it’s been a few weeks since i saw the documantary film the cruise, and i can’t stop thinking about it. i think it’s the best film i’ve seen in a long time.

it concerns an unforgettable new york city tour guide named timothy “speed” levitch, who rides a double-decker bus and every day brings the rubberneckers through not just manhattan, but himself. the journey, or cruise, is everything and i came away from this film absolutely in love with levitch, the film’s director bennet miller, and again with manhattan.

speed, if you ever read this, i want you to know that i too have stared up at the towers of america’s 20th-century fever-dream, microphone in hand, charged with the responsibility to interpret the mass madness to $17.00 ticket-holders. the cowshit surrounding my chicago makes prolific building material, a target-rich environment for pathos, bathos, high drama, low urges and the most unimaginable tensions. i too must speak in explosions to have any hope of portraying this place’s lessons. yet, before you, i am briefly silent in greatest appreciation of your impossible gift.

i hope the movie’s getting you a little tail, too.