A Completely Brilliant Video Project

Two humans, one cat, and a daily ritual have combined to make something very special.

Irma. (Screen shot from video by Julie Lynn)

I love a good repetitive art project. Back in February, for example, I linked to Dave Mandl’s quest to document the “END” sign at the base of every dead-end street in Brooklyn. And those of you who followed my work during the pandemic may recall my Pandemic Porch Cocktails project (which entailed taking a cocktail-hour photo looking out from my porch for 424 consecutive days), or my daily short-sleeved and long-sleeved green plaid shirt projects.

Why do I like this type of repetitive project so much? I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve come up with three reasons:

• First, a repetitive project tends to entail, almost by definition, an obsessive, single-minded pursuit of something — and I love obsessive endeavors.

• Second, a repetitive project usually includes a specific set of guidelines or parameters (consistent framing, consistent subject matter, etc.), almost like a style guide — and I love style guides, or anything that adheres to a certain stylistic rigor.

• Third, the resulting set of images from this type of project is essentially a collection — and I love collections.

For all of these reasons, a good repetitive project tends to have what I like to call cumulative oomph, by which I mean that the repeated images create their own meta-context that becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Each image is sort of the same, but each one is also different, so you keep wanting to see the next variation on the theme. The more images you see, the more you start to appreciate the subtle distinctions between them. The repetition, instead of feeling redundant, becomes its own reward. That’s cumulative oomph.

Lately I’ve been enjoying a sensational repetitive project by my friend Julie Lynn. Julie lives in Sacramento with her husband, Ronnie Barnett (if you’re a music fan, you may know him as the bass player in the great pop-punk band the Muffs). On February 24th, she posted a video to Facebook, showing Ronnie’s legs walking across their living room, followed a few seconds later by their beautiful calico cat, Irma. Julie captioned the video with one word: “Dinnertime!”

(Screen shot from Facebook)

Unfortunately, I can’t embed Facebook videos on Substack, but Julie provided me with the source video, which I then uploaded to YouTube, so you can see it here:

Two days later, February 26th, another “Dinnertime!” video appeared on Julie’s timeline, very similar to the first one:

The following day, it was once again “Dinnertime!,” although Irma didn’t have quite as much pep in her step this time:

Julie has now posted more than 40 of these “Dinnertime!” videos — each one essentially the same but slightly different. It’s become a daily phenomenon on her Facebook page, where her friends have busily chronicled Ronnie’s changing pants and footwear, how long it takes for Irma to appear in the frame, the various items that appear and then disappear from their living room, and more. Everyone who watches seems to understand that they’re witnessing something special. Earlier this week, one of Julie’s friends commented, “Dinnertime is one of the best things on the internet right now.”

I completely agree with that assessment. It really is an ideal repetitive art project, because the clips are short and always have an identifiable beginning (Ronnie walking by), middle (Irma following along), and end (Irma disappearing behind the green wall, which is the perfect end punctuation). The repeated “Dinnertime!” header serves as a simple but effective mantra, and I also love how we never see Ronnie’s face — stylistic rigor! — but he’s nonetheless the leading man (literally, because he leads Irma to her meal). Plus it doesn’t hurt that Irma is really cute and has a very engaging way of prancing across the room.

Or at least Irma usually prances. Occasionally she changes things up by entering the room looking slow and logy, like she just woke up, and then she suddenly breaks into a trot as she exits, stage left:

Every now and then there’s a significant deviation from the usual format. Personally, I find these digressions rather jarring, and apparently so does Irma:

I wanted to know more about this project and how it came about, so I asked Julie if I could interview her, and she agreed. Although we’re Facebook friends and have lots of friends in common, we’ve never met in person, so this interview was the first time we’d ever spoken. Here’s a transcript, edited for length and clarity:

Inconspicuous Consumption: How old is Irma?

Julie Lynn: We think about 13. Her full name is Irma la Douce, from the movie with Shirley MacLaine. She’s very direct and is one of the few cats I’ve ever met that will really look you in the eye. It’s almost disconcerting, because our other cat just doesn’t do that. So she’s very connected and she knows her name, so she’s very intelligent.

Irma and Julie. (Photo by Ronnie Barnett)

IC: How did you decide to post that first “Dinnertime!” video?

JL: It wasn’t really planned or anything. That was kind of the routine we’d gotten into here. We feed her separately from our other cat. That started when we got Irma — we had to keep them separated because they didn’t get along, so we fed Irma in the bathroom off of our master bedroom. And we’ve just kept on feeding her in there, so she expects her dinner in there. And we have the little procession from the kitchen into the master bedroom, and then to the bathroom.

IC: Oh, wait — so Ronnie and Irma aren’t walking to the kitchen in the videos?

JL: No, it’s from the kitchen to the master bath.

IC: Oh! All this time I figured Ronnie was walking to the kitchen to feed her, and that’s why she was following him. So does he dish up her food in the kitchen, or in the bathroom?

JL: In the kitchen, and then he carries it to the bathroom.

IC: Ah, so that’s why she follows him — because he’s carrying her food! But we can’t see that because you don’t show Ronnie’s upper body in the frame.

JL: Right. I’m usually sitting there watching the news or something, and I would see this little parade every night. And after a while, I just got to thinking, “I love watching this little trot. I should start filming this because every day it’s just like this nice little thing that happens that cheers me up.” And I thought other people might like to see it too.

IC: When you did that first one, was it your plan to keep doing it every day?

JL: I thought it would be kind of cool if I put one up there every day, assuming Irma cooperated. So we’ve tried to do it every day that we’re home and available to do it. I think we missed one day.

IC: Has it made you think about your schedule a little differently? Like, “Oh, I need to be home to do this”?

JL: Yeah, One night we had to go out to a show and I was like, “Okay, but we have to make sure we’re home first to do ‘Dinnertime!’ before we go out to this concert.”

IC: Now that it’s become a thing, how preplanned or staged is it? Do you make sure that Ronnie and Irma are sort of in position at the right time, or does Ronnie make sure you’re in position to shoot the video, or what?

JL: Ronnie does the nighttime feeding, so he always says, “Are you ready out there?” I am much more cognizant now of the surroundings, or if I’ve left too much junk sitting around. Like, okay, I should really get the vacuum cleaner out of the way this time. Or I’ve got piles of things sitting around that are not really pleasant to look at, so we should clear some of that stuff out. Then I’m like, okay, make sure the TV is muted, make sure enough lights are on. So yeah, we try to plan it a bit more now.

IC: Does it always happen at the same time of day?

JL: We have to make sure that she’s hungry enough to cooperate. So it happens at different times, depending on when she’s willing to go. There have been a few times when she’s just not having it, the appetite isn’t there. So we’re like, okay, let’s wait a little bit and see if we can do it later. And that usually works.

IC: I have to say, I can’t even conceive of a cat that doesn’t have an appetite. If I even glance at my kitchen, my cats are racing to the food bowl.

JL: Well, it’s funny, if you’ve got human food, she’ll be on you all day, every day. But for cat food, she may go check it out, but if she’s not hungry, she won’t be bothered.

IC: One of the great things about the procession is that as Irma crosses the living room, there’s usually this moment where she gets a little spring in her step. Is that just part of how she moves through life, or is that specifically when she’s about to be fed?

JL: When she’s really hungry, she almost outpaces Ronnie. But as you’ve probably seen, some days she’s like, eh, I’m not really into this, but all right, I’ll go check it out. So it’s funny what a mood indicator it is.

IC: Most of the videos are just seven or eight seconds long, but there’s one, from March 22nd, that’s a lot longer, where Irma sort of paused, and you even zoomed in on her, which was almost shocking. It was such a break from the usual protocol!

JL: That was the day when we were going out to the concert. I don’t know if she just sensed that something was off or what. She stopped for a bit, and I was like, what’s going on here? And then after a few seconds, she kind of came back to life and continued on her way.

IC: We see Ronnie’s pants and shoes each day. Has he become more conscious of his wardrobe, and do you even sometimes direct his wardrobe?

JL: I don’t direct it. Sometimes you can sort of tell what kind of a day it’s been, whether he’s in his jammies yet or not. And oftentimes people will point out that his shoelaces are untied.

IC: Has there been any discussion of switching things up, so Ronnie shoots the video and you lead the procession?

JL: That would be a fun thing to do without notice, just to see what people say — that’s a great idea. I’d have to practice my Ronnie shuffle, though. He’s got that stride.

IC: There was that one time when he sort of scampered through the living room, I think on March 19th.

JL: Yeah, that was different.

IC: Has there ever been a situation where the procession didn’t go well and you had to start over and do a second take?

JL: There have been a couple of times where Irma just hasn’t responded. Like, Ronnie’s walked into the frame and I’m waiting and waiting and waiting. And we realize, okay, she’s not into it right now. Let’s wait a little bit. So that’s happened a couple of times

IC: What’s your other cat’s name?

JL: Mishka. He’s a big grey tabby.

IC: And what does Mishka think of all this? Like, is he envious of all this attention that Irma’s getting?

JL: Mishka’s a wonderful guy, but he’s kind of dumb, so he often doesn’t know what’s happening around him. Ronnie feeds him first in the kitchen, so he’s usually already chowing down and doesn’t realize what’s going on with the videos.

Irma and Mishka. (Photo by Julie Lynn)

IC: How long do you think you can keep doing this?

JL: It’s been interesting to see people react to it. Ronnie keeps saying, “Nobody watches this stuff, they’re gonna be bored by it…”

IC: What? Everyone loves it! I totally look forward to it every day. And I’ve shown it to a few people, and they all get it right away — they can see why it’s so engaging and addictive.

JL: Right? Every time someone says, “I love this,” I tell Ronnie, “Look, look at this.” It’s so nice. I’ll do it as long as I can.

IC: It’s such a great example of a repetitive art project — like, the same thing over and over, but with slight variations.

JL: I love those kind of projects too, but I didn’t start off thinking that’s what it was going to be. I just thought it would be kind of fun to do once in a while. And then I was like, yeah, I look forward to doing this every day, so we’ll keep doing it as long as Irma’s cooperative.

IC: What are some of the best responses you’ve gotten?

JL: At one point someone wrote to me and said, “My husband’s dad is dying of cancer and we’re trying to give him nice things to look at on the internet, so could you dedicate the next one of these to him?” So of course I did that. So there are things like that that you never expect, and it makes you realize how much people look forward to it.

IC: Now you can’t ever go on vacation.

JL It’s true! Either that or we’ll have to get my son to do it by himself somehow, or maybe train somebody to do it while we’re away. We’ve got to keep the series going. This is important, this is big stuff.

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Indeed it is! Thanks so much to Julie for sharing the story behind this excellent project.

If you want to get the full repetitive effect, I put together this supercut of the first 33 “Dinnertime!” segments. The whole thing lasts about five minutes and is a case study in cumulative oomph:

You can follow the latest “Dinnertime!” developments on Julie’s Facebook page, plus she just gave the project its own Instagram account (where you can see that last night’s video had a new twist). Personally, I think “Dinnertime!” deserves its own art gallery installation — imagine dozens of video monitors, each one with Irma trotting across the screen — but that’s ultimately up to Julie. Big thanks to her, Ronnie, and Irma for creating, and sharing, something really special.

Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.