Call Me By Your Name did something to me. It tapped on my fears and fed on a part of me well known to be sensitive in most humans. The thing about the film is the story of how we came to watch it and how the events of my external world unfolded just before and after.

We watched the film in three sittings. I was very excited initially because of the reviews, the academic world undertones and of course of the beautiful setting in north Italy (which for some reason I believed to be France). Also, yours humbly has been lately obsessed with love stories, to be honest. I really yearn to be washed by the unique and heartbreaking ones. I still believe the genre has much to give, much to tell. And I’ve been on the lookout for them. Recently got myself a copy of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe for example. The first two sessions were a time when I was surrounded by someone among my friends falling for each other for which, my girlfriend and I, were really excited about. By the time we watched the final part of the film and witnessed the gentlest and hardest heartbreak, things between our friends were not going as we wished to at all. The weird thing about these things are, an another relationship blossoming around us brought a feeling of freshness to our own and the stalling of it taught me it’s overlooked value, fleeting, fragile and subtle.

Last night, while we had been to the mall and waiting for my order of falafel to get ready I concluded a discussion with “I guess I’m not comfortable in my own body”. What my girlfriend pointed out about this is something I have been wondering about. She rolled her eyes and told me to cut the media bullshit. To cut the film lines and overblowing things which were quite simple. It does not require to be a psychologist or artist dissecting everything to live a daily existence. She told me she wondered if our parents would have said something like that ever in their lives or ever will.

A singular motto of this project has been to CUT THE BULLSHIT which has so crept up in my writing. And it always seems like I write based on an idea of how I should write instead of an inner subtlety or urgency. In a similar way, it feels necessary to cut the bullshit from my own daily life and live it not as the advertisements, the movies or any other media tells me to but connect with things, humans most of all. It becomes urgent not to let our experience be second-hand as in an influence according to which we might be consciously or unconsciously behaving but let all experience be raw. To live first hand. The metaphysics of communiction I used to call it.

See you tomorrow,
Avi.