Executive Power

Over the last few weeks, I have fallen prey to the talons of instant-streaming-induced binge-watching, in particular, becoming a living stereotype of the so honest it is hilarious Portlandia sketch: I am addicted to popular science-fiction drama Battlestar Galactica. Literature, film, television with a streak of fantasy, of futuristic speculation, has always interested me; from my first foray into dystopian possibilities with The Giver to the mesmerizing tales from the Tripod trilogy, a fundamental reading assignment for my fifth grade class that really captured a similar mankind will to survive and thrive. While humanity battling against machines, while hurtling through the far reaches of space, is an immediate draw to me, Battlestar Galactica has also garnered the love and respect of those who would never admit, or never even though, speculative fiction would appeal to them. In parallel to the war against morally ambiguous, and conscience-ambiguous, super-cybernetic-robots, the show hinges on political and military conflicts and intrigues, as the few thousand remaining humans attempt to maintain some semblance of their former civilization, culturally and sociopolitically. So, the show has been a favorite among those who relish in the narrative trajectories of the triumphs, weaknesses, failures, and betrayals of our leaders.

In the first season, President Laura Roslin, executive leader of the roaming colonies, banished from their home planets, discusses with the commander of their military ship, the Battlestar Galactica, the difficult decisions the fleet has made, and particularly the burden of the decisions she, as president, has made. Decisions to attack, to retreat. Decisions to defuse and disable opponents, machine and man alike. A lower government official before the watershed nuclear attack that destroys most of humanity, the government included, she recounts a bit of counsel the late President Adar imparted: "One of the most interesting things about being president is you don't have to explain yourself, to anyone." Maybe more so than any other situation so far presented on the show, this encapsulates so accurately our current milieu. 

Earlier this week, President Obama deployed more troops in Iraq, to support the Iraqi military in suppressing rebel groups who have taken control of territory in the north of the country. Continuing in the rich heritage of other former United States presidents to directly and physically intervene, with vehement and powerful military force and resources, in the politics of the Middle East, this comes on the end of the interesting, debated prisoner swap, a seemingly unilateral command that leaves many here and abroad confused about the implications on duty to fellow citizens as well as on the elegant checks-and-balances of our democratic system. When he was first elected, I was elated; after enduring eight years of unnecessary war during the Bush era, propagated by contorted patriotic propaganda and the vested interests of various corporations, globally, the de-militarize, dis-engage platform promoted by President Obama was hopeful. It was, or could have been, true change. Throughout his first term, and now consistent into the second, I have hardened to disappointment.

Perhaps the evolution of an instant and, hopefully, transparent global communication environment, fueled by a vibrant, ever-churning behemoth media industry and the technological-social platforms to facilitate these transactions on a massive scale, has fostered a sense among the public that, indeed, explanation and justification and rationale is required, is demanded, for the choices and behaviors of our political and economic leaders. In recent decades, scrutiny has heightened and the details surrounding even sensitive decisions can, and often does, become available for broad consumption, interpretation, manipulation, and, ultimately, propagation. In tandem to this path, the desire to side-step accountability, to act unilaterally, to adopt that attitude summarized by the fictional President Adar, seems to also grow in potency. There could be a pretense that restraining from public discourse for certain situations is protection. A sort of paternal authority: I know best. These repelling movements seem at such odds, seem that they would oppose one another, cause a system to collapse. 

It would be silly to assume that the Founding Fathers, that every president from Washington on, did not adopt a similar stance. Memory is always flawed, subjective; the history books have a funny way of capturing details, choosing their portraits.  

(image taken from National Park Service)

Coco Chanel and Change

"A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life." 

-- Coco Chanel

We took our project into the living room, among the cheap vinyl and faux-wood couches of our pre-furnished apartment; the light here was stronger than that in the cavern bathroom. My hair was dry, which probably made some type of difference. We decided on a thick, straight, blunt bang, solid hair across my forehead, above my eyes. Scrunching my eyes shut tight, for protection, she slowly snipped the strands of hair, hands and fingers manipulating the scissors in an unsure but steady confidence. Occasionally growing long and cumbersome from my delinquency in grooming, the bangs have, essentially, been my staple style ever since that evening at university, mildly bored with one of my best friends, when an idle discussion about a new hair cut turned into action. I have not changed since; sometimes, the hair is longer, the layers or the angles more dramatically trimmed, but the same general shape, same feel, ultimately maintained. 

I have never taken a true risk, a risk of the magnitude that create icons, whether heroic or tragic, a risk where success means an empire, a legacy, when coupled with a healthy dose of chance and hard work, a heavy dose of passion and dedication. A woman, like Coco, does not become a bit of history, without such willingness and openness to catalyzing her own change. I am not seeking to become a grand historical figure, but to make impact, to build something beyond the ordinary, against the grain, to instigate some greater downstream effect from one's own contained sense of self, there must be some risk, some impetus for uncertainty. Despite an intellectual and philosophical curiosity, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, of some crash and burn from which I cannot recover, keep me fettered to a known and tried path, to habit and comfort. This quality in myself, this fear or lack of courage, as a type of meta-problem, is a quality I want to change and cannot seem to.

(image taken from Visionary Artistry Magazine)  

Girl Boss

At my previous position, my first formal job following completion of my formal university education, three men originally stood at the helm, partners in the small, privately-owned business; during my tenure there, two of the partners bought out the third, resulting in a rather tumultuous cascade of organizational and financial chaos. An instance of rather cosmic symmetry, my current position is within an advertising agency led by two women; before my time, both of whom had allied to remove their original third partner, also a woman. Operating a successful small business is arduous and not for everyone, as my experience illustrates; and while, traditionally and mathematically, triads can offer greater balance and support than a dual system, in practice, the two-against-one strategy often results in remove the one, particularly when issues of differences in vision, or division of labor and profits, enter into the equation.

As a young professional woman, I was intrigued and attracted to an organization that prided itself on fostering the leadership development of other young professional women. My former company was, indeed, predominantly women, as were our clients; however, possibly due to their arcane, and ineffective, methods for business development, the practice of schedule lunches with those in the Rolodex and draw up some project on the back of a cocktail napkin, and to their myopic and narcissistic personalities, the partners, my bosses, always seemed to evoke some entrenched patriarchal authority, both condescending and manipulative when necessary.  For most employees, there was a persistent tension of playing and being played; every comment, every maneuver, seemed perfectly calculated and imbued with some meaning. There was a sense of being semi-autonomous pawns; intelligent, hard working, but ultimately malleable, pieces to be moved, to be convinced.

Naively, while interviewing for my current position, I was hopeful that female leaders would offer a refreshing and near total alternative to this management style, which, in my experience, had proven destructive, from a business returns perspective as well as a personal satisfaction perspective. Business is business, and certain traits that blend together to alchemize an ideal business leader, while evolving with broader cultural and economic trends, have not changed drastically, whether that leader is a man or a woman. The ability to act both selfishly and altruistically; the ability to take and to hold an aggressive stance, or an unpopular one; the ability to inspire, to instill courage or hope or a tenacious work ethic in others; the ability to craft a vision, to believe it, to mold other believers. Specific industries will require specific knowledge, skills, nuances in personality, but, I believe some overarching tenets will hold true. Starting my first day, I was optimistic that a more strategically holistic approach to problem solving, to business development, would be engendered by our oft-proclaimed fairer sex. That listening would precede speaking; that jargon and double-speak would be replaced with genuine, honest dialogue. A year in of keen observation, the politics that can entangle any organization, of any size, obviously still exist and prevail; there is still a sense of a lack of personal connection, which, for me, has seemed to generally form the foundation for respect and value of the unique skills and contributions of another. It is, and was, foolish to conflate this onto gender alone, that a swapping of some chromosomes, and the lived experiences that such a swap confers, would result in a drastic difference between the two sets of leaders. Optimism, a rare bout, clouded my pragmatism. Perhaps, in my search for a great change, I inflated and contorted my expectations; in finding a minor change, I was sharply disappointed, but, worse, quickly complacent.

After a few months at the new office, I learned that there was an extracurricular women's development group, individuals invited by one of the partners to meet after-hours, aptly named the Lean In Group. Time passed, and I was not extended an invitation to participate, which unnerved the Type A fibers in me, while the bohemian, romantic, artistic bits scattered in between sighed with relief. I would be lying, though, if I did not admit that I felt hurt and a bit inadequate. These have since contributed to a consistent vacillation between a "work harder, work better" and a "screw this" mentality. From what I can glean through brief conversations with a few friends in the office, the events typically involve drinking wine and listening to the partner lecture, with some discussion here and there. Without having attended, it seems not particularly useful, but rather benign as well; the greatest advantage, likely, appears to be those moments of "face time" with the boss, a sort of widely accepted and practiced display of deference and positive, subtle veneration, of some quick quips, in hopes of staying in good graces come promotion time. While certainly not above partaking in these traditional office rituals, they can be both tiring and uncomfortable; additional free time, liberated from these affectations, is never unwelcome.

The Lean In Group is obviously named after the behemoth, popular pseudo-feminist cultural movement catalyzed by Sheryl Sandberg's book of the same name, which rippled from the business sector to the broader cultural realm. I have not read her book, and am not sure I intend to, with so many other books of interest piling around my shelves, but the general points and the impact her words are inescapable, with the various media dialogue, tangential influences, and branching projects, such as the Lean In collection of contemporary, progressive stock photography of women. While heightened attention and conversation surrounding the many, many barriers and challenges women continue to face on a daily basis in our society is commendable and helpful, what I have found problematic about this particular breed of current pop-feminist rhetoric is that the lessons promote or explain overcoming within the current patriarchal institution. Essentially, how to play by the rules of the system or break the rules of the system to succeed, as a woman. What lacks are critical dialogues surrounding how to fundamentally change or adjust these norms, such that women do not have to swerve or bend or accommodate to the current system, but rather our goals, priorities, perspectives, strengths, and weaknesses are integrated and assimilated.

In a similar vein to Sandberg, though offering a decidedly anti-hero kind of approach to the memoir-style business book, Nasty Gal CEO Sophia Amoruso's #GIRLBOSS has sky-rocketed, following a similarly steep upward trajectory as her retail brand. I, also, have not yet read this book, and while I am a bit skeptical as to how much of her unique life experience and work in the fashion and merchandising business will translate directly to some of current situation, I am curious and do admire her against the grain attitude. I respect that she rolls up her sleeves, gets her hands dirty in her business, wants the best and brightest getting dirty along with her, and, seemingly, loves what she has created. Funnily enough, in addition to commercial, consumable, pre-packaged feminism, the anti-hero is having a strong cultural moment as well. Though likely not delving into any academic discourse territory on how best to fundamentally subvert and overthrow patriarchy to create an actual equal space for women, it seems Amoruso's walk-to-the-beat-of-your-drum problem-solving and leadership style would speak to some of my frustrations in the seemingly robotic, replicable veneer of leadership qualities I have come to accept over the past few years, from men and women alike. 

When I was younger, growing up, I always felt I would, or should, ultimately be my own captain. I have never envisioned myself at the top of a large, impersonal heap; even in terms of friendships, those types of relationships and those dynamics have been unnatural and undesirable to me. I have always veered too close to utter independence to care too deeply for what the masses think, which ends up being a bit of a detriment in the case of a large and broad organization; again, that balance of selfish and self-conscious is not easily struck by most. But leading something intimate, something true and unadulterated, with a few, close others who care as deeply as I; this is something that seems reasonable and honest to my strengths.  

(image taken from The Indie Source)

Mermaid Fantasies, Revisited

In the dank corners of our partially finished basements, amidst water-heater tanks and mutating crickets, our mothers stowed plastic bins, stuffed with discarded cocktail dresses, dance costumes, loose suits, brazen ties, and more, our prized dress-up boxes. Sometimes, we draped beads over our thin necks, cascades of beads, streams, so many bits of tawdry metallic plastic they covered our flat nipples, some crass bit of fanciful armor. Sometimes, we wore old eyeglasses, lens thick and growing opaque, distorting the cracked tile ground, warping our steps, making us dizzy with disorientation. Mostly, we stepped gingerly into old swim suits, tied sashes around our nascent breasts, and became mermaids.

One summer, large, bronze men descended upon the house, crawled onto the roof, peeled away bits of black tile like black scales, the house an exposed and raw carcass, clean. As they filed into the kitchen to gulp water, we giggled and waved. Ignored, we donned sequins and bizarre tassels, and before the bedroom windows, which faced the hot roof, we undulated. Our bellies were bellies still, that purgatory between the fat collected as a baby in the womb and stomachs taut from running wild and fast. Bellies round, limbs loose and flaying, we undulated, mimicking seductive creatures we had observed somewhere but whose artful displays remained enigmatically elusive. Sideways glances, shaking heads, the occasional pitiful smile. At the end of the day, our mothers hollered our names, those shouts plucking us cruelly from the depths of our oceans back to this dry world; sashes, sequins discarded, we ran to the dinner table.

(image taken from Rebloggy)  

Mermaid Fantasies

A rather banal argument serves as a catalyst for the narrative trajectory and conflict throughout the entire film: the husband, a physician, specialty not disclosed, wishes to spend his holiday in a remote shore town, fishing, communing with the tide, and the wife wishes to be left alone, amid her comfortable urban life. That a mermaid film opens with such a marital dispute is not at all surprising; where Miranda delivers some nuance and twist is in the adaptation of the classic mythological creature and her pivotal role in enhancing balance and equity to the relationship, as well as strengthening the foundational love and respect requisite for matrimony. While still-entrenched patronizing patriarchal standards of sexual seduction and power dialectics within sexual relationships, whether or not they are emotionally intimate, prevail, for a mid-twentieth century film, there is a female empowerment lean. In an age predating institutional feminist theory, and cultural awareness of the social, political, and economic implications of challenging male dominance, finding a film like this refreshing seems at odds with its generally quaint and exasperating messages. As a fan of old Hollywood, and a cynic who is willing to state to all who will listen that, even more frustrating, are contemporary films wherein sexual politics have not budged, at all, I found Miranda delightfully agreeable.

During his rural holiday, while coasting along the waves, fishing rod in hand, the husband, Dr. Paul Martin, is caught by Miranda the mermaid, plucked from his dry boat under the water's surface and into her balmy cave home. An overt reversal in the role of fisher-fished, this scene is also a paradigm shift for the mermaid myth: rather than traditional intoxicating but malevolent lure, she is proactive, seizing an opportunity, by literally seizing a man she finds attractive and then subsequently bartering with him. It is a fair deal, his freedom, for a few days of her own liberation from the sea, exploring the realm of humans in London. While Dr. Martin is a bit distressed when sequestered underwater, worried about the baser of Maslov needs, breathable oxygen, adequate nutrition, he does warm to her advances. Once they agree, however, to the London excursion, Miranda guised as some serious patient, his wife, Clare, is nearly forgotten and he is firmly entranced by her blissful ignorance and coquettish looks. 

Throughout her escapades in London, Miranda succeeds in ensnaring all the men she encounters, much to the obvious chagrin of their partners. Clare, immediately skeptical of the patient ruse upon meeting the mermaid and realizing she is young and beautiful, is rather flexible, all things considered. Welcoming the patient into her home, accommodating her obviously bizarre needs, Clare acknowledges that her husband's attentions are divided but adopts a listen-and-learn response, rather than aggressively attacking him. The couple's chauffeur and general manservant, a quaint artifact of bygone times for the upper middle class, also succumbs to the allure of the mermaid. Conveniently in a relationship with the maid, he fumbles to spend time with Miranda, while his partner fumes and bemoans his fickle love. Clare's friend Isobel, the Martin's neighbor, also finds herself in a relationship predicament, as her fiance and budding artist also falls prey to Miranda. 

Much of the film's comedic conflict lays in the ignorance of the male characters; so enthralled are they with Miranda's beauty and her exoticism, they are blind to the fact that she flirts with them and any other man she encounters equally. She admits to admiring them each for various individual reasons, but the notion of monogamy and fidelity to any single one of them is a laughable to her. When her trysts with all three men are exposed and her true identity finally revealed to Clare and the other women, and she is threatened with broad public exposure, rather than lay in wait to become a victim, a scientific novelty and general cultural oddity, Miranda flees. Her resilience and her agency is commendable; she had her cake, ate of it, and left without paying the bill. While most widely disseminated, popular contemporary romantic comedies seem to continually enforce that a woman's sexual satisfaction must exist within the confines of a traditional heteronormative construct, Miranda, in spite of being backward in other overt senses, offers a progressive view of sexual satisfaction, male and female. Without wholly disregarding the value of intimate relationships, the film emphasizes that flirtation, seduction, sex can just be fun, while also reinforcing that still no choice is without ramifications. 

Perhaps a bit insensitive to the women who were hurt by her antics, Miranda does nonetheless seem to understand that what she seeks, a playful romantic romp, differs from the relationships already established that she is disrupting. Despite the dishonesty and the lapses in loyalty, each couple ends the film with a stronger relationship, more firmly rooted in trust, more open. That such breaches in general heteronormative relationship code, trust and fidelity, are treated with an open-mind on the part of the female partner in a film decades old is liberating. Mythology and fantasy aside, perhaps the plot is rather unbelievable; in reality, such understanding and forgiveness may be more rare. The optimist in me, sometimes small and cowardly compared to my inner realist, wants to believe in a happily ever after for each of the characters, despite their obvious flaws. Fulfillment for Miranda, despite her selfishness and capricious nature. Fulfillment for Clare, despite her lapse into the vindictive. Fulfillment for Dr. Martin, despite his lies, his scheming.

(image taken from Flippin Your Fins)   

Stumbling Upon

Over four million people ride the New York City subway system every day. Train doors heaving open, sighing shut, hustling bodies either spewing forth onto platforms or jamming intimately into sweating train cars, it always seems a simultaneous impossibility and inevitability that you will run into someone you know. With such masses, all faces seem anonymous, a sea of strangers. With such masses, statistically, it is very plausible that you will bump into an old friend, a former colleague, that girl from your chemistry lab sophomore year. Riding the same lines each day to and fro, your body attuning to the rhythmic sways and jumps of those particular train cars, yawning and straining and lumbering like some primordial earthen beasts, fellow passengers stay distant, but grow familiar. Become soothing characters. About once a week, as I enter the platform at Penn Station, heading back to my neighborhood after a long day in the office, I nearly collide with an older black man, hair awry and tinted with streaks of silver, listening to a Walkman, quaint, and gesticulating wildly. He claps his hands, stomps his sneakers hard, slap, slap, slap against rock pavement. His presence, for now, a soft remainder of the power of our relationship with our interior selves, our relevance of a firm grasp on reality, and of those mostly reliable, until they are not, circadian rhythms of life.

One evening, pressed between a man in a classic charcoal suit and some youth, cap backwards, music loud, I thought I recognized a woman in the middle of the car. Her hair had a memorable wild curl, soft yet assuredly frustratingly unruly, and her eyes were equally memorable round dark moons. I was nearly certain she was my geometry teacher from freshman year of high school. When I was fourteen years old, dreadfully uncomfortable in my new ecosystem, an all-girls private school predominantly populated with the daughters of local wealthy alphas, she was in her early twenties, and seemed to glide effortlessly along to the off-beat of her proverbial drum. While not the most provocatively progressive environment, the school was religiously-independent and liberal, renowned for a robust history of academic rigor; she had staunch Christian principles, which, among a frenzy of pulsing adolescent girls, are not the most popular of beliefs. Fostering a real intimate sense of community, our teachers were very open with us, the traditional pedagogical power structure more nebulous. All together again was a permeating mantraShe spoke freely about waiting until marriage, about not drinking, two tenets that seemed alien for throngs of girls anxious for someone to touch them, who stole liquor regularly and cavalierly from their parents. She was fiercely passionate about mathematics, athletics, volunteering as our junior varsity basketball coach that year. Lean and lanky, alabaster skin with that crop of curls, those dark eyes, she always struck me as fresh; she wore no make up, dressed simply, unlike us students, in a sort of uniform of her own choosing. That type of wiry that quivers with potential energy, like a string, pulled taut. Refreshingly, her disclosure about her own personal views, while leaning towards soft encouragement, were far from preaching or pedantic. Reassuring us; she would listen, her door was open.

Every other day of the week in the rotation schedule, geometry was my first period class. I was one of three freshman students, having already taken the requisite algebra courses at my public middle school. During my year-long tenure at the school, before abandoning the endeavor and returning to my equally academically strong, public high school, I made a few allies, but no true friends. Unlike many of my peers, I often choose to arrive to homeroom early, rather than congregate and giggle in the hallways. I was certainly diligent and studious, but not so fastidious that I craved those precious moments for catching up on schoolwork, rather, I took solace in those brief moments of, generally, welcome silence. One morning, a few days following September 11, eyes down, mind muddled, I pushed open the door to the classroom, without looking. She was leading a small prayer vigil, holding hands with a few students and another teacher, heads bowed in respect. Disrupted, as I hesitated after barging in, muscling the door, she looked up, quiet, eyes dark and looming and immeasurably sad.

I may have mumbled some excuse or apology, before ducking quickly out, heading either to one of the numerous outdoor patio spaces, or perhaps the sterile and beautiful cafeteria. Mortified, and confused, unsure of my own thoughts and feelings of the events of recent weeks, I never formally apologized for interrupting, something I continue to regret to this day. Superficially, such a minor event. Opening a door, finding a room not empty but occupied. I am sure it was the gravity of the times, those tenuous weeks of uneasiness, of fear, of suspicion, of mistrust. The interior world of adolescence was already one of great tumult; the exterior sociopolitical climate seemed to only heighten these feelings of complete unease. After my freshman year, I left the private school, returned to the larger, grittier halls of the more familiar public school. While still in high school, that brief stint in another stratum seemed like a blotch, some odd and unreal experience, not quite so dark as a nightmare, but tinted with a similar anxiety. With some more years and more wisdom, I recognize the experience for what it was: a challenge, but a brilliant opportunity, and one that afforded me an education with some of the greatest and most impassioned teachers I have ever known.

On that subway train, I stared, barely bordering on polite, trying to confirm, to be certain. I spent most of that ride home wondering; what was she reading? Why had she moved to this city? Does she still teach? Does she still pray? Is she still waiting, for love, for lust, for that primal urge so many of us lunge after, that affirmation of our biology, of our physicality? Quite possibly, the woman was simply a stranger, in a sea of strangers, her wild curls of hair a catalyst for reflection.

(image taken from The Gothamist)

The Visitors

(image taken from NY Times) 

 (image taken from CBC Music)

 (image taken from Toronto Film Festival) 

A few weeks ago, the filmmaker and I went to the Sunshine Theater for a screening of the latest Godfrey Reggio film, The Visitors. For me, it was my first foray into the aesthetic and philosophical realm of Reggio, which the filmmaker admitted and bemoaned, a few weeks later following a screening of the infamous and stunning Koyaanisqatsi at the Museum of Arts and Design, was perhaps not an ideal introduction, deviating substantially in style and tone from his other celebrated works. While certainly not disappointed that I experienced The Visitors before the others, I understand what he meant. Also an exploration of the ever-evolving triangulated relationship between humans, the natural environment, and the technologies we have developed and harnessed in creating civilizations, unlike Koyaanisqatsi, The Visitors is contained and controlled. Rather than extended sweeps of grandiose landscapes and rather candid moments with an array of people on city streets, people walking and talking and staring, oblivious to or ambivalent to the camera, the individuals are posed, staring into the lens and seemingly into the eyes of the audience directly, explicitly, with purpose, individuals isolated in a black and sterile capsule.

Initially, this struck me as an orchestrated posture of one of the most primitive modes of interaction and communication between people, in this case, the faces slowly flashed upon the movie screen and the gazing faces of the audience members: eye contact. A collection of bizarre and beautiful extended eye contact moments, with a diverse group of people, mediated through the screen. Almost stagnant portraits, save for slight shifts in expression; the tightening of a grimace, a bit of lip turned upward. A celebration of the brilliant malleability of our facial musculature. Discussing this with the filmmaker, he offered that perhaps the various individual faces that visually accost the audience are, rather than staring at us, intended to be staring intently into a screen. This interpretation, even coupled with my own perspective, presents a great mirror and an elegantly symmetrical framework for these portions of the film: we, seated in a cool and darkened theater, stare into a screen, silent, as the faces of young boys, girls, older men, women, stare into a screen, neither party able to properly access or touch or engage with the group on the other side. With this view, the myriad spectrum of expressions and looks become grounded, not in a sense of how we interact with another individual, face to face, but with how we interact with popular and nearly omnipresent technological social platforms, which facilitate the exchange of information and of stories so efficiently that we do not, or may not, require face to face interaction. Our collective attention, us the audience, and them the filmed, is focused on the movie screen, though us the audience are focused on the exchange of faces; what they the filmed contemplate remains a mystery.

Confronted with these various faces, vacant, bemused, thinking, I was reminded, forced to remember, really, how little eye contact I seem to make these days, with those around me, with people I pass on the subway, the street, my colleagues at work. It was a lesson enforced, from those earliest years, making polite eye contact, acknowledging someone, connecting with them, for a brief moment. Lately, I cannot seem to hold eyes, to make that acknowledgement. During those near two hours, in that dark theater, I had made more extended eye contact than it seemed I have in years.

My niece is a little over two years old; though it is rationed and supervised, she is allowed to play with the household computer, tablet, old versions of cellular telephones, in small doses, few and far between her sessions with wooden blocks, a kitchen stove, a miniature tea set. I am always fascinated that she and her generational peers, who I regularly spy on the subway, in restaurants, out and about, have an almost innate facility with these devices. Swiping to new screens, selecting icons, playing high resolution videos, their chubby, freshly formed fingers perform these adroitly. One might say this is a testament to the user experience and ergonomic design of these tools, sculpted to our intuition, but I am not sure.

Included in this spectrum of dynamic portraits is a female gorilla; indeed, the film opens and closes with long shots of her face, stern, prosaic, concentrated. Emotive and familiar, her floating face is a visual reminder of our shared ancestry with her species, of our natural journey on this planet, from a smattering of cosmic dust eons and eons ago, to the fumbling puzzle pieces of the pioneering proteins, to those first bipedal steps away from the cluster of trees and those monumental milestones in language, agriculture, engineering, architecture, culture. She is a visual reminder that, ultimately, we are all mere visitors to this planet and this life, each of us individually, and also collectively, our communities, our nations, our species. 

 (image taken from Blackbook)

 (image taken from Philly Magazine)

Another stylistic similarity to earlier works, Reggio interspersed between his facial portraits majestic shots of tall, grandiose buildings, of abandoned warehouses, of a silent and empty amusement park, of natural landscapes. Again, these visuals lack a certain frenetic energy that seems characteristic of these earlier works; the buildings, the wooden frame of a once-speeding roller coaster are stoic, almost surreal, in that it seems impossible to imagine that they are products of human creation, designed for human use and purpose. The skyscrapers, splattered with dark windows in a perfect grid, are stark and domineering, incongruously alien and unfamiliar. The roller coaster, in a sense the epitome of the hybridization of the application of physics and the indulgence in pure visceral entertainment, also stands stark, domineering, alien without the context of human interaction with the space. These typical and recognizable spaces of human engagement, silent and empty, maintain their beauty, but seem to lose a bit of their meaning.

Dining in a small hotel bar the other evening with a charming colleague of mine, a Southern gentleman, we discussed evolving social engagement platforms and made a number of jovial, but not trivial, jokes about the use of the notion of connectedness. Being connected, to friends, family, loved ones, partners, business associates, through a medium, via a screen and a designed piece of technology, rather than a face to face conversation. Rather than extended eye contact. Rather than the friendly shake of a warm hand, an embrace, where you can hear and feel the pulsing of blood into and out of the heart in the chest of the other.