Where To Sit
I don't go to the movie theater that much. I have heard people debate the supremacy of big screen over home screen. Some believe no matter how big the screen is at home it cannot match the movie theater experience. Others argue that the high definition digitally projected images on our home screens, no matter how small, are superior to that image projected up above us in that faintly musty, stale-buttery-popcorn-redolent movie house, and therefore watching a movie at home, surrounded by no one, or by only those people you choose, is to any sane person the preferable option. To me these considerations of image quality or size of screen or atmosphere or getting out of the house versus staying at home or whatever it is people are usually talking about when this subject comes up, is beside the point. To me it comes down to should most people even be let out of their houses and if the answer to that is yes then I counter with but why the hell would I want to spend 13 dollars plus in some cases transportation cost to sit in a smallish enclosed space with those people whom you have let out of their houses, and experience what for me is essentially a high risk low return crap shoot where the reward is a mild, perhaps occasionally sublime enjoyment, and the risk is torture. Instead, why don't I save that money, donate it to a good cause or spend it on crack, doesn't really matter, also not the point, and subject myself to some greener form of self-flagellation? You know, a torturous experience that promises a tiny if sometime real chance at enjoyment, but achieves that with less carbon. Even if carbon abuse is also not my main objection here. I'm just searching for an apt comparison of things. Perhaps holing up in the corner of a dank basement with arms duct-taped behind me, earphones playing the latest in CIA noise torture, and over there across the room a barely visible, dog eared, mouse piss stained girly mag. When there is a break in the screaming screeching noise torture there might could be heard, just faintly, a Bach piano concerto. Oh, Bernadette and I saw The Artist the other day. I did very much enjoy the movie. It was worth it for me. But that couple trying to find a seat during the previews, in a not very crowded theater, debating idiotically between three rows in front of us or two behind, and the capper (they settled on two behind us), after finally being shushed by someone closer to them, up and back they had gone, all the while chattering, up and back, she having one feeling about things and he sharing with all of us his opinions on angles and parallax views and head height, hair obstructions, seriously God, help THEM, anyway the capper was, after all this and then a ten beat or so of thank you Jesus they have finally shut up, she peeps--you aren't going to sit by me?
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