Everything is collapsing. The senators are insider trading. The algorithm is relentlessly selling the most tepid, flavorless version of your life back to you. The last remaining industries are meal delivery apps, “cloud software,” and threadbare money laundering schemes. Your account has been deducted a fee and you’re just now hearing about it for the first time. We fluctuate between rage and limp nihilism and back again, and while this column won’t fix that, it will provide you with a small good thing to appreciate, a recognition of something weird and valuable and beautiful, despite it all.
Behold Al Pacino in Beverly Hills, in an outfit that looks like it was assembled with pieces from three different sized people, clothes that are three different shades of black, a shoelace untied and dragging on the concrete, a total disregard for an aesthetic of any kind, never heard of it, not my business. No AirPods, no synthetic fabric luxury brand athleisure wear, just a kinked headphone cord dangling, tan cheeks and sunglasses, moving with a little halting bounce past remote-operated Rich People gates, open wide so Porsche SUVs can come and go. The grass is clipped short like a golf course fairway. He crosses behind the giant trunks of the palm trees and back into sight, pausing to find the right song and eye the progress wheel before he starts moving.
