Something in My Eye: Favorite Things #5
because you wanted a little diversion, not a part-time job
I don’t know about you, but I get very overwhelmed by long-ass lists:
TWENTY BEST Places to Eat…!
55 Products You Can’t Live Without!!
101 BOOKS YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE!!!
No, thanks. Even 10 can be a bit much sometimes.
Here are a FEW of my favorite things, because that’s how the song goes…
Just a quick share this week—I’ve been working on some big projects and hoped I could give us all a break.
Ever been channel-surfing, cozy in your jammies on the sofa, and suddenly a commercial about something absurd—not even rescue kittens or pennies-a-day pleas for kids in dire straits—let’s say McRibs came back. Did the sudden memory or image kinda catch in your chest, and make you gasp, and *godammit* almost cry? Did the tears well up, and did you have to fight your way back from actual boohoos (or did you just let it go, good for you?)
Maybe it didn’t happen at home in the dark, but out in public, surrounded by friends and strangers in broad daylight; a momentary ache stole over you, and you had to stomp those tears back to where they bloody well came from or explain to everyone why you were having a moment.
Maybe it wasn’t a memory or a sadness, but something longed for, something beautiful—a beautiful secret, the kind the wonderful writer
talked about in his post awhile back about a childhood choice for an art project (more below.)One of the earliest I remember happened in December 2001 on the release of The Fellowship of the Ring, sitting in the theater with friends. I had waited so long for a serious film adaptation (not that Ralph Bakshi’s attempts didn’t have their charm) that once we sat down, and my then boyfriend (now husband) turned to talk to our friends and I felt unobserved for just a moment, I almost started to cry.
**DAMMIT!!** Ridiculous.
Now you—
😭🥲😂🤣
Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família
I had been to the Sagrada Familia in 2000, and there was no roof or any of the spires on it yet so we walked around the outside and took pictures. It was just OK. It was not at that time anywhere near the state of completion it is today—hard to believe that after 144 years of construction, we will see Gaudi’s wonder of Modernisme design finished in 2026.
When we finally walked inside, at 10 a.m. on a May day in 2017, and the clear sunlight shone through the eastern blue and green stained glass windows—the columns bathed in those jeweled citrine and sapphire hues—I was so overcome for a moment I ditched everyone and walked back outside to compose myself. Luckily, I was still wearing my sunglasses.And it only got better: the ceiling of the nave is now the closest thing we have to the firmament on Earth. It is absolutely breathtaking.
Flamenco
I know these flamenco shows scattered around Barcelona are tourist mills, and we had even been to this particular one back during that same fact-finding trip in 2017 when we were scouting for a place in Europe to move. Then, we were seated to the side and further back—it was a small space so I don’t feel we were cheated of a good view. We liked it well enough to recommend it to our friends visiting last week.
This time, we were seated second row, center stage, not four feet from the dancers, and I cannot emphasize enough how the physical sensation of the pounding, driving rat-a-tat of their steps reverberating through your body that close up is…transporting.
During the first woman’s solo—her expressiveness, and the vibration and the music and the wailing notes of the singing—I felt that familiar old catch in my breath, and my eyes went all watery—bloody hell!
Here is The New Yorker documentary, Flamenco Queer, about the gay flamenco dancer, Manuel Liñán, who dances in drag. (Holy shit, I did Cher-hair with a towel when I was a kid, too!)-
Beautiful secrets are what calls those moments in life when we feel a mysterious and intimate connection to something, maybe something people don’t talk about, maybe something taboo. He shares one from his childhood with such aching sadness in a post from his Threshold series, it was the inspiration that got me thinking about all this.He has a number of limited series—I recommend all of them, he is a spectacular writer. Here are a few:
THRESHOLD from the beginning
THE STRANGER ACROSS THE AISLE the inspiration for a sabbatical year
FINISTERRE his EPIC 1000-mile trek on the Camino de Santiago
And my personal favorite, the hilarious THE FOURTH PIP
This week he wrote a scorching indictment of solitary confinement in American prisons titled Even the Vile, and it is a heartbreaking call to action.He says in his byline—“Feel something. Twice a week”—and he delivers.
I’m not sure if this qualifies, but... on more than one occasion I may have teared up during the scene in Cast Away when Wilson (the ball) drifts away from Tom Hanks — it always gets me. It’s way sadder than when he gets home and his wife has remarried 😂
A very enjoyable piece, Troy. The ceiling in cathedral looks amazing! The sapphire lighting is beautiful. And this line had me giggling:
“... and my then boyfriend (now husband) turned to talk to our friends and I felt unobserved for just a moment, I almost started to cry.”
I guess we are all prone to those moments of verklemptness… I can usually keep my sh*t together but music often sets me off. It’s such a pure expression of emotions that I connect with in sometimes surprising ways.