David Mamet is known for plays like Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, films like The Spanish Prisoner and Heist, books like On Directing Film and The Wicked Son, and as of last week, a short story about a lost airplane pilot filed as a legal brief supporting social media regulation in Texas.
Mamet’s amicus brief is titled “Lessons from Aerial Navigation,” and as it’s two pages long, you should really just go read it. Here’s a sample of the prose:
The Map is not the territory. The territory is the territory. The pilot’s answer to the question “where am I?” lies not on the map, but out the windscreen. That’s where he is. It doesn’t matter where he calculated he should be, the territory below him is where he is.
In case you’re...
