On Freedom, Take II
The feeling of being free is one I now know to be fleeting, its sheen never brighter than the sharpness of the world that cuts back.
The Concession Conundrum
But what this anecdote reveals to me upon reflection is not the gleeful victory of one consumer against the upcharging corporate hegemon nor a testament to my sleight of hand.
Thunderbolts* (2025): A Strangely Tender Return to Competence
What Thunderbolts* represents is faith rewarded, a return (even briefly) to a tradition of blockbuster competence that seemed lost to a proliferation of nightmarishly digital and dumbly unfunny slop.
The People Onscreen
We reach out towards it and it reaches back.
How to Cope With the End of Cinema
Minutes after it concludes, six Letterboxd reviews ranging from half to one-and-a-half stars appear in rapid succession.
![On Film for Invisible Ink, Case No. 142: ABBREVIATION FOR DEAD WINTER [Diminished by 1,794] (David Gatten, 2008)](https://thepostcalvin.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tpc-Jan-cropped.jpg)
On Film for Invisible Ink, Case No. 142: ABBREVIATION FOR DEAD WINTER [Diminished by 1,794] (David Gatten, 2008)
While nearly everything we see is not reducible to merely perceptual phenomena, all of it is at a minimum a perceptual phenomena.
Outtakes From a Year of Musical Exploration
Look, sometimes pop music is good at its job.
Rethinking Sensation (or, Mary Oliver Revisited)
To be clear, I have nothing against Mary Oliver.
My Dream
There are days when it seems that all I can think about are people who have seemingly moved on from me.
It Doesn’t Have to Make Sense
I like hiking, earthy tones and station wagons—should I go full granola?
On Freedom
I have only been told that I am free, but not what that is for.
At Pickerel Lake Again
I don’t talk as much as I used to on these walks.
Tortured Poets and Patient Artistry
One views art as a platform by which they speak, the other sees it as a process by which a voice is explored and perhaps revealed.
Down the Aperture
I want to believe it was by accident.
What Is Your Purpose?
There’s no reason to think that the thing we are doing now, or might be doing in the future, isn’t the thing we could be best at.
Top Fives in Moviegoing, 2023
Look for this one come the Oscars (not that they matter).
Letting Myself Love Friends
I try not to take Letterboxd too seriously, but I do anyway.
At Pickerel Lake
I think everyone should be allowed to have a few things on their mind, so long as they get sorted out eventually.
The Current War (2019): Review Retrospective
It seems something has shorted in its circuitry.
At the Gate to the Rest of the World
I’m trying to capture the same curiosity that led forty-two men westward to see what exactly the world was that unfurled for miles ahead of them.
A Trip Down the Memory Expressway
I imagine telling my story to someone; spin a future where there wasn’t a pandemic anymore, and I wasn’t working at a warehouse anymore, and I wasn’t alone anymore.
