Oh, the wonderment of living in a connected age.
Friday night, I saw Blood and Sand at the Gateway Theatre, where they held the final night of the Silent Film Society of Chicago’s Silent Summer 2004 Festival. This was a great event, and very well attended; the theatre seats over 2000 and the main floor was more than 3/4-full. (There’s a fairly substantial balcony at the Gateway but I didn’t see how many people were up there.)
The movie was the classic story of the small town guy who becomes famous and his success leads to his moral undoing. There’s a heart-wrenching redemption scene at the end which ties it all up nicely, and even though you see it coming all along, it was easy to get sucked into the moment.
This summer has been pretty busy, and I was disappointed that this was the only movie in this summer’s series that I managed to see. Next year will be a different story. (We say that a lot here in Chicago.)
A few hours later, I found myself booked on a Saturday morning flight to Seattle. Unplanned, yes. Impulsive, yes. Cheap… yes! I am still amazed that I can sit at my computer and land inexpensive airline tickets in a matter of minutes and be in another city a few hours later.
Lisa and I had a blast, and spent a couple hours at the Seattle Art Museum to see the Van Gogh to Mondrian exhibit. Unless we accidentally skipped a whole section, we didn’t see any actual Mondrian pieces. The rest of it was very cool, though.
Oh, and we had our picture taken with some dude dressed up like the AIM guy. And Lisa had her first experience with Cold Stone Creamery to top it all off.
I arrived back in Chicago Sunday night.
A final thought to pass along: as long as you are willing and able to assist in the event of an emergency, the exit row rocks.