Shiny Things
We are shiny things to each other. Musicians on a stage, begging for approval. Powerless, dependent, yet in that powerlessness, that vulnerability, something utterly and totally transcendent and beautiful – if the Wire was about he dialectic of power, everyone always grasping for it and taking it, and losing it, a musician walks the other way – has no interest in power or even riches – just women, wine, and song –
And shockingly, the slow show presents that moment where beauty meets power – power wins of course, but for how long? “We just play the notes,” one says. The players come and go, each playing the song or a song, a song that is as true as algebra and as immortal.
Coupled still again with those little human flaws, those imperfections like fingerprints that are immortal not because they last but exactly because they don’t, because in their uniqueness and inability to be repeated – it will never repeat, says the wiser philosopher – ensure their place and notice in the great pattern of the universe.
And still. We are shiny things to each other. Things to be used, to be savored, to be loved. And we do love being loved. We do love being a shiny thing.
The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees 