Walking through Cambridge Common today, I meandered past two infants swinging in the playground near the park’s northwest side. I have rarely seen anything so utterly comical. The infants hung there like dolls, absurdly flying first this way and then in reverse. They were like little points of minor animation at the end of a hysterical pendulum. Engulfed in their late winter jackets, their arms were propped up at an intermediate, immobile angle. It was a raucous sight, as you could detect humanity in them only the way you detect it on a screen or in a manikin—that is, by willfully suppressing credulity. The animated, articulated joy on their mothers parents—a contrapositive oversaturation—completed the ridiculousness of the image.