March 1, 2010

• So, a friend of mine posted some pictures recently of her trying on different clothes; I happened to notice because I'm stalker-ish (new Xanga ish site, perhaps?), as you all know (it's a peer-to-peer service, so I'm allowed that, to an extent; in fact, I'm practically invited to be so). And, well, it caught my eye, to use the old circumlocution.

  Which, you know, in its own ways, is problematic for me. As you all know (or certainly should by now: I've spatted off at the mouth about the notion well enough times (it's good to see my old dry, hyperbolic sense of humor back)), I'm quite opposed to the notion of physical beauty. For a variety of reasons, number one being that it's not worked for and betrays the importance of character regularly, I try to exclude it in my daily judgments and perceptions. Impossible, of course, and difficult to do, I admit this.

  But, if we're to run a route of difference in making sense why this picture caught my attention, I usually find more run-of-the-mill clothing attractive-enhancing (jeans, sweats, hoodies, tennis/gym shoes). And, of course, she wasn't trying on jeans, for I don't know many people who find a desire to take pictures of themselves trying on denim.

  Even if we exclude the fact I try to ignore physical attractiveness, if it isn't the clothes making the pictures stick out, it can't be just her because then there wouldn't be a difference between these pictures and any others of her.

  And then, looking more at the "bigger picture" (awful pun half-intended), it's a little more than that. It's the way she looks, how she barely makes actual eye contact in the mirror. I've been using this word a lot lately, but it so fittingly works for pictures (this interest in graphics and their representations is bound to run me trouble later down the road) - it's iconic. Just by virtue of the way she holds herself, the facial expressions - it says so much more than other things can really capture (forgive the pitifully inadequate description, in spite of its coincidence).

  While only a relatively small portion of a representation of the personality, it adds an intriguing aspect to this already intriguing girl.

  And I'm tempted to comment something like, "Oh my..." or "Damn..." But then what is the secondary response? To be honest, Beautiful runs already across a certain, particular concept. And that's not what I'm getting at. Because while, trust me, her picture stopped me well enough in my tracks for a long enough linger to constitute a potent force, it isn't the way her genes just happened to luckily turn out that caught my attention. And yet it's something so blatantly particular of her. You'd be hard pressed to find someone able to invoke similar expressions and stance (quite as you'd be hard pressed to find something else like her); it invokes, in its own way, her personality - and clearly this personality is distinctive enough to stop me just based on the way she was holding her body, the way she actually looked back at the picture. It's a big part of why I want to get to know her better.

  So I just find myself thinking, it's a shame we don't have adequate words for so starkingly complex sublimity.

  • 6:17 pm
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