Sunday, May 11, 2008

If one must have a niche...

On my lunch break yesterday I ran across the street to a literary event. When I walked in the door, my former professor (one of the readers) and I waved at each other, and as I was making my narrow way toward the coffee, he called me over to where he was sitting with the distinguished out-of-town writer guest.

"What was the name of that movie?" he asked. "The one filmed in Lawrence, Kansas."

"Carnival of Souls."

"That's it! Carnival of Souls!"

He had gone to grad school in Lawrence, and actually went to the coffeehouse that the heroine's neighbor takes her to in a vain attempt to stop being such a longer. Turns out that the visiting writer went there too. So I got into the whole thing about Herk Harvey and his industrial films, and how they should avoid the bad public domain editions (and geez, on the spur of the moment, I forgot about the terrible '90s remake).

"Criterion Collection," I stressed. "It's like whole Night of the Living Dead situation."

Sometimes it's good to be an "expert," at least about fun things.

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