Stunning piece of magical realism disguised as slice-of-life. The way the TV listings glitch when he's disrupted is such a subtle reveal of the social contract at work. I grew up in a town with a guy like this, and thereality is people NEED these eccentric anchors more than they admit. When he loses the test card photo, the whol narrative starts unraveling almost immediately.
Thanks — I’m really glad you noticed that. The idea of these figures as quiet anchors, and how much adjusts around them without anyone naming it, is very much at the heart of it for me.
I saw our guy almost every day for four years. Whatever the weather was doing, he was always in shirt sleeves with his cowboy gear. Once he turned up in something closer to a naval dress uniform, and it felt genuinely unsettling — like the pattern had been disturbed.
Like you, I remember how we unofficially adopted him, and kept an eye out for him. I stepped in once when some kids started mocking him. I remember that it felt less like a decision and more like a reflex.
Stunning piece of magical realism disguised as slice-of-life. The way the TV listings glitch when he's disrupted is such a subtle reveal of the social contract at work. I grew up in a town with a guy like this, and thereality is people NEED these eccentric anchors more than they admit. When he loses the test card photo, the whol narrative starts unraveling almost immediately.
Thanks — I’m really glad you noticed that. The idea of these figures as quiet anchors, and how much adjusts around them without anyone naming it, is very much at the heart of it for me.
I saw our guy almost every day for four years. Whatever the weather was doing, he was always in shirt sleeves with his cowboy gear. Once he turned up in something closer to a naval dress uniform, and it felt genuinely unsettling — like the pattern had been disturbed.
Like you, I remember how we unofficially adopted him, and kept an eye out for him. I stepped in once when some kids started mocking him. I remember that it felt less like a decision and more like a reflex.