Make 'rri while the Sun Shines
It's February 16 and the evenings are coming on a few minutes later. Here's the Potpourri.
One Whole Bedroom?
I don't want to count my chickens just yet, but I've expressed interest in moving into a one-bedroom unit in my building that just became available. It's quite spacious, the view is great, and most importantly, I can afford it. It has been 16 years since I lived in an apartment that wasn't a studio. I am tantalized by the luxury of this prospect.
Introducing Himawari Panda
No new flowers this week, because I just got back from visiting my folks in California. My mom made a really nice arrangement for my room, which I was content to enjoy and forget to photograph. These sunflowers were in my sister's room and eventually made their way to the kitchen table, where I begged their leave to pose for this snap of a new mug I picked up from a local Japanese supermarket.
It Snowed
It did! But it already melted.
Sisyphus the Cinephile
I'm starting to wonder what all my movie-watching is adding up to. I know in theory there's no reason it has to add up to anything, but I keep searching for the underlying "why" of my kino habit. Is it just something I've gotten used to? Am I searching for truth and beauty? Is the practice of watching movies expanding my mind and spirit in rich new ways? Is there a magical number of films watched that unlocks a hitherto unknown tier of consciousness? Or does it just feel good to be really into something in a deep and obsessive way? One thing about Marzipan Potpourri: we love a rhetorical question.
Sisyphus n' Me
I've been thinking about Sisyphus lately because I read Albert Camus' essay "The Myth of Sisyphus," with its famous line, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." It's a good essay.
Sisyphus is alone on the mountain, but he's not unobserved. He is noted by the untold millions who tap into the well of stories; his punishment endures today because ours are much the same.
I think about this with my movie-watching, or my writing, or really anything I do. I feel a desperation to funnel these pursuits into exterior validation, as if something done for my own pleasure and satisfaction has no intrinsic worth. That's something I'm still trying to unlearn. I think it is enough that when I write, or watch films, my mind and heart are alive. One must imagine Dara happy.
—Dara Khan