When I was writing reviews in Hollywood, I was determined to avoid a pitfall I saw even in the most cultured and perceptive reviews- namely, a tendency to synopsize, and a tendency to avoid discussing aesthetics. Synopsizing bores me because what a film is about isn't what makes it good, or interesting; as Roger Ebert famously said, "it's how it's about it." The Godfather is not a good film because it's about mobsters. It's a great film because it universal themes of filial duty, love and death, using richly developed characters and tremendous directing and acting. It elevates the mob movie to the level of myth, with those rich, shadowy brown and gold images, and in its approach becomes a film about the American ideal and what it does to the soul. 

All that will not be conveyed by simply recounting the story points. As well, to try to discuss a film without considering its use of form is a gross oversight. Cinema is a too complex an animal- often, as with To The Wonder below, a tremendous amount of meaning is communicated not through binary elements like dialogue and performance, but through composition, camera movement, choice of angle, color, music, and editing. 

Editing is what separates film from all other art forms and makes film unique- nowhere else can you juxtapose moving images next to each other. Directors know it is the tool for communicating to the audience: by placing one shot after another one, you're creating a third thing- meaning- that wouldn't exist without the juxtaposition.  However, it's also unquestionably the part of the process critics discuss least- most likely because they come from backgrounds other than film (typically journalism or English instead), and either don't fully comprehend its value, or lack the terminology to express it. Sometimes filmmakers make the best critics. Just sayin'!

Listed here are my top three films of 2013, with the links to the remainder of the list below.

1. Le Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) (Sorrentino)

A one-time writer in his sixties lives comfortably in Rome's party scene, finding beauty underneath the surfaces of a chaotic life. Trailer.

Most feel-good movies, like comedies and romantic comedies, or inspirational sports pictures, end on a note that feels temporarily satisfying... and also hollow. We know real life is more complex than what films like these show, and the feeling of goodness they engender passes quickly. 

The Great Beauty, about a still-popular writer (Tony Servillo, regular Sorrentino collaborator) trying to decide if he should write again, ends up being a feel-good film as well, albeit by way of a circuitous route. But the goodness it instils within us is different: it is grounded, and deep. We feel great about life afterwards, not because we've been distracted by falsely hopeful images, but because we feel a truth of fundamental value has been revealed to us. The realization the protagonist experiences at the conclusion stands to me as one of the great moments in film, because it is one of the most valuable insights a person can have in this life. I'd like to give it away so as to discuss it more concretely, but I leave that discovery to you.

I'll instead mention how much the film lives up to its title. Every shot is a marvel of photography, whether through choice of color, composition, or use of light. The sun cascades through an open window, backlighting our hero as he considers writing again for the first time. The frame roves restlessly through rooms and parties, tracking behind children playing in an ancient garden, lie-affirming in its controlled movement and energy. The beauty of the female body seems less exploited than celebrated; the same for the crumbling, dirty metropolis known as Rome. Sorrentino doesn't hide the fact that the city is falling apart, but finds beauty in the textures of passing time. 

The opening party scene is an editing marvel: figures gyrate under strobes of neon, and the images are arranged in sequence that proves hypnotic, combining the fast and the slow, quick glances of faces and gestures leaving an impression long after they've gone. Then there is the music, an expansive compilation of existing works, from Italian pop to Kronos Quartet to Arvo Part. It feels like a tapestry of all the many details of life- not unlike the film as a whole. Sorrentino seems to be seeking to show not a slice of modern life, but aiming for the impossible task of suggesting all of it, as seen through the lens of an older man whose studied perception is just as vibrant as anyone else's- perhaps moreso, because of the nigh-Taoist calm with which he sees it all. 

This picture is a sensual overload, and it closes on a note of quiet joy utterly unique to itself. Far and away the film of the year.

2. To The Wonder (Malick)

A Parisian woman (Olga Kurylenko) moves to Oklahoma, struggling to find happiness while married to her husband (Ben Affleck). A local priest (Javier Bardem) struggles with his faith. Trailer.

In the heady days when auteur theory was first burgeoning forth, courtesy of Andrew Sarris, Truffaut, and others, it was a taken a s point of pride and skill when a director could assert his authorial voice in his films such that you could instantly identify who its maker was. This concept still holds largely true, and I for one believe there's no better definition for a great director. Howard Hawks said it best when Peter Bogdonavich once asked him whhat great direction was: "when you can tell who the devil made it."

When you put on any film by Scorsese, Fellini, Welles, Mann, Antonioni- it doesn't take more than a few minutes to tell who the director is. The confident and dexterous clarity of voice these greats and others possess is, in my mind, the indicator of a great director by the same measure in wchich we evaluate great authors and composers.

Not everyone loves Malick, but everyone will agree that his films are instantly identifiable. His latest is by far his most divisive, but I think it's one of his best. To The Wonder follows a woman's (Kurylenko) relationship with her husband (Affleck) and a priest's (Javier Bardem) relationship to God. Both are searching for- what? happiness, self-realization, peace. Deep, inner satisfaction. 

The film assumes your understanding of the basic plot and chooses to go deeper, dispensing with story and exploring instead the textures of this search. The approach feels both broadly sketched and startlingly intimate (especially in its use of voiceover) at the same time. Definitely the most abstract of Malick's already fairly abstract work, the content of To The Wonder is told mostly through its elliptically sequenced images. Affleck told audiences at Telluride that the film "makes Tree of Life look like Transformers," and indeed, it's a challenging film- but only if you're expecting a normal movie. I say let the images wash over you. The joy of the camera, swinging through the trees in Paris, making tangible the energy of early love; the mystery of the last two shots, which when paired together evoke a loss, but also the calmness of having been found; whispered nothings on the soundtrack, ruminations of lonely people, as they walk around in the corners of the widescreen frame. Don't try to decode everything- let the ideas and sensations work their way into you, right-brain style, of their own accord. Things will click together on your drive home, or a day later.

Suffice it to say that if you're feeling adventurous, and are someone who finds yourself ruminating often on  whether or not love is connected to self-realization, or the existence of God, the frustration of not knowing people who are close to you, or breaking free from doubt... you'll find this film of interest. Certainly there is no more rapturously beautiful film to come out this year- wherever Malick turns his artful gaze, our perspective is transformed by his. Sight & Sound critic Nick Pinkerton writes on the subject better than I can:

"Malick is one of few filmmakers who could, in the space of a few images, go from Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy to a fast-food drive-through in Oklahoma without implying a pejorative judgement about either, dismissing the Old World for the New or vice versa. At one point, Bardem’s priest preaches about the necessary will behind a husband’s conjugal love – “He does not find [his wife] lovely, he makes her lovely” – and Malick similarly does not film things because they are beautiful; they become beautiful because he films them."

Malick, a former Oxford Philosophy professor (he translated Heidegger's Essence of Reasons into English), invests his films with a wisdom of observation that makes the act of watching his films feel valuable- but never in a preachy way, as most of the meat of the picture is not explicit, but implicit in imagery and music.

Pinkerton's full review is one of the best pieces on the film; also insightful is Roger Ebert's- this was the last film Ebert reviewed before dying. Both men offer similar appraisals on the film while coming from very different places, and address some of the concerns brought up by other viewers. Not a film everyone will take to, but one I can't get enough of.

3. 12 Years a Slave (McQueen)

True story of a free black American who was captured and enslaved for twelve years before escaping. Trailer. 

There isn't much to say about Slave that hasn't already been eloquently discussed elsewhere. Steve McQueen's new film is among the more powerful cinematic experiences I've seen in my life. It remains 2013's best-reviewed film, and I find the verdict of the critical community impossible to disagree with. I'll restrict my comments to those I feel are underrepresented in the discussion:

To open the pages of Solomon Northup's book is to be teleported instantly back in time. His memoir of his horrific experiences cuts across the intervening century with unexpected force, and the film, which sources the book heavily, possesses an authenticity I have not encountered in other films about the period. To have this document, written by a highly educated black man who lived through the events, is something approaching a national treasure. It reveals how much artifice there is in other supposedly historically accurate slavery films. 

We know from evidence how much differently language was used in the 1940s as compared to films made in the 1940s; here, we see characters who speak in ways we've never heard in the movies before. The articulateness, the cadence and rhythm- all derive from Solomon's firsthand experience, and as such illuminate the world in ways that startle in their clarity. 

Mr. McQueen's images are muted in their style as compared to his normal approach, but they are still visually compelling. Some reviewers have taken him to task for this, calling the film "too beautiful," but I have to go to sleep when I hear such arguments: using natural lighting in the American south is unavoidably going to give you vivid images. Part of the horror of the film is how such atrocities could occur in such a natural paradise. The distinctly southern landscape shots of the willow trees, sunsets and bayous contrast the horror, and in their containment of slavery help us see the land into how Solomon must've felt when in them: unremittingly ugly, and symbolic of cruelty. 

As for McQueen's sophisticated use of chiaroscuro lighting and visually dynamic compositions, he is not aestheticizing the content, so much as doing his simply job as director- maximizing the potential of the image to be a device for communicating information to the audience. 

For example, note the infamous flogging scene. Patsey, Lupita Nyong'o's character, cannot turn away from the torture inflicted on her; and so neither can we, because McQueen does not cut away at all during the scene, which is filmed in a single unbroken take. Her pain is relentless and without pause, and so then is the language of the camera, not breaking up the scene with edits, using pans instead (it's the only scene in the film with handheld pans). This isn't style overwhelming substance; it's style in the service of substance, making for a more unified and compelling experience. There is absolutely no reason why a film about human tragedy, or any other subject, for that matter, should be visually placid.

Critics who take McQueen to task on this issue are ignoring the inescapable fact of the inherent beauty and texture of the American south, as well as misunderstanding the director's responsibility as truth-teller and skilled visual communicator. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, in other words!

Among cinema's most valid reason for existing is its ability to engender empathy. Few other art forms are as potent in their capacity for getting us to experience the world through another person's shoes. Not everyone possesses this skill, and I think it's invaluable for being a useful member of the world community. There is still tremendous anger and unresolved frustration over slavery, the great and enduring embarrassment of our country. Although this is not an American film, I feel it only fitting that this be required viewing for every American; let it be shown in all the schools, that our children might more clearly understand the conditions of life their ancestors were forced to call commonplace. Slave is the first film about American slavery told from the perspective of a slave. Its journey and insights are deeply and cogently valuable to comprehending the human condition. Perhaps not the best, nor certainly my favorite, but definitely the most moving film I've seen in years. 

The rest of the list:

4. Gravity
5. The Past
6. The Wolf of Wall Street
6. Prisoners
7. Her
7. Fruitvale Station
8. American Hustle
9. Before Midnight
10. Dallas Buyers Club
11. Captain Phillips
12. Mud
13. Inside Llewyn Davis
14. Blue is the Warmest Color

999.99. Nebraska

It's more exciting than a show- it's a tour! 

You're invited to Seattle Art Museum's First Thursday for a FREE 30 minute tour of highlights from SAM's collection, as you've never seen them before- given by yours truly. It'll be an irreverent but loving celebration of SAM's overlooked works. 

Have you missed my artist talks in the past? Here's a video of the speech pictured above, if you haven't seen it already (that one's actually about buses!).

Take a quick detour on your Thursday (March 6th) night plans, and join me from 6:30 to 7 for a tour unlike any given at SAM before!

Details and location here. Hope to see you soon!

At 3rd and Virginia, on my 358: a large African-American man in his fifties gets on. I ask him how he's doing. He's doing fine, and he sits down somewhere behind me. A moment later he comes back up.

"Hey, what's your bus number?"
"Wha-?" I don't know what the coach number is myself. I glance up at the front wall, saying, "it's 2618..."
"Oh no, no!"
"Oh! It's a 358!"
"Tight. Thank you!"
"I was worried for a second there. Thought I was doin' something wrong!" I had thought he wanted my number so he could file a complaint!
"Oh no man, you cool!"  We're both laughing now. 
"I was like, I thought I was doing everything right..."
"It ain' like that! You doin' a great job."

After a moment I ask about his holiday, because what reason is there not to. Together we find new things to share about the weather, the holiday traffic, making it to the end of the week....  Sometimes I wonder if people find it off-putting when I strike up conversation, but I'm surprised at how often- and how willing- people are to open up. You just have to ask.

I wanted to offer a Scott Adams quote which a regular reader was nice enough to share with me:

Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.

"It's gonna be a good year," he says, surfing the wave of our interaction, before disappearing into the melee known as Third and Pike, center of the universe. 

This is the second-to-last installment of my list of unabashedly opinionated top ten films of the year. By "ten" I mean fifteen- don't listen to the naysayers. It's been a great year for film. Hope you enjoy the analyses!

For reference, here's Part One of the list, Part Two, and Part Three.


4. Gravity (Cuaron)

A medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space. Trailer. 

My review, posted on this site in October, is available here.

5. Le Passe (The Past) (dir. Farhadi)

A woman in the process of finalizing a divorce, her husband, her children and her new boyfriend wrestle with pasts that link them all. Trailer.

What I want to impress is how thrillingly engaging Farhadi's films are. Don't pass this one up because the synopsis sounds heavy or serious. The new Jason Segel comedy can wait. There's no one else out there making films as Farhadi does: domestic dramas structured as thrillers, with information and character revealed in layers, keeping us at the edge of our seat. Like a thriller, we can't tear our eyes away, because we feel for these characters as new revelations come to light. 

In terms of urgency, his films go one better than genre thrillers- we're tense not because the information is about a fictional good guy looking for a fictional killer, but rather about humans like ourselves, going through struggles we find intensely relatable, because we are not detectives or serial killers after all, but ordinary people, human beings who deeply and innately understand the crises portrayed onscreen. We sympathize with the characters as we do our friends, because the protagonists have been developed so fully. Why resort to such prosaic devices as villains and plots when there is so much of real life to explore?

Among cinema's best virtues is its potent ability to situate us in the life experience of someone else. Films help us empathize, and it's easiest to do so when the characters are as rounded and dimensional as the people we know in life. Such is the case here.

Farhadi's previous film, A Separation, and his latest are both about couples in the process of separating, but they go about that subject in very different ways. Both films end up being about dramatically more than that single subject, complex though it already is. 

A Separation deals with the frustration of leaving your homeland because of what it's become, while focusing on the many sides of filial, cultural, and religious obligation. The wife in that film wishes for a divorce, that she might move outside Iran and offer a better life for her only daughter. The husband in The Past, on the other hand, has already abandoned his wife and her children in France, to return to his homeland of Iran. The characters in A Separation were on the brink of making big decisions; in The Past, the life-altering choices have already been made, and they must now deal with the messy aftermath. 

Robert Altman once said, "people tell me all the time that they have seen my films, what they really mean is that they have seen them once." In the spirit of that quote, I must admit that I've seen these two pictures only once each, and that is not nearly enough to take in the complexities of all that is explored in each piece. A reader can easily imagine the many facets and directions the above scenarios contain; Farhadi dives into them with thoughtful rigor, directing all his energies to fully realizing the complexities of the contemporary condition. These two pictures remind us what actual life is like, and in their quality make so many other films seem stilted by comparison. 

I will leave discussion of the film's substance to those better qualified. On a single viewing it feels too rich, too large to wrap my hands around. It carries with it the pleasant satisfaction of reading a novel you know you will have to revisit, because of its great depth and skill. With regards to content I will simply say that it contains multitudes. Bejo's performance is enough to move one to tears; Ali Mosaaffa disarms with his uncanny ability to appear effortlessly genuine; and Tahar Rahim once again stuns, nowhere else than in the film's last thirty seconds, which are as profoundly affecting as any scene I've seen this decade.

What I do feel qualified to discuss, however, are Farhadi's aesthetic choices. He moves forward from A Separation's muted, naturalistic color palette to something more vivid here. Greens abound in the midtones, and blacks are deeper; colors are still naturalistic, but they are allowed to bloom in ways they didn't before. Farhadi and regular collaborator Mahmoud Kalari position the camera as objective observer. Though most scenes are told from the perspective of a specific character, the camera doesn't always emphasize this, preferring to stay neutral in the battleground of family tensions. In like fashion, Farhadi avoids using any music until the end of the film, exactly as he did with A Separation. 

His choices seem to be all about minimizing artifice, and letting the content speak for itself; he aims thus for an aesthetic that isn't flashy, but not banal either. The measured, precise editing and carefully considered mise-en-scene are too good to call this an actor-centric piece. Compositions emphasize observations of performance- unspoken thoughts on characters' faces, reactions during dialogue spoken by others. Natural light is used more heavily in The Past, to great effect. Farhadi continues his preoccupation with reflections, and there is a terrific steadicam tracking shot following Rahim off a train, onto a platform, out of the platform area and back into it as he searches for his son.

At the end of the day, though, this isn't a film strong on style. It astounds by virtue of the content's overwhelming ability to compel, and through its quietly devastating and carefully considered realities. There is great wisdom in the observations made in this picture.


6. The Wolf of Wall Street (Scorsese)

A look at the lifestyle of mid-90s stockbroker Jordan Belfort, from his perspective. Based on Belfort's Memoir. Trailer.

"...[T]here are more and more billionaires popping up every day, and you often wonder, 'Okay, what is their contribution to the world?' When are we going to take that crossroads where they actually have a concern for anyone except themselves? ... Because, to me, this attitude of what these characters represent in this film are ultimately everything that's wrong with the world we live in."

-Leonardo DiCaprio

Okay. There's a lot I want to get off my chest about this one. Here goes:

When the dust settles, Martin Scorsese's Wolf will be remembered as the film of our time. The other films on this list may be more immediately satisfying or obviously brilliant, but Wolf challenges us with uncomfortable truths, and lays bare a hypocrisy most would wish to turn away from. The villain of the piece is not the protagonist, but the individuals in the last shot (which is discussed here)- a society that doesn't just choose to allow such monsters to exist, but who also wish to follow in their stead. The great horror of Wolf is that its entertainment and comedy are not at odds with its social indictment.

Scorsese's masterstroke here is what he chooses to leave out. From the opening moments, we're aware of a complete lack of any moral center. No mention of this absence is made, but as the film goes on, we're bombarded with a sensory overload of everything but that, and the longer this behemoth of a picture continues, the more conspicuous that absence is, until finally it's the only thing we're thinking about. 

When, near the film's end, Belfort for the first time performs an action for someone other than him, the action is jarring and noticeable (and, ironically, what ends up landing him in custody). Scorsese has said that it would be too comforting to impose morality or judgment on the characters inside the film; doing so would suggest that the problem has been solved. It hasn't. It's up to the audience to awaken and impose those perceptions in life. This is a film about characters too far gone to understand the consequences or context of their actions. 

In this manner, the conference in which Belfort and co. discuss the what's appropriate to do to hired midgets at a work party functions as the film's whole in a capsule: the characters are unaware of the absurdity of how they're thinking. Wolf is told from the perspective of the characters themselves, and as such it has no place to objectively comment on its portrayals. It's up to us to perceive that. Scorsese expects us to be intelligent. I would hope that any audience would be sharp enough to not have to be told how to evaluate the moral content of the stockbrokers' actions. Is it so important to judge? We can go further by trying to understand the headspace these characters live in, the contempt people in money culture have for others, and more firmly decide where we stand.

Those familiar with Scorsese's ouvre knows of his fascination with the downtrodden, the marginalized, the unscrupulous- what the rest of the world calls "bad guys." He casts his disciplined eye on these nefarious types with compassion. One of the great hallmarks of Scorsese is that his characters, like real human beings, do not experience radical transformations or grand character arcs. Like most people, his characters don't change. At the films' conclusions, they've hardly learned anything- but we certainly have, watching them and their behavior. Wolf takes this approach to a nigh-unwatchable extreme. There is no character in his filmography more selfish, or with less scruples. Wolf is the work of someone deeply dissatisfied with society, and who has something to say about it with urgency.

I don't wish to dwell too much on the manufactured "controversy" over the film; the picture speaks for itself.  Most of the rumblings seem to be coming from those unfamiliar with Scorsese's approach to character, but even without that it should be a logical conclusion that a film about mysogynists needs to show mysogny. There's a difference between depicting an action and endorsing it. We are confronted with an attitude that is very wrong, and the lack of commentary or closure within the text of the film induces us all the more to take action, or at least reconsider our perspective, in life. We have to provide the closure.

Some cinema historians posit that in the history of film, portrayals of strong, independent women in film happen most often during eras of great gender inequality, and as conditions for women have improved, depictions of them in film have gotten lazier. There are enough examples that fit this trajectory to lend it some credence (ask any serious female actor which decades had the best roles!). 

However, there are numerous exceptions to this general trend, and Wolf is among them. Who looks bad at the end of the picture? Unlike the men, who combust under the film's withering gaze, most of the female characters get away clean. They are not mere enablers, or defined only by their relationship to men- you'd be surprised how many films do exactly this, without going much further. Belfort's two wives are individuals who think for themselves, and use their own (very different) ways to keep the marriage afloat and ultimately take care of themselves. Scorsese seems interested by this dynamic: this is his third film about long, troubled marriages ruined by character flaws that were there all along.

At the end of the day, there are only three moral anchors in the picture: Belfort's first wife in the film's first act, Belfort's father (Rob Reiner) in the second act, and Kyle Chandler's FBI agent in the third. It is Chandler who gets the last laugh riding home on the F train, defiantly unswayed by Belfort's tempting life, "worth more than the whole damn bunch put together," to quote a similarly-themed work.

Rob Reiner is the lone voice of reason. Like Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons, another story about characters who lose their souls without realizing it, the authorial moral stance on the film's characters is verbalized only once. As mentioned earlier, Mr. Scorsese expects us to be paying close attention. We have to supply the missing puzzle pieces.

No one's talking about the craftwork  in this picture right now, probably because of how volatile the subject matter is. I can't help but put in a good word for Marty's below-the-line talent, however, which helps the film be the masterpiece that it is. Most controversial films (I'm excluding horror here) also happen to be incredibly well-made; if they weren't, well, they wouldn't be controversial. They'd just be bad. A Clockwork Orange, Natural Born Killers, The Wild Bunch, The Public Enemy, Last Temptation of Christ, Night of the Hunter, Blue Velvet, Antichrist, Birth of a Nation... don't tell me any one of these aren't astonishing aesthetic and technical achievements. Wolf is no different on that front.

As usual, Thelma Schoonmaker's editing is aces, and the long months she and Marty put into every one of their films together always shows onscreen. Here, they take a different rhythm than their typical accelerated, high-density approach. While the pace is still rapid, shots roll for longer, to accommodate the improvisatorial mode of acting Scorsese and his actors opted for here. Shots last onscreen for no longer than they take to communicate the information their intended to offer, as per Scorsese's normal M.O., but many dialogue scenes are accomplished with less angles and simpler setups, allowing the improvisations to be captured. 

Nevertheless, there are still plenty of highly designed shot sequences, and Scorsese and Schoonmaker continue their habit of dispensing with the beginnings and ends of scenes in the final film. The film may be three hours, but it feels like four hours squeezed into three (and it is, interestingly; read this in-depth interview with Schoonmaker for lots more on the film and their working relationship).

Working with Scorsese for the first time is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's (Babel) regular cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, best identified by his high-grain images and love of rich, filmic colors. Though Scorsese had intended to shoot the film digitally, he and Prieto opted for film instead because of its superior ability to capture skin tones and general color nuance. Digital was reserved for low-light situations. 

Early scenes in Wolf are deliberately flatter and reduced in depth of field, to suggest Belfort's lack of confidence and direction in those moments. Later on prime lenses are used and diffusion filters removed for more pristine clarity, and colors become more defined. Prieto pushes the negative a stop in some scenes for greater grain and contrast. Elsewhere he uses daylight film stock under tungsten-balanced flourescents for an amber hue. 

When Belfort hits his stride in a big way, working in massive offices and commanding entire floors of stockbroker minions, Scorsese opts for "wide focal lengths, deep focus, white light, vibrant contrast and quick, defined camera moves.” Certain shots in the quaalude sequences were shot at 12fps and double-printed for a slow-shutter look. 

These visual pyrotechnics are a pleasure to behold for photographers and non-photographers alike. One gets the sense of a carefully designed work, where all the tools of the craft are being harnessed to being communicate a lot of information. Rather than relying entirely on dialogue, Wolf, like so many other great films, maximizes the potential of the medium to overload us with information. There is so much thought put into the frame- the decision for the camera angle and composition, the aesthetic qualities of the image, the mise-en-scene, the performances (I'd write about how this is DiCaprio's best performance in an already great career, but I think that goes without saying), the music... watching great films sometimes reminds me of driving the bus. Both are a complete deluge of data, to be processed and considered, and enjoyed.

It's that kid again, the one with the observant eyes. I've had a chance or two to chat with him in the interim. He is Amad, dressed in ordinary, low-profile garb for someone his age. No flashy bling or starched denim- just a regular dark gray hoodie, not baggy, and jeans that fit. He's coming home from school- it's late afternoon on the 4, several hours after the schools have let out. Absent-mindedly I wonder what he was doing hanging around for so long before going home. 

"Hope it was a good day at school," I say.

I like to engage the young folk, to give them the example that yes, strangers can and do talk to each other. As a youngster, such opportunities can be strangely absent, particularly if you're not employed; you may spend years of adolescence talking only to peers and adults in environments you already know.

"It was alright," he responds. 
"Kinda late to be gettin' outta school."
"Yeah. I stayed late to get my homework done."
"Oh, right on." My mind was in Parent Mode, automatically worrying he was up to no good. "That's a good idea. Get it out the way."
"Yeah, then I can jus' go home, don't have to worry about it."
"Don't have to worry about it, exactly. And it makes more sense, do school when you're at school, then go home forget about it. Like keepin' home life and work life separate."
"Plus it keeps me from procastinatin.' And it's easier to think about school when I'm there."

He's young, eleven or twelve tops, but his mellow and open demeanor suggests an intelligent humility in which you almost feel outmatched. I like feeling outmatched. It means I can learn something. 

"And then maybe you don't have to carry all them heavy textbooks around," I'm saying.
"Oh we don't carry no textbooks anymore." 
This is news to me.  I'm incredulous. "Hang on. What?"
"Yeah, it's all digital now. You download it at the start o' the semester. Put it on your iPhone. They give us all iPads to use during class."
"I don't believe it. They give people iPads? Man, I musta carried twenty pounds a textbooks every day..." 

I suppose I sound like my Grandmother once did, when she told me how she rode a wagon every morning to school. Amad and I marvel at each other, sharing amazement. They don't even turn in papers anymore, he continued. You just email your teacher. Compared to my experience it seems like unadulterated decadence...and a continuation of generational disconnects going all the way back to- well, you can imagine a Australopithicene father complaining to his son about everything he had to do before there were stone tools. To myself I wonder, what's normal to Amad? What will he tell his children? That he had to lug around those clunky iPhones every day, which weighed almost five backbreaking ounces? 
 
"I wonder about cars and driving in future," I say. 
"Man, the way things are going soon people won't even walk."
"Oh! Don't say it!"
"Man, in twenty years this job won't even exist."
"Oh, that hurts!"
He's smiling.
"I'm a miss it though. I love it so much."
"Yeah, but you'll still need a bus driver for, for the, uh,"
"Interaction?"
"Yeah! That's the word I was gonna use. Interaction."
"I sure hope so,"
"'Cause people be wantin' the customer service,"
"The back and forth between real people,"
"Yeah, uh mean, you gotta have that."
"Man, I am happy to hear you say that. It is important."

It was clear he thought this was a crucial component of life. What was normal to him, I imagined, must be a world in which information and communications technology reigns supreme, a part of every action in life and a wonderful time-saving, streamlining- and alienating- buffer for all everyday activity. I was not quite correct. 

Somehow, this boy understood that despite the wall-to-wall technological barrage he's growing up in, there is something undeniable about tactile, direct human interaction. The elemental straightforwardness of it. We humans possess a profound yearning to reach out and touch each other. The buried desires, dreams of validity and self-realization touched by the sound of a voice facing you, by the awakening glance of eye contact. Somehow it feels natural to keep that flickering flame alive.

This post also available on The Urbanist.

This piece is a follow-up of sorts to two writeups from last year, "(Hopefully Not) The Last Day I Drove the 358," Parts One and Two.

Her black baseball hat has some sort of lettering on it, black calligraphy on a black background. She tosses in the correct amount of coins for youth fare, shoulder-length curls framing clean olive skin and tastefully dark make-up.

"What does your hat say?"
"Actually, it says cunt."
"Oh. Awesome," I responded. "Bein' bold!"

Why did I say her cunt hat was awesome? Because a silent response would carry a meaning that wouldn't be true. Silence would too easily be misconstrued as judgment. She's trying to stretch the muscles of her identity, searching for herself in the far corners of adolescent expression, and in that respect her boldness is an inquiry to be commended. I'm excited for when she settles a little, relaxing into her being, able to calmly touch the shapes of who she is. She's taking part in the great search, and that is awesome.

I'm on my last trip of the last day of the 358, and I'm having a blast.

Earlier there was a runner, moving slowly, hurrying as best he could toward my first outbound stop at Second and Main. How could I refuse anyone on the last day? I'm Don Corleone, and it's my daughter's wedding. The runner turned out to be someone I knew- Ken, a shorter African-American gent in his forties, always with a ready smile. He's general manager of a restaurant in Pioneer Square, and they're in the process of renovating the building. We make the turns gently on Main and Prefontaine, and he's telling me about an unfortunate hospital incident which led to his temporary inability to run for the bus. He's still smiling though, busy as ever, and seems excited to find a seat and relax into the cocoon of a nice, long ride home.

I take it slow up Third. I want to get overloaded today.
"Hope you have a lot of tissues for everyone," says an older gentleman boarding at Union.
"I know! I'm about to burst into tears myself!"

At Denny a woman in her twenties gets on. She seems uncharacteristically haggard, but excited by my attitude. I ebulliently announce the upcoming changes ("Starting tomorrow this'll be called the E Line. E is for excellent."), and we're on our way up Aurora, merging with the afternoon madness of Friday traffic. I step outside the bus briefly to make sure that man over there, slumped over on the stack of tires, isn't dead. He's been there several hours. A woman deboarding at this stop stays around to check up on him, without giving it a second thought. I marvel at the global sense of family out here. 

Later, at 46th, another older gentleman looks at me, accosting me with: "Okay. This isn't gonna work. I'll be needing to see some I.D."

"You found me out!"
"Don't tell me you're of legal driving age."
"Definitely not. I have a ways to go."
"Well, you've got the edge, being young," he says seriously.
"Me? Nooo! You've got the wisdom, right?"
"Well, the trouble with having the wisdom is, nobody listens to you. I got four kids, and they don't hear a word I say."
"That's their loss," I respond. "Instead of listening to you they'll have to make a bunch of mistakes to get to the same conclusion." Inwardly I'm thinking, as true as that may be, it's unavoidable. In a way, we need this problematic aspect of existence. Our emotions and experiences feel new to us, though they've been undertaken by untold billions of others; love, joy, and pain are older than time, but they feel real when they happen to us. Would we really want it any other way?

"Exactly," he said, in response to what I'd said aloud. I didn't feel the need to voice my thoughts.
"How old are your kids?"
"What? Oh. They're forty-one, forty, forty-two. Forty-four."
"Okay. I'm sure you're proud of them."
"Oh, yeah."
"I wonder about that sometimes. Having kids. Often I'm not sure that I want to."

We've never met, but somehow it feels natural to quickly shift gears into a meaningful, personal discussion. Sometimes that's possible with intimate family- and, curiously, with strangers. He's telling me his fears of the dangers the world contains today, and I'm telling him how ill prepared I feel to tell others how to live, when I'm still struggling to work that out for myself. I want to tell him the world has always been a dangerous place, but we deal with it. Someone else chimes in, telling me we're always trying to figure things out, figuring out how to exist. But we deal with it. We're considering the angles, finding ways to agree with each other, and then a mob gets on and our older friend retreats with the incoming tide.

It's a continual game of shifting gears. I find it exhilarating- each of these unique lives, with a contrasting set of concerns, each of us in a different space in life. A close friend recently told me no matter what sort of attitude a person confronts us with, we can realize we've experienced a similar frame of mind, or at least a similar root that could've led to comparable emotions. Through the stream of these wildly disparate parts of life I'm being confronted with, I realize we've all experienced similarities over the course of our lives.

Three Big Brothas (not the Orwellian variety) come up from the back to address me. The leader is walking a touch slowly.
"Listen boss." Bawss. 
"Hey!"
"I was wondering I coul' ask you a favuh."
"Sure thing."
"I got to ask you fo'a courtesy stop jus' pass 117th. We got to check out this motel tha's right there."
"Today only, my friend! I be happy to."
"Man thank you. 'Cause I know after this you don't stop until,"
"125th,"
"125th, yeah." Then, quietly, he adds: "my hip is sprung."

On hearing that my thoughts from a moment before are reinforced. This man doesn't know it, but Ken, the restaurant manager sitting a few rows back, is also having hip problems. That's why he wasn't able to run up to my bus as he normally can.

"No worries, man. Happy I could help."
"Ah appreciate choo."

They go back to the back lounge, and I make the announcement: "okay folks, we're going to make an extra stop tonight, just to be nice, far side a 117th right here, 117th. I got to ask us to use front door only here, front door only, watch your step tonight..."

Each of the three brothas thanks me from the heart. The last one, tall and skinny with corn rows, ducking his head to avoid hitting the ceiling, has in his eyes a gratefulness I only occasionally see even in people I know well. Maybe because he knows he may not see me again, the emotion is allowed to be an outpouring. I feel humbled; what a complete privilege it is to be here. There is the sensation of something tactile being built in such moments. Stewardship, global and real, budding in the dirty blue shadows. Everything starts somewhere. "Tha' guy's hella cool," I hear somebody muttering outside as I close the doors.

The uncharacteristically haggard young lady from Denny comes forward. I say uncharacteristically, though I see her only rarely, because her sad look appears out of place on a face built for smiling. Periodically I had glanced in the mirror, noticing her taking in the ride.

I ask, "how was your day today?"
"Oh, it was okay."
"Like a seven out of ten, maybe?"
"Wha-?"
"Or six out of ten? You know, grading it on a scale-"
"Oh yeah, like maybe a seven."
"Seven can be good."
"I guess."
"That's a C. That's a passing grade."
"It's passing," she says, smiling.
"Yeah, seven can be pretty awesome. Are you ready for the weekend?"
"Oh my goodness, definitely."
"You and me both! There we go," I say, pulling up to the stop. "Treat yourself to something nice tonight."
"I will." She seems rejuvenated by the idea. "Thank you!"

Ken himself comes up at 145th. Before he's even at the front I'm already talking to him: "Restaurant mus' be busy tonight! Valentine's!"
We get back to the renovations he'd been discussing. I've been to his establishment before, and can picture the layout.

"How's all that goin'?"
"Slow, man, slow."
"I remember you said there was all kinds a red tape, 'cause it's- is it a Historical?"
"Yup, it's classified as a Historical (building). But lemme tell you, when we took out the floor of the stage and seen what was underneath, I couldn't believe those last couple a bands didn't bust through the floor!"
"It was that bad!"
"Oh, the amount of wood that was rotting, everything falling apart,"
"You're a pro though! I know you're gonna make it look beautiful!"
"Thanks. Hey, I'ma get off at Walgreens here tonight, go look for something for the wife."
"Lookin' for somethin' pink, right?"

We cackle with laughter and do a great big handshake.
"Happy Valentine's day!"
"You too, happy Valentine's day!"

At the end of it all the cunt hat girl steps out, the last passenger of the evening. The bus's signage changes automatically to "North Base," having displayed "358 to Aurora Village" for the very last time.

"Have a really good night," I say to her in a meaningful tone.
"Thanks! You too!"

It felt important to me to get that last exchange out. I wanted her to know there are people who don't look down on her, and that I certainly wasn't judging her for her 358-appropriate hat. It's a frame of mind we can all relate to.