Flirting Life

Wrote about the urban wink and nudge for the last issue of Toronto Fashion magazine. A month after my deadline, I finally rented and watched Waking Life and became irked after discovering a germane little moment in the film that would have been perfect for the article. And so, to partially rectify my inability to ingest the must-see movies of my generation at a reasonable rate, I offer a transcription of the encounter in question. Backstory: the main character is walking down some steps to get to the subway, and he bumps into an ascending woman. They both say excuse me and continue burrowing. Then the woman turns and stops and says:

Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven’t met but I don’t want to be an ant, you know? I mean it’s like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. Here’s your change. Paper or plastic? Credit or debit? Want ketchup with that? I don’t want a straw, I want real human moments.

Amen!