"The streets are full of admirable craftsmen,
but so few practical dreamers."
Man Ray

I propose that we start the new year with a dream.  A surreal foray into the beautiful world of the broken heart.  Not in real life, of course.  No way.  I'm not doing that again.  But let's go there in a dream.  I think the world has lost the plot, and needs to remember how to dream.

Man Ray's 1928 film The Star Fish depicts the rise and fall of love, symbolized by a starfish.  It shows the trajectory of the flaming, fiery heart, from the soaring heights to the inevitable crash and burn.  In Part One - Fabulous Dream, the smitten couple starts off with a walk through an underwater park, and at some point purchases a starfish in a jar.  They climb the stairs to an apartment, make love, and then the guy bids "adieu."  His heart is in chaos and ecstasy, like the scattered leaves of a newspaper, blowing in the breeze.  He goes on a trip.  Before he departs, the starfish is a living, beautiful thing. 

However, in Part Two - The Invisible Church, it starts to get weird.  While the guy is gone, the woman turns to drink, perhaps out of boredom.  She is pictured walking through the underwater park alone, and she wears a mask around her boyfriend when he returns.  She begins to indulge a domineering attitude, which culminates in her walking up the stairs with a knife, at which point she murders the starfish and burns the scattered newspaper debris of her former love in a fire by the river.

The couple meet again in the underwater park, but whether the meeting was planned or not is unclear; a different guy comes along and the woman walks away with him, leaving our lovelorn protagonist standing there, rejected and alone.  We can feel his pain as he turns inward, staring like a ghost at the starfish in a jar.  His world fades to black, and he smashes the glass reflecting the beauty he once possessed, the former object of his love and desire.

Did he fly too close to the sun?  Was the air too thin to breathe?  Should he have stayed at home, rather than taking an extended voyage over land and sea and hell and back?  

Or was the love phony to begin with?  A starfish in a jar.  A toy bird, a paper airplane.  A plastic watch from a vending machine.  

Why must flowers be made of glass?

Decide for yourself.  But keep your dreams intact.