Going To The Pictures

My small hometown had three movie theaters, and because it was a university town with a large component of European refugee faculty one of the three showed foreign films almost exclusively.  Like every teenager I went to the movies a lot, all the new releases and lots of foreign films too because of my older sister's encouragement in that direction. There was no television on those days.  Every Sunday afternoon we gathered in my late father's study, kept just as he left it when he died in an accident in the mid thirties, and listened to the radio programs designed for children it seems to me.  I don't remember them now.  Today is Christmas and my husband and I decided to break the tedium of a holiday not observed by going to the "art" cinema here which offers a meagre menu of serious films.  Today we were going to see "Manchester By The Sea" I must admit with some trepidation as we had been warned again and again how depressing it was, what a downer it would be for us.  And in the end we did not go but instead stayed inside to watch more of our favorite television series.  The Lonergan film is coming on television in a couple of months and we shall wait for that.  I find it shocking to confess to this, but the fact of the matter is, we don't much like going to movie theaters anymore.  There's the talking, the rustling of papers, oh, all kinds o distraction.  Am I just growing dreadfully neurasthenic?  Are we, I should say, since my husband is far more disturbed by distraction.  I cannot bear to surrender to depression and sadness and to have the mood broken by whispering, or even worse outright talking from old people who have no notion they are doing so?  I remember when first I encountered this.  It was the chamber music concerts on Sunday afternoon, done by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and all these dear old people had toddled down from the Upper West Side, and as they sat and listened, they would loudly comment upon the instruments, the technique, completely oblivious to the fact that they were not at home on their sofa in front of the telly.  No, better to stay home, keep silence.  As it is I have some art books I have dragged down from the shelf, Ingres, Manet, Degas, to keep with reading Sebastian Smee's fascinating study of rivalry in the art world.  Right now it's the latter two I just mentioned who feature in his second chapter.  Then we can eat something, I'll have a little vodka and triple sec, and then a little of our favorite "Vera."  And so the day goes by.