US public library visits

It appears that somewhere in the vast machinery of global civilization, a decision was made to bind together the recreational habits of Americans entering library buildings with the bureaucratic output of India's film certification board, and then to do this with the kind of precision usually reserved for things that are actually meant to be connected. One wonders if the librarians of Milwaukee and the film censors of Mumbai have been secretly collaborating all along, or whether the universe is simply reminding us that correlation will pair absolutely anything if you wait long enough and squint sufficiently hard.

Both are pandemic shutdowns in disguise. US libraries closed their doors for much of 2020 and reopened cautiously, while Indian film production halted so completely that the certification pipeline ran nearly dry. The correlation is a tale of two buildings — one full of books, one full of cameras — that were ordered closed in the same season.

So we have spent some time establishing that American library visits and Indian film certifications move together with the enthusiasm of dance partners who have never met but have been perfectly synchronized by forces neither of them understands. This is what pattern-seeking gets you: the satisfaction of connection without the comfort of meaning. We are all librarians with a chart, really.