Sunday, after the race, L. and I dropped by the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and checked out their exhibit “The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image.” The quality of the pieces was all over the place. But the unmistakable whirring of a large film projector (heard from an adjoining room) led me to my favorite piece: Rodney Graham’s “Rheinmetall/Victoria 8.” In a room by itself, on a platform, a giant 1961-vintage 35 mm film projector (the Victoria 8), equipped with a clever automatic looping device for its 10 minutes of film, clattered away effortlessly. It was projecting a film of an even older typewriter (the Rheinmetall) being dusted with snow. The projected black-and-white image was powerful, bright, and gorgeously contrasty—standing in sharp contrast to neighboring exhibits with lackluster digital projection. But despite the compelling yet inanimate subject of the film, I found myself drawn like a magnet to the projector. The intense glow from its lamphouse seemed reluctant to be constrained by its enclosure, spilling out of every crack like sunlight through the walls of a dark barn. The film spooling out of the infinite loop platter moved swiftly and smoothly. It was beautiful mechanical harmony, and great art.