Dr. Maria DeBlassie

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On Saturday Night at the Movies

You know for most people it is a simple jeans and t-shirt affair, just another night watching another big screen movie. 

But for you, Saturday night at the movies will always conjure up visions of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby or Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve--the whole screen filled top to bottom with black-and-white glamorous hijinks.  It is the layered history of a new form of storytelling; the theater, a continuous work of art made up of the imprints of each story whose reels have played upon that big, blank screen.

There is even a part of you that wants to don a mink coat and long evening gown for the event, your hair worn in the stylish waves popular among those the silver-screen vixens.  You know, of course, that you would be as terribly out of place as you were stylish, but it wouldn't matter--you would be paying tribute to those old gods of the new narrative. 

You ponder this as you prepare for your evening out, wearing a mix of old movie glamor staples and new movie-night-uniform jeans, happily anticipating the night's feature.  You realize as you apply your last swipe of mascara, that each time we prepare ourselves for a movie--in jeans or jewels--it is part of the celebratory ritual of entering our modern day kiva to listen, to watch, to fill ourselves up with narratives--to heal.

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