It's practically Stars Hollow around here tonight.

[radiantfracture]

LB: Hey, there's a new bookstore in the square
LB: And cafe

RF: I think they're filming a movie
RF: I mean I know they are but I bet it's connected
RF: L. in the grocery had a bit part

LB: That’s just mean

RF: I KNOW
RF: I would LOVE those things to really be there

LB: That explains the apparent tent city in the square.
LB: I was thinking maybe the theatre is having a storage issue?

RF: We have one damn picturesque square friend
RF: It's practically Stars Hollow around here


The last time they filmed a movie in the square, it was a Christmas movie. They filled the gazebo¹ with piles of hay bales and heaps of fake snow.

The production hung strings of golden lights back and forth across the road. Afterwards, the community association bought the lights and kept them up. It's freaking adorable.

I'm hoping all this movie money means that the city leaves the original buildings up instead of selling the land off to build condos.

[ETA: I went out in my winter coat and stripey pyjamas to see the square. We seem to be hosting a Valentine's Day movie. They've dressed the soap shop as the truly ghastly-looking True Love Bookstore and Cafe. [edit] What kind of name is that? It isn't even a terrible pun.]


* * * * * *


S, LB and I managed to make it to the gym last night despite the tail end of my cold.

In the locker room afterwards, I walked into one of those awkward geometries where you have to reach by someone to get to your stuff, so I performed that combination of apologetic grunts and eye-pointing that signals a need to get by. I didn't have my proper glasses on², so it was hard to make eye contact. The guy turned towards me.

"Ah, so you're the one next door," he said. "You're pretty noisy. Lots of complaints."

"We're just trying to have a good time," I said, because folks, I am game. If the guy in the change room wants to role play that we are next-door neighbors, I am here for that.

"They were bringing round a petition to kick you out, but I wouldn't sign it," he said, "I said no. I said you were okay."

"Well, thanks for sticking up for me," I said, and we parted friends.

I've never been teased in the change room before, even by people I know. I felt kinda special.

{rf}

1. Yeah, fine, we have a gazebo, but it's not a big Stars-Hollow bandstand. It is set flat on the ground and can only fit a small jazz combo.

2. My swim glasses used to just be my previous glasses, which were very scratched but otherwise normal glasses. Then one arm broke off, and I went to the glasses before those, also very scratched. Then one arm broke off of those, but I discovered I could still sort of balance them on my nose, so now I'm the guy at the pool with the trash glasses.

Comments

[shewhomust]

The bookstore in the square sounds like a dream: you're in a familiar place, but, look! a bookstore! Only it only stocks terrible romances. And actually, it isn't even real...

I swim without glasses. I can't see much, but I tend to be in a meditative state when swimming anyway, so it makes less difference than you'd think.

[moon_custafer]

In my neck of the woods it can be hard to tell which businesses are solid, which are pop-ups, and which are fakes put up for a film shoot or a promotional campaign. Dick’s Pizza – “You Haven’t Eaten Pizza Until You’ve Eaten Dick’s” turned out to be part of an ad campaign for some comedy show, but Glory Hole Doughnuts, a few blocks west, is perfectly real and has been there for years. The typewriter repair place and other intriguing businesses that appeared overnight across from the Gladstone Hotel were, I think, for a movie shoot. I am deeply disappointed to have missed the hipster coffee place early this year that was a disguised Tim Hortons (to promote the fact they now serve lattes.)

[sovay]

The typewriter repair place and other intriguing businesses that appeared overnight across from the Gladstone Hotel were, I think, for a movie shoot.

I was living in New Haven for the filming of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) which entailed several scenes of Yale standing in for Marshall College and a whole lot of stores in the downtown mocked up to resemble their 1950's selves. All of a sudden we were walking past a Woolworth's. In consequence, I can't regret seeing the movie even though it wasn't very good, because I saw it at the Criterion Cinemas on Temple Street—five minutes' walk from the chase scene across Old Campus, right where a whole bunch of exteriors had been filmed—and the scenery got a standing ovation.

[radiantfracture]

and the scenery got a standing ovation.

Um, that's amazing.

I watched Gracepoint to see the town, but in that case the scenery couldn't redeem it (and they made a bunch of digital edits).

[sovay]

Um, that's amazing.

It remains one of the treasured movie-in-theaters experiences of my life, along with the time that I was the only person who laughed at a line in modern Greek in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). I don't even speak modern Greek! It was just all perfect cognates with classical Greek and I cracked up a full minute before the plot (with subtitles) got around to the punchline.

(and they made a bunch of digital edits).

Well, that's just cheating.

[radiantfracture]

I love that about modern Greek. I can at least sound it out and read some place names.

[moon_custafer]

Toronto stands in for a lot of places, which can make movie-watching an odd experience – I wasn’t there for this one, but apparently Andrew and some of our friends once watched a movie (I think it was either Undercover Brother or The Tuxedo, both released in 2002) in which a chase scene went past the very movie theatre in which they were, at that moment, sitting and watching the movie. They glanced back towards the doors in case the characters came running in like at the end of Blazing Saddles.

Though I was not there for this experience, at least I got to see The Hulk (2008) smash that well-known Harlem institution, Sam the Record Man.

[sovay]

Andrew and some of our friends once watched a movie (I think it was either Undercover Brother or The Tuxedo, both released in 2002) in which a chase scene went past the very movie theatre in which they were, at that moment, sitting and watching the movie. They glanced back towards the doors in case the characters came running in like at the end of Blazing Saddles.

That's magnificent.

Boston frequently does not play itself, so the location shooting was a not insigificant reason I adored The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973).

[radiantfracture]

They glanced back towards the doors in case the characters came running in like at the end of Blazing Saddles.


That's really beautiful.

[radiantfracture]

That's a really complicated set of possibilities for walking through a doorway trying to buy a coffee and a doughnut.

[radiantfracture]

I don't actually wear them swimming, just when we're floating in the kid pool solving the problems of the universe. And when I'm trying to find my locker.

[thewayne]

We live next to White Sands, NM, and a friend of mine was an extra in the first Transformers movie, part of which was filmed there. He got to play a terrorist and was killed by the robots.

[sovay]

I'm hoping all this movie money means that the city leaves the original buildings up instead of selling the land off to build condos.

If you got a real bookstore out of a fake one, I'd call that a Christmas miracle.