The best part of an eclipse is the minute everyone goes quiet at once. Shared attention is its own kind of magic.

Something happens when a crowd looks at the same thing at the same moment. The event is in the sky and the feeling is in the fact that two hundred strangers are holding their breath at once. Attention pooled like that is rare and oddly moving, and most of what people love about stadiums, concerts and funerals is that pooling.

Put yourself in one of those this week instead of watching alone on a screen. A match, a gig, a school performance, a meteor shower with two friends. Resist filming the whole thing, because the shared minute is the part worth keeping and the camera takes you out of it.