cutting bait



"I imagine the feelings of two people meeting again after many years. In the past they spent some time together, and therefore they think they are linked by the same experience, the same recollections.

The same recollections? That's where the misunderstanding starts: they don't have the same recollections; each of them retains two or three small scenes from the past, but each has his own; their recollections are not similar; they don't intersect; and even in terms of quantity they are not comparable: one person remembers the other more than he is remembered; first because memory capacity varies among individuals (an explanation that each of them would at least find acceptable), but also (and this is more painful to admit) because they don't hold the same importance for each other.

When Irena saw Josef at the airport, she remembered every detail of their long-ago adventure; Josef remembered nothing. From the very first moment their encounter was based on an unjust and revolting inequality."
— Milan Kundera



I find it quite hard to leave people behind, even when I know I ought. Yes, more than places or work, people prove my foil. Don't they have a way of weaseling in and making it nearly impossible to completely abandon them? Even when it would probably all be for the best? At least, that's what I find...

This photo, entitled Nancy is by the fantastic Alex Prager. It's pretty clear to me that whatever impending circumstance awaits this red head, she needs an extra dose of courage. Whether she is running from or arriving at her fate, there seems to be an ominous fog and longing in the air of the sort we'd all rather avoid altogether if we could.

On a related, but wholly separate note, if you missed Prager's stylized short film Despair (somehow I did!) starring Bryce Dallas Howard - do waltz on over to Nowness for a viewing. It's totally worth the few minutes - ha - for me, watching it conjured up the the equally technicolour work (albeit, written) of Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down.

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