Unbroken reel

One sign of people growing on each other: Once we get in the car and start driving home after a dinner or a party or some social function, we say some pat, predictable things about the event (“That was nice,” “the food was good,” etc.) and then we suddenly, almost simultaneously, say the exact same, small, specific observation to each other. “Wasn’t it strange the way that cat was nibbling on the ends of the rug?” “Absolutely!” “Didn’t you think his opinion about Mumford & Sons was surprisingly nuanced?” “Why, yes, I did; I thought the exact same thing.” This is perhaps, I think, one of the tiny reasons that people stay married, to have that comforting confirmation of one’s own observational debris.

♦

Thanks to the recommendations of our friends Zaynah and Forrest, we have been watching “The Story of Film: An Odyssey” and taking notes on all of the important, beautiful films we haven’t seen and then lining them up on our queues. The melodramatic narrator drives me a bit crazy at times, but it’s been an excellent overview of the history and development of cinema as an art form. Along with Jonathan, I am feeling especially wild about Yasujiro Ozu. The fact that his complete oeuvre is on Hulu makes the subscription totally worth it. I want to steep myself in All Things Ozu.

♦

I am interested in and appreciative of selfies. I think it’s only a matter of time before a book-length thesis on the Millennial mindset regarding self-preservation and self-documentation is published (if it hasn’t been already). But I won’t be writing it, because I am not especially adept at explaining why I like selfies, especially other people’s. I, for one, have never taken a good photograph of myself.

But I sincerely like other people’s selfies, especially people I love. I don’t even mind the ones with poorly disguised motives. Here is a photo of myself looking my most luminous, my most attractive, etc. Those are most common. But I am especially interested in self-deprecating selfies. Here I am with my natural blue–black bags under my eyes. Here I am with baby vomit in my hair. 

I don’t know. I know I am making limited sense, but there is something cheerful to me about people posting selfies. Because the people who do are saying Here is my face. This is my body. I am happy with it. I suspend judgment. I applaud them quietly.