— पांच हजार अस्सी —
I thought about Gabriel as I went to see a movie at The Egyptian last night. And that had less to do with theater-going in general—given I have been back to regular theater-going since May—than it had to do with our history together at that theater in particular. He and I have seen many SIFF movies there over the years; he even met Stephanie in line for one at SIFF in 2003—I had been holding our place in line and she was in line behind me. I still remember the skirt she was wearing that day, which is an unusual detail for me to remember given my fucked up memory, and the fact that I have no photos of it.
Anyway. Gabriel and I have seen a
lot of movies there, both separately together, both during SIFF and otherwise. It's probably been several years since the last time we went there together, but the history still makes it easy for me to think about him, especially given that SIFF Cinema only opened back up for business just last month, and last night was my first time back to that theater not only post-pandemic, but since February 2020.
And? It was
crowded. Under current circumstances, I think it would have given Gabriel a panic attack. It made even me slightly uneasy, for, like, ten seconds maybe. A lady who was kind of working crowd control, letting people with tickets know they could head inside and that the line I was in was for standby, even told one guy in line that they were only selling at 50% capacity—but it would be full by that measure.
Fifty percent capacity is a lot more than you might realize, once you actually see it, especially after months of being at movies in largely empty theaters. Even at the multiplexes on opening nights of blockbusters (
Black Widow,
No Time to Die,
Dune), I'm not certain now that those theaters were at 50% capacity. Because the theater last night
felt fuller than any I had been in since the post-pandemic return to theaters.
To SIFF's credit, they checked every single person's vaccine card, alongside their photo ID—this was the first place I went in that was so meticulous about doing both—and they actually had been doing so ever since re-opening, before the county mandated it. Combine that with everyone wearing face masks, and I could be confident everyone in there was both vaccinated
and wearing a mask—when not eating or drinking, anyway—and I felt as safe as I possibly could feel in there. There's just a slight element of feeling unsettled inside a building with a crowd like that.
It was especially potent in the lobby, as they scanned tickets, and in the concession area with pretty long lines. The lobby and concession areas of the Egyptian are not at all large spaces. Like, moving from the lobby to the concession room, while people were still coming in, the crowd actually bottlenecked a little. That was when I thought about Gabriel, and how glad I'm sure he would have been
not to be there.
The movie I saw wasn't even particularly good. I was there fore the closing night of their "
Cinema Italian Style" program, this being the Seattle premiere of the new Paolo Sorrentino flm,
The Hand of God. Last night was its only local theatrical showing; it goes to streaming on Netflix December 15. But, I just jumped at the chance to see a movie at The Egyptian now that it's open, and I did quite like Sorrentino's
The Young Pope on HBO Max, after all.
As of today, the movie
Belfast is playing there, but I'm going to see that tomorrow at Pacific Place using my monthly AMC membership. There's no point in seeing any movie at a SIFF Cinema unless it's not playing at an AMC. This is another reason I went to the movie last night, because otherwise, for this reason, I might have had to wait another few months before seeing a movie at the Egyptian again.
I did buy popcorn. SIFF Cinema is the only theater chain in Seattle using real popcorn for their butter. I started eating it and thought to myself,
Oh my god, I missed this. What bliss!
— पांच हजार अस्सी —
— पांच हजार अस्सी —
It also rained quite a lot yesterday. I already knew there was
a lot of rain in the forecast and so I finally came to work yesterday wearing my new rain boots, which were very helpful, especially compared to the normal slip-on shoes I wear.
The rain was heaviest on my walk home from work first, and I decided to hop on Light Rail just as an experiment: would it actually save me any time? Mitigating factors here are both the time it takes to get in and out of those stations that are deep underground, and the fact that Capitol Hill Station is a couple blocks to the north of my normal walking route on Pine Street; and the wait time once I actually get down to the train platform. I would have saved more time had the train pulled up right when I got there, but, it was a few minutes before the northbound train arrived. In the end I got home at 5:15, which means hitching a ride on the train saved me about ten minutes—a negligible difference, but also a nice amount of time if I'm soon to turn around and leave again for a movie. Also it kept me dry for a good ten minutes or so.
Walking from Capitol Hill station to home was kind of nuts, in terms of the rainfall; a lot of backed up drainage, causing huge pools of water along corners and curbs on the streets. I had to take wide berths around to get back on track on my walking route. The rain was far lighter, thankfully, on my walk to and from the Egyptian, which is all of about six blocks from home.
I got home the second time just after 9:00. It was right at about 10:00 when I was posting my review link to socials. And then it was time to get ready for bed.
Nothing major planned for this weekend, aside from movies and TV watching. Work on the calendars I'm gifting to family for Christmas as always. Captioning photos from Las Vegas, which I have been diligently doing a minimum of twenty per day. A few more days and I should be done with that, at least for the Vegas photos.
— पांच हजार अस्सी —
[posted 12:30 pm]
