Between Once and Man on Wire, there’s an undercurrent in my choice of cinema this past weekend of little things — pop songs and filament-tied-to-an-arrow — urged by good-humored gamines and can-do cads toward the seemingly impossible. I’m not in touch with most of my mentors from five or six years ago (and in some cases not on speaking terms), but I sense they’d smile knowingly at the return on their investments of encouragement and time (if not straight cash), the dividends paid to progeny. I didn’t know then clearly who I was or what was next, but their guidance in entrepreneurship, design practice, and, let’s face it, psychological warfare — and away from hourly retail in indistinct suburbs, indefinitely — capitalized the belief that I was meant to transcend the path my history implied, make great art, write a killer thesis, see the world. And lately, though it’s been a difficult belief to sustain, I’m here. The band’s in the studio; the cable’s between the towers.

It’s daybreak, and it’s time to dance.