Thursday, November 01, 2007

an empty theater

I hit the Kendall last week, Wednesday night, to see SLEUTH, an alternately stark and charming one-upsmanship duel between two eccentric characters played by Michael Caine and Jude Law. When I got into the theater, just as the trailers were ending, I found I was the only one in the room. Granted, it was a Wednesday night, but I'd been there for many a weeknight show for all kinds of films and was never the lone viewer. Then I remembered my walk home from the T thru the even more ghost town-like than usual streets. World Series fever, duh. =)

Well, being alone in the theater, I figured I'd take a random snap to remember the occasion...


If a dope sees a movie and no one is around, does it make a sound? Or something...?

Or maybe this is more a Schrodinger's Cat situation...?

Which baseball games at Fenway are so great that they demand the fighter jets fly over? Is it only World Series games? It feels like I've been surprised by the roar of those engines more than a half dozen times in the past few years, but y'know, it is the last few years that the Sox have been World Series contenders and winners, eh? Well, when I'd heard them before from inside my apartment, wherever I was living at the time, I thought of it as the worst kind of noise pollution. Talk about disturbing the peace! This may sound ridiculous, but post-9/11, the roar of engines overhead, close or powerful enough to rattle windows, is far from a relaxing and welcome sound, donchathink? Of course, if I'd been a better Bostonian, a Red Sox citizen as it were, I would've known they were coming and been prepared, right? Yeah, I suppose. Well, this time around, Wendesday night, before hitting the Kendall, I was outside, walking from Kendall Square towards Inman. A quickly growing thrum of a sound snapped me out of my walking-home zone and drew my eyes up.I was in this courtyard between two buildings, an apartment complex and some genetic internet pharmaceutical borg, and I had a clear view of the sky for miles, to the north, I think. I saw four jets, flying directly toward me, given how well I could see them, at low altitude. I could feel the thrum now, in the air, growing. When they were practically on top of me, I saw these white balls expand behind the engines of the planes and then turn to orange triangular trails. This was accompanied by a huge boom which diminished to a roar. Afterburners. Or whatever (like I know =). And in a split scond the jets were gone, zipped out of sight towards the city in a split second. Pretty cool.

A second later, out of the glass walled lobby of the tech co building stepped a security/concierge guy, wide-eyed and holding a cellphone to his ear. He saw me and asked, "What the hell was THAT?!"

To that I offered, "There's a game tonight, isn't there?"

"Oh shit, yeah!" And he went back to his phone convo and retreated to his desk. As I walked out of the courtyard area, out of view, I could see him clicking a remote and shuffling thru channels on one of the monitors in the lobby. Heh.

Keep on keepin on~

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