Circle Game

Last weekend, as is often the case, my six-year-old neighbor Lena, daughter of Mary and Neil, knocked on my apartment door and asked if she could come in to play. As usual, I welcomed her in, and in what has become a ritual of sorts, she asked if we could watch TV. We channel surfed for a bit, but after discovering there was nothing that suited her fancy, she abruptly had an idea. “I know,” she stated, at once adorable and determined, “I can go get my movie.” Thirty seconds later, she returned with a DVD I had to struggle to pry out of her little, magic marker stained hands. The moment after I removed the DVD from the case, she grabbed it back and held it as if it contained the meaning of life. Her eyes glistened. When I looked at the name of the film, I recognized the logo without needing to read it and realized that in my hands I held the holy grail of every girl under ten. In my hands I held the purveyor of fantasy and fascination and folklore, in my hands I held the electrifying, nearly dog-eared version of the one and only wondrous Walt Disney film titled...The Little Mermaid.

As Lena settled in for her magical journey, I remembered my own foray into the divinity that is Disney, and reminisced back to the Sunday evening ritual of my youth: first, the viewing of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom starring Marlon Perkins, followed by the ever Wonderful World of Disney. Meanwhile, Lena was mesmerized watching the adventures of the mermaid known as Ariel, and when it was finished she looked up at me with urgent eyes and asked in a whisper: “Can we watch it again?” This surprised me, and I asked her why. “Because,” was her utterly logical response. I then asked her how many times she had previously watched the movie, and her answer was stated as if it my question were the silliest query in the world: “Millions,” she impatiently said. “Millions and trillions and billions.”

Children love repetition. Whether it is the resplendent “bye-bye, bye-bye” of the Teletubbies or Dora the Explorer’s constant “Vaminos” or Hannah Montanta’s recurrent “Sweet Niblets,” kids seem to be endlessly fascinated by the familiar. As I watched Lena press the play button for a second and then a third time, I started thinking about how much adults love repetition and ritual as well. We have our regular drinks in Starbucks that we order day after day after day. Mike, from my office, boasts that he has eaten the same sandwich for lunch for the past two years. Sue, my best friend since college, used to scold me for dating the identical man over and over and over, wondering when I would ever learn. Food, dating, entertainment—even seats at a conference room table in a business meeting—human beings seem hardwired to stake out a physical and emotional territory and stick with it. We even will go out of our way to resist having to change things.

This week, the New York Times published an article by evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson. In it, she writes, “It is striking how often similar traits evolve in similar environments….all these systems show the same thing: at the genetic level, evolution is, to a remarkable extent, a repeater.” What is it about repetition that we crave? Do humans feel safer with what we recognize? Does consistency allow us to feel more secure?

And what about art? Shouldn’t we expect art and design and literature and music to be fresh and original? Perhaps it depends on the person. Many years ago, when I was working in the magazine business, word on the street had it that a new magazine was coming to Manhattan, and it was going to change everything. Some people were breathless with anticipation and others, like my friend Suzanne and me, were skeptical. As two young women trying to break into the world of mass media, this was yet another barrier to the big time. I’ll never forget the day in the fall of 1986 when the magazine hit the streets: I saw it first and called her from a payphone in the West Village as I scrutinized the first issue: “Ugh, it’s hideous,” I stated. “There is an ugly picture of Chris Elliott looking like an idiot beside the cover line JERKS. And inside: even worse. The type is so small and sarcastic it is virtually unreadable. Forget it,” I said haughtily and laughed, “it'll never last.”

Of course, the launch of Spy that year was hardly a failure; in fact, the magazine so profoundly shook up the fat and happy publishing world, one could argue that it has never been the same since. Suzanne ended up getting a job there and we never, ever spoke about my dire prediction again.

I guess change is inevitable. How else could we evolve and grow? Still, there is something utterly comforting about consistency. Just last night, I lay tossing and turning in bed, once again unable to sleep. I switched the television on, hoping for something good to watch. With 600 channels, I had plenty to choose from: an all but impossible to believe new episode of House that I had previously recorded and two cool movies on demand that I hadn’t yet seen. As I went through my options, I suddenly stopped. Sex in the City was on! It was the episode when Miranda and Steve get married! Joyfully, I put it on. And I laughed out loud as I realized that, like Lena and her Little Mermaid, I had seen this particular episode no less than twenty times before. But lying there in the middle of the night, waiting for the world to wake up, it seemed that there was absolutely nothing that could be better than seeing something I had seen before, and so thoroughly loved, a thousand times over.