I got many responses via email to my post about why Amsterdam windows are so big and so open, seemingly, to looking into. According to various people, it is because:

1. It is an ethical thing. We are not doing anything we wouldn't want our neighbors to see.

2. It is a meterological thing. We want as much sunlight as possible to come into the house, as our winters have such short days.

3. It is a friendly thing. Friends drop by all the time and we want them to know that we are home.

This photograph of a man and a woman dancing reminded me of one night in New York when passing by a window in the West Village I saw a man and a woman dancing alone in their apartment. They had the same concentrated and completely absorbed looks like the two in this picture have.

There is something different about looking into New York windows and looking into Amsterdam windows. So much more is out in the open here in both the literal and figuative sense, and it is a paradise of looking.

Looking in North America is a more idealized affair. You get the sense that there is a whole lot more presentation, calculation and machination behind each thing you are permitted to see. And therefore so much more shock and scandal associated with seeing what has been occluded or hidden -- which is why we have so many puritans and simultaneously so much pornography, and there is outrage over Monica Lewinsky, and her blue dress is trotted out for the salacious to cluck over.

LINK | 5:41 AM | TB

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