We must ask of reality: how important is it, really? And: how important, really, is the Factual? Of
course, we can’t disregard the factual; it has normative power. But it can never give us the kind of
illumination, the ecstatic flash, from which Truth emerges. If only the factual, upon which the so-called
cinéma vérité fixates, were of significance, then one could argue that the vérité—the truth—at its most
concentrated must reside in the telephone book—in its hundreds of thousands…

Mandy is a movie that perfectly captures the experience of my specific cocktail of mental illness. Red and Mandy's lives as depicted are bucolic, but strike at a deeper bliss to me--an existence with the minor inconveniences of work, but no true authority. Their companionship is organic and equitable. Their lives consist mainly of consumption of art, creation of art, and experiencing one another's humanity. Not necessarily sexually--I don't believe they even kiss--they just have so much love for the…