Sunday, February 27, 2011

Expedition to Cambridge

In honor of the Oscars, yesterday I decided to trek across the Charles River to my least favorite movie theater, the Kendall Cinema, because it is the only one showing "Blue Valentine."

Along the way, I noticed something more exciting than "Blue Valentine" turned out to be — the Charles River has begun to thaw! It still looked a bit arctic, with birds perching on plains of ice. But at least there was a bit of water lapping at the ice's edge.


I wrote about the icy Charles River last year, too, after my company moved into a new office where I had a clear view of the river's solid state. This year, the view has been similarly chilly. For a long time, the river was a glassy blue-gray. Then, after the heavy snowfall a few weeks ago, it was a powdery-white expanse — very "Dr. Zhivago." On a recent windy day, the powder was still there, but in a scalloped pattern. So it was cool to see moving water as I walked over the Longfellow Bridge on my way to the movies.

I wasn't sure I should stop to take pictures, because it's a long walk to the theater and I hate being late for movies, but I decided to risk it. Luckily, I did get to the theater on time, but the movie, a tale of two star-crossed, poor, and rather stupid lovers, was pretentious and disappointing. I thought the biggest problem was that the female lead was a complete cypher — I came out of the film not understanding who she was or why she did anything. On top of that, the movie was aesthetically unappealing; it somehow managed to make everything look unattractive. Food looked gross. Sex looked gross. Even the normally beautiful Michelle Williams looked a bit gross.

In other words, seeing the river-water move was definitely the high point of my outting. And it didn't even cost $8.

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Copyright 2009-2010 by Sasha Sark. Please don't reuse without permission.
"West African Dark Blue Cloth" image is displayed courtesy of the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University.