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Sci-Fi Marathon at the Somerville Theatre

Spatch can't wait for the annual marathon, which starts Feb. 15. He provides synopses for all the films.

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link to Somerville theaters

Kinda wish they had a schedule, and not just a list... Would Love to see a few of those on the big screen for the first time, but some of us have those things called jobs on Monday.

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So no rest for the weary?

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Notice he said "job" not "career". The lower you are down the totem pole, the more likely it is that you have to work holidays. And if the theater people weren't working on a holiday, we wouldn't have a scifi marathon to go to!

Now I have to figure out how I'm going to get out of that "can I go to the Somerville Theater on President's Day Weekend for my birthday" request from my youngster. Something tells me that I've been duped.

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Nope, but I did forget my Holidays!

I’ll have that day off since I work in the banking industry. Hopefully because I’m still employed, and not axed.

(now back to work before the overlords see me)

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My apologies to working men and women everywhere! However, if somebody asked me what I'm doing on a given weekday and I said "I'm going to my career!" I think they might look at me a bit funny.

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Reminds me of when I needed dress shoes about a decade ago. I went into this shop that reportedly had surplus shoes. The dapper older black man running the shop began asking me pointed questions with much intonation of import and instruction, like I was in a finishing school. Something like:

I need some dress shoes.
What kind of dress shoes are you looking for?
Something dressy. I don't know what kind.
What kind of shoes do you normally wear?
Well, pretty much always these... [indicates black Payless walking shoes]
Those are not shoes. What kind of shoes do you normally wear?
[pauses] Uh... These...
Those are not shoes.
[bewildered]
Those are sneakers.

Then he wanted me to choose my personal style like a man, not have him recommend anything.

I did eventually walk out with a nice pair of Italian shoes, at a great price. A couple years ago, I picked up a second pair of dressy shoes at DSW, but when I need to dress up, I keep choosing the ones from the man in the shop.

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I had shoes and boots when I was growing up. Okay, maybe dress shoes sometimes (but you can shine up the cowboy boots for that?).

I come here and there are 27,000 subcategories of footwear, each with its own name and reason for existance. There seem to similarly be thousands of words for "pants" as well.

To add to the confusion, "pants" and "shoes" have specific rather than general meanings out heayah. My MIL once told me that what I had on was "dungarees, not pants", at which point I started looking for tell-tale signs of a time hole to 1865 or something. Or a third head. "Those aren't shoes ... those are sneakers". Um, sneakers are shoes ... these non sock things are all shoes ...

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You'd never see anything so fancified in the simple and down-to-earth general stores of the salt-of-the-earth paradise that is the West.

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This doesn't crap-all to do with fancy and expensive anyway. "Dungarees" aren't fancy, nor are "sneakers". This is about how Boston area people (particularly the older ones) can be extremely specific about what subcategory those shoes you link to belong to, what they are called, and when and where they get worn.

I bet that most western folk would roughly term all of that mess shoes and boots, ridiculous/fancy/expensive though they are. My MIL, on the other hand, would probably have something like 27 categories with specific names for that footwear, and 85 different situations where they would be "appropriate" based on very fine distinctions.

Frye boots are about all I recognize in your lineup there ... used to be that only doctors and ranchers could afford those, before hollywood got ahold of them anyway.

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I bet there are just as many East Coasters who are perfectly happy with the catch-all terms "shoe" and "boot" as Westerners (although I do refer to one of my pairs as "the black shoes", so maybe I'm more foppish than I thought). Now how will we gather the data?

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Them's a lotta fancy whatchacallits thur. See, usn out West, we only wear one kinda thing on our feet, we're not all citified like you Boston folks. Heck, y'all don't even spit on the sidewalk. And if'n you do, you got fifteen different words for it. Hawker, loogie... hell, it's all still spit, ain't it?

Anyways, us Western types, we only got one question about our footwear: can you kick shit with it? If'n it ain't no good for kickin' shit, it ain't no good for clearin' brush, then it ain't no good for us Western types. Heh, heh, see.

It's not about Expensive or Fancy, heh heh. Espadrille? Ain't that what you drill an espa with? Mules is sompin' you ride on. Loafer is what your no-account brother-in-law is. Pump is how you git yer water. Skimmer is what you use to get the bugs off it. And clogs? Hell, that's what you kick out of your shoes. Y'all Bostonians make me sick with all yer words!

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Unfortunately, one of the many traditions of the 'thon is that the schedule isn't released in advance. Given the difficulties of getting prints and so on, the schedule is highly subject to change and probably isn't even "final" (ironic quote marks intentional) until just before the event.

It's true that lots of folks nowadays, especially part-timers in retail or other service sectors, have to work on holidays. I missed the first three marathons myself because of a weekends-and-holidays job. The guy who was (still is?) the webmaster for the marathon used to be stuck in an even more annoying situation, maybe still is - he was a public school teacher in New Hampshire, which DOESN'T GIVE PRESIDENTS' DAY AS A SCHOOL HOLIDAY!

That lineup does sound really tempting. I've attended at least 25 marathons starting with #4, but over the past 10 years or so I've been much less of a diehard regular - I'm afraid I've gotten to an age where most of the fun has gone out of the experience of staying up for 30 hours or so. Still, this year looks like one that will make me ponder that decision a bit more than the past couple.

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To those that have gone to this: how do people handle people falling asleep during a movie? Especially if there's snoring involved. Is the theater packed?

The only all-night movie marathon I've gone to was when the Museum of Science had an IMAX marathon. It was fun, but I know I dozed off in my seat early in the a.m. People were well separated. I've reached the point that I start snoring if I doze off sitting up (like grandma used to when she took me to planetarium shows).

Just wondering.

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Everybody handles sleeping at the marathon differently. Some people consider it a badge of pride that they don't take a nap. (There weren't many naps taken the year we saw the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Maybe this year will be the same.)

Others find somewhere outside the theater auditorium to nap out. One of the other theaters is usually kept open during the Marathon for crash space.

And some do just stay in their seats and sack out. Some people can sleep through anything, I guess. And when you hear someone start snoring, and it does happen, there are a few ways you can approach the problem. Sometimes it involves a few carefully-aimed pieces of popcorn or M&Ms. I can neither confirm nor deny that I've seen this happen.

No matter what, everybody going to the Marathon should bring a comfortable pillow (if not for your neck then for your back) and maybe a blanket but most importantly, deodorant. And maybe some mouthwash as well. Just because. The main auditorium of the Somerville is big indeed, but man can it get ripe.

And no eating burritos unless you know you're safe.

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