Gold foil illustration of stars

Faces in a Crowd

Catching Glimpses of Humanity from a Distance
a crowd of people looking to the left

We all have our little solipsistic delusions, ghastly intuitions of utter singularity: that we are the only one in the house who ever fills the ice-cube tray, who unloads the clean dishwasher, who occasionally pees in the shower, whose eyelid twitches on first dates; that only we take casualness terribly seriously; that only we fashion supplication into courtesy; that only we hear the whiny pathos in a dog’s yawn, the timeless sigh in the opening of the hermetically-sealed jar, the splattered laugh in the frying egg, the minor-D lament in the vacuum’s scream; that only we feel the panic at sunset the rookie kindergartner feels at his mother’s retreat. That only we love the only- we. That only we need the only-we. Solipsism binds us together.... That we feel lonely in a crowd; stop not to dwell on what’s brought the crowd into being. That we are, always, faces in a crowd.

David Foster Wallace – Girl with Curious Hair

The Unsharp Mask

a mirror with a reflection of a person

Xeno

Cover image for the Xeno word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Tillid

Cover image for the Tillid word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Anti-Aliasing

Cover image for the Anti-Aliasing word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Star-Stuck

a man walking towards a door with a large question mark

Eisce

Cover image for the Eisce word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Scrough

a person working on the sidewalk

Anecdoche

Cover image for the Anecdoche word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Hobsmacked

Cover image for the Hobsmacked word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Aftergloom

Cover image for the Aftergloom word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Kenaway

Cover image for the Kenaway word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Emodox

Cover image for the Emodox word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Mauerbauertraurigkeit

Mauerbauer-traurigkeit

Cover image for the Mauerbauertraurigkeit word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Backmasking

a woman's face with a double exposure

Momophobia

Cover image for the Momophobia word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Cullaways

a lone sand castle on a beach at low tide

Clockwise

a close-up of flower along with polaroid pictures

Pithered

stacks of papers and folders piled high on a table

Elsing

Cover image for the Elsing word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Aubadoir

Cover image for the Aubadoir word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows