City Lights

I came across one of the best soundtracks in memory from the 2004 movie, In Good Company. The movie itself was solid. I liked it - nice feel-good movie without being overly corny. And, of course, it featured the lovely Scarlett Johansson.

Hoodies are the way to go. 

Anyway, on the soundtrack. The soundtrack gave me the introduction to Iron and Wine - notably, Naked as We Came (interpret that how you will) and, more notably, The Trapeze Swinger. Listen to this in the dark. Don't think about anything else. Just soak in the song. Listen to the lyrics. It'll be worth it. Another song from that soundtrack is David Byrne's "Glass, Concrete and Stone." I hadn't thought of that song in a long time.

Tonight though, I was overlooking the skyline of some country at 10pm. And it was breathtaking. Whoever says that glass, concrete and stone (connection made!) lacks aesthetic qualities needs to have her or his head examined. I wish I could say I took a picture, but the Constant Reader knows how bad I am at all that. Anyway, city lights, when done right, are one of the world's best sights. Don't believe me? Fuck you. I have always loved the city lights on the water (snigger).

Anyway, beyond just the aesthetic of an amalgamation of concrete, glass and stone and lights, I thought also of Jay-Z's line in Empire State of Mind. Side note, I can rap the whole song without referring to lyrics. Just ask me. Anyway, the line goes, "8 Million Stories, out there in the naked." It's essentially what a city is, no? A dense agglomeration of people, all with their own stories, all with their own lives, hoping to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve, fighting every day (for most people at least) hoping just to make it through the week, hoping that one day their efforts will make the lives of their kids better. But like Jay-Z says, "It's a pity half of ya'll won't make it."

I cannot be fairly described as some paragon of humility, despite my best efforts, but I do believe what Jay-Z said, or rapped. In a city of 8 million people, there are 8 million stories. It felt rather peculiar looking down tonight at the city below, seeing the various lights from office buildings, homes, roads, cars whatever and thinking that each person contributing to those lights were living out their own story. Maybe they were rushing home to watch the latest Mad Men episode. Maybe they were taking on another shift as a cab driver to help put food on the table. Maybe they were trying to close a deal in some office. Maybe they had just reeturned from a date. I don't know. But it's quite humbling, I think. When you recall that in the grand scheme of 8 million people, one's life is just that. One. Out of 8 Million.

And the thing is, each of those 8 million stories is unique. Well, nearly all anyway (accounting for siblings who grew up in the same family, attended the same schools etc etc). I have never believed that just because you're unique, you're therefore special as I've made clear before. But that uniqueness is still something that is interesting. If each person is a story, which admittedly appeals to me from a poetic sense, then each unique story makes that person the only person in the world who has lived that tale. I think it's fair to say that hardly anybody is special, but everyone is unique. It's like the following two quotes from Watchmen (by Doc Manhattan):-

"Themodynamic miracles...events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing. And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter...Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air into gold...that is the crowning likelihood. The thermodynamic miracle."

"Yes, anybody in the world...But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget...I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away. Come...dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg. Come, dry your eyes. And let's go home."

I think cities remind us of stuff like that. A collection of stories, each one nearly entirely unique, coming together to try and make things work. It's humbling. Even the most reprehensible person has a story and even the most tame of people has a story. And that's life. And Doc Manhattan says we must remember that.

Speaking of life, may I interest you in a new scientific hypothesis - life began even before the Sun existed. The arguments make sense. Next comes the proof. But this is baller.