Blue Monday

Apparently this Monday (January 21st) was Blue Monday. The day when Seasonal Affective Disorder (appropriately abbreviated as SAD) is at its peak and everybody's Vitamin D reserves have been depleted. With the current weather in New York bottoming out at a grotesque 14°F (-10°C) it's easy to feel the chill emanating from an isolated houseboat.

Fortunately, Alec Soth is as brilliant at capturing the beauty of the mundane as he is the slightly bleak. I stumbled across this short film he created for the Aperture Foundation at the perfect time. Even though it's not beaches and sunshine, Summer Nights at the Dollar Tree embodies the quiet buzz of summer I love most. Soth perfectly sums up my feelings when he says, 

"The biggest thing about using video was the sound. Playing back the footage after my first night of shooting, I was so aware of the sound of the evening. For me, this is what really evoked the feelings I first had of seeing Summer Nights—the sort of solace that one can find as darkness and quiet settles over the landscape."

Don't let Blue Monday get you down. Summer is coming.

Read more about how Robert Adams' Summer Nights inspired this film here.