Don't look back, look out.

"Off the landing is a dark little mezzanine arranged as a room of furniture. It is a place one passes twenty times a day and no more thinks of entering than of entering a picture, nor even of looking at, but having entered, enters with all the oddness of entering a picture, a tableau in depth wherein space in untenanted and wherefrom the view of the house, the hall and dining room below, seems at once privileged and strange...Kate sits there in the shadows, exempt from the needs and necessaries of all passers-by. It is her sense of their waiting upon her and that alone intrudes itself into her mezzanine."
-p.175 of The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Think of the recurring images that fill the memories of your life: the cover of a book you took months to read, the view out your bedroom window or from behind your car dashboard, the look of your feet in a certain pair of shoes. Is this the calendar by which our time is individually measured? The frame that actually contains us? There is no February--there is only the time I wore the same blue plaid shirt at least two days per week. There is no first two years of college--only the seasons I watched pass out my window on cedar lane--all of life contained in the park across the street. There is no summer of 2008--only the time I carried the Brothers Karamazov around--the red cover making the hefty book like a brick from which I hoped to construct either a home or a barricade. How many years will you watch the world pass before the windshield of the car you're driving? It seems that duration sorts our days better than any calendar ever could. This is a lonely idea--one less thing to unify us, but that's why there's four extra seats in my car, and why my shoes are hopefully cool enough you'll want to shake my hand.

SOURCE: I got a ticket today. I was driving to a mechanic to have my bumper put back on (another story). I rolled out of bed and put on the pair of jeans my hands grabbed first; got in the car and backed out of the driveway. As I was shifting into the forward gear, a cop passed me and I saw him turn around. I rolled my eyes hoping he wouldn't come wank on the fact I hadn't put my seatbelt on yet. He did. He hassled me further because I realized the pants I put on didn't have my license in them. Then, after discovering there was no marijuana in my car--informed me that my license plate was expired. I wasn't aware of this. Anyway, all that is what got me thinking about the recurring views--I've encountered a lot from behind that dashboard. When the fender is missing, I don't have my license on me, and I find out the tag is expired--I get to thinking I don't belong behind that dashboard. Don't look back.

ALSO: I saw Inglorious Basterds last night. The later Tarantino films--Kill Bill 1 and 2 are notably more succinct than his earlier classics. He seems less concerned with having an impact on the world than of creating his own (which usually involve spastic moments of gunfire and blood). This one was more self-contained that an Agathe Christie mystery, but, you know, a bit more badass.