June 9th. 6PM
We met at Solitas for Tacos and Margaritas. Me and Christopher Nolan. He went to film school, and that’s his dad’s name, and that’s his grandpa’s name. I guess he’s trapped in a name. So we sat down for tacos and margaritas, while I told him about the super weird conversation I had with an older woman who talked to me in a coffee shop that day. He began his conversation, and off he went. I did the thing where I ask more details about his day and stories, but he kept going off. Christopher Nolan really enjoys France, though he can’t speak French really well. He told me about Marquis de Sade’s house, and I nodded. Maybe I talked about my drone a bit when he asked. And he talked about, as context to a longer story that he never really got to, his trip to Japan and exactly what his commute looked like: which trains and which bakeries he stopped at—but you couldn’t eat food on the train, so he had to sneak it, risking a fine that would cost the equivalent of $625. We ate tacos. He asked for another margarita—I told him that I’m lightweight, so I wouldn’t. Christopher Nolan drives a mini cooper.
We walked to my car, but Christopher Nolan was worried about the 90-minute parking limitation, so we drove to another part of the parking lot, then off to the beach. I’ll give him another shot, I thought, as we drove. I played some music.
“What type of music are you into,” I asked. “All music,” Christopher Nolan said. I played my trance music playlist from the Baka Forest People. He didn’t seem into it, but I think he feigned interest. Like everyone who says, “all music:” they can tolerate it, but I don’t think they’re into it.
I talked about trance as a weird thing that I studied for a bit. I found this band in an academic paper, I said. And I threw on another song that has the same structure of trance music—he said he listened to classical, so I threw on some Nils Frahm’s “Says.”
He talked about how it was so cool that in music, you could take a theory and make a song out of it. And I asked if that got a bit formulaic—that you could automate music based on theory (now, thinking, is this pop music?) and he said, “no no imagine the theory as tools you can use and apply to music,” and I said, “I’ve been thinking about this subject for the past week, so I’ll give you some of my thoughts, but it might be too much,” and he said “oh cool,” and I told him how art fluctuates between intellectual, as concept pieces that break the theory, and the more emotional pieces that apply the theory, and that this is kind-of a constant tension. And I said, “because what even counts as art?” as we drove, in the dark, by a school. Then past it.
“Does that lamp post count as art?” I asked, and he replied, “yes because someone took the time to craft it,” and I thought “oh no,” and asked him “well why not that tree? Why do we appreciate it differently than an art piece?” and he was like “ah you’re speaking of a divine artist,” and I said, “no, I’m a bit more viewer-centric in my evaluation of an art, because if you were to stand right in front of a piece of art, what would differentiate it for you, as a viewer, from the window of the building you just walked into? Or, really, a tree? Why even have museums at all?” and Christopher Nolan said, “well because the GREATS invented the RULES, so you go to see the greats at a MUSEUM, before you break the rules” and I sat there immediately angry and frustrated at a stupid appeal to tradition. Because once you break the rules—and I tried to say this, but it was one of those points where he answered the question definitively and I didn’t want to argue—once you break the rules, you look back at tradition as if it’s fragmented and broken, I think. And I didn’t go this far, but for as long as you continue to appeal to a tradition for rules to break, then you never really leave that tradition, you’re never actually really breaking the rules, but you’re reinforcing their opposite. Too deep for a first date.
I parked the car and we walked on the pier. A quick lap, I thought. I was bored. He pointed out the lights on the pier to me, saying something about photographic symmetry? Not even leading lines…which is what they would have been from the camera’s perspective. He talked about how he told his yearbook friends to take good pictures following the good rules of art, like rule of thirds, and I could not let this happen anymore.
“You know,” I said, “I used to work at a camp. And I was a photographer at the camp. I think I was pretty crazy there cuz I would always take pictures—well, that was my job—but there was this guy named Turk. I shot his wedding. But he would always talk about shutter speed and aperture and leading lines and rules of thirds. He was in film school and would always refer to the rules. And I would always be frustrated, because you can’t just impose rules on a photograph and expect it to be ‘good.’ But Turk would tell me how great my photos were because of the 'rule of thirds,' and I would say, 'I don't even think I followed the rule of thirds??' Instead of the rules, you have to just put some effort in—that’s all it requires—you just put a tiny bit of effort and think of composition a tiny bit and boom, you get a photo that’s not bad.”
“And in other countries, for example, you have different compositional rules. Rule of fourths is a thing apparently, so you can’t just say that your own rule of thirds makes ‘good art,’ because then you’re gonna neglect the good art that exists following the rule of fourths. It’s not about the rules.”
“But here’s what you do. This is the only thing you do. You find artists that you like and you say, ‘what do I like about their vibe? What do I want to do that’s different? and you do it.”
He said, “of course you find inspiration.” And we walked on the pier, him with random thoughts that just came to his mind, and I silently walked. I thought of how we could have such similar interests, but such a different approach that the interest was not at all the same; absolutely opposite interests accidentally expressed in the same medium.
I walked us immediately back to the car. I told him I had to pee, and refused to go anywhere but my own home. And he told me about how all his family had mini coopers. He started listing the history of his family’s mini coopers and all of their colors and I stood there almost laughing because it was like a genealogy in the bible, and it felt like a fever dream that this whole night was still going, where I was so comfortably detached. He said he really enjoyed the time, and I thought, “you fell into the trap where I sit here silently and you talk constantly and you fall in love with something of your own making.”
We made out in the car for a while because he said he was not leaving without a kiss, and I told him I had to pee. But we did make out. I asked him his favorite band, and he said he does not have one—which, in my mind, is a red flag, because it assumes a whole lot of other things—but he said he used to like Iron and Wine’s song that started with a “U.” So I played it, leaning back in the seat, and staring up at the ceiling.
I told him how people usually stare up at the stars, and that gets people all feely and existential, but I said you don’t need that. He said, “all you need is the ceiling,” and I was not in the mood to laugh because he was not funny, so I corrected him, “all you need is a window. It does the same thing.” I switched subjects, staring out the foggy window of my car, to how this Iron and Wine song made me feel like I was back at camp, where I would drive up and down the mountains during my time off, through the pines and under the stars, or on the field, with this song on. He said it sounded nice. I enjoyed the experience, forgetting Christopher Nolan. Then I left to pee.