Other Holiday Traditions

I've lived in Hartford on-and-off since 1996 (ouch. that's, like, almost 10 years. ouch.). Whenever I'm around for the holidays I like to make an effort to take in one of the few things I actually love about this place. Cinestudio at Trinity College has an annual screening of Ron Fricke's Baraka. It can't really be adequately described, but the closest I can come (and still be nowhere near doing it justice) is to say that it's like Koyaanisqatsi, but good. Really good.

It's a curious thing that a movie dedicated to religious plurality and sometimes tainted with over-the-top new-agey-ness could put me in the Christmas spirit better than anything else - save the ghosts of Christmas past/present/future.

I'm going to Trinity to see it tonight, hoping that the seventh or eighth viewing will be as good as (or better) than the first. The first year I saw it I think I saw it three times (or more) in the week that Cinestudio was showing it. You should go, too (if you're close enough), but if you rent it and watch it on your tiny tv, don't blame me for any impending dissapointment. You really have to see it on this enormous screen (70mm ToddAO) that Cinestudio rolls out every year, and get washed away by soundn'vision.