Movies, Older Women & Cellphones

To separate thoughts on parallel lines.

First, I love movies. I love them for the same reason I love books. Documentary/nonfiction or fiction/feature they have the power to slow time, to give a respite to a world that often feels as if it moves too fast. I used to drink so that I could slow the merry-go-round down enough that I could hop it for a while, but that was not a great strategy.

Movies, books, guitar, writing have become my coping mechanisms. They work, though I do miss having an occasional drink, especially wine. But c'est la vie. And I'm happier now.

Second thought, I want to toss, no throw my cellphone into a very deep lake and never look back (of course this is more a rhetorical throwing and pond since it would be irresponsible to pollute). For me, and I believe our world, the cellphone is the one device of modernity that makes the merry-go-round spin faster and faster. I do not use it like some people--my list of downloaded apps is small and I am the slowest text-typer there is--but it must go everywhere with me. People expect this of others and it is a fact of life now.

So to bring these thoughts together: The movie theater is the only place I can think of where we are required by the theater and the laws of politeness to turn our cellphones off. Not only do we get to escape into a movie for about two hours, but we are incommunicado. And if someone tries to communicate with us, we explain, "I was in a movie" and all is well.

But this amount of time is too brief. Plus, I've noticed that some people--I'm look right at you group of older women in the Portsmouth Music Hall who talk incessantly through each movie I've been to as of late--talk through the movie as if they are in their own living room.

How to reasonably lengthen this time? In New York Magazine (great crossword puzzle and as of late a better read than The New Yorker) they had a small piece on ÖÖD houses. These are prefab houses that can be dropped down just about anywhere (https://www.oodhouse.com). I can envision areas where one stays at an ÖÖD house in some quiet field or forest as a respite from the spinning merry-go-round. I also see Millennials latching onto this in a big way. They are the first generation to have their lives dominated by technology and have parents who remember dial phones and writing letters.

It is impossible to avoid technology completely and be part of the gig economy, but it is also possible to make a bundle of money offering respites from technology.