yes, I know that two Capote movies were released recently, etc., but this seems different somehow. Maybe I'm biased.) It's disturbing to watch a plane being hijacked while you're sitting on a plane, but it didn't stop me from returning to it periodically. It was almost as if I wanted to see how much it would bother me, or how much I could stand.