Colophon

The Author

Mark Boszko is easily distracted and seems not to require sleep. However, this is an illusion. He is mortal, like you. Perhaps doubly so.

He makes videos and a little bit of art and design. He also watches way too many movies and jokes around on Twitter.

The Name

The story starts not with the WMATA, but with an English teacher my friend AAlgar had in high school, Mr. Lindsay Bach, who was also the sponsor of the school newspaper, The Hornet, where AAl and I were on staff during our senior year. He was an all-around great guy, and a fine teacher, and though he got his share of our immature behind-the-back ribbing for his Muppet-like voice and his penchant for crunching Certs like they were going out of style, we actually thought a great deal of him. Apparently, his then-girlfriend taught at another school in the county, with whom we regularly traded school papers. In the Valentines issue, Mr. Bach submitted a message, which read:

Keemba, a station in the metro, the apparition of your touch in the dark
Let’s shake, rattle and roll— Your somewhat funny valentine

This, of course, amused us immensely at the time. A teacher? Having a love life? C’mon! Years later, I got in touch with Mr. Bach, and he told me the whole sordid tale... the most interesting part being that his first line was adapted from an Ezra Pound poem entitled In a Station of the Metro:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Yes, that’s it. Two lines. I hadn’t heard of it before he referenced it, but now I love it -- hence the name of my site.

The Optical

My real passion is movies, and how they're made. The Optical News is where I post cool stuff about movies and behind-the-scenes. The Optical podcast is where I chat about the movies covered in the issues of Cinefex magazine, and talk to people who worked on them. You can subscribe free on iTunes.

Have a listen, won't you?