My project for February is picking ‘new words’ from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and matching them with photographs that feel like a visual of what the word evokes in me…. then perhaps leaving my own comment.

Alope

n. a mysterious aura of loneliness you feel in certain places; the palpable weight of all the lonely people secretly holed up in their houses and apartments, with a flickering blue glow cast up on their walls-so many of whom might just want someone to talk to, or just want to feel needed, and could be that for each other if only they could somehow connect.

Short for “All the lonely people,” from the song “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles.
Pronounced “al-uh-pee.”

….from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

A Slice of Life

Alope brings to mind the Hitchcock thriller Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart. Stuck in his apartment with an injury he looks across the way and watches others play out their lives through the windows of their apartments.

A slice of life, making up back stories, feeling their loneliness or imagining it. Watching others come and go from their windows as they watch him do the same.

Like animals in an unlocked zoo.

wcw 2022