10 | JULY 2 - 8, 2021 | WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
CITY VOICES DON LANDGREN
COULD DEATH PLEASE TAKE A HOLIDAY?
WORCESTERIA
You gotta leave Hollywoo to see ‘F9’ Victor D. Infante Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
FIRST PERSON
Spring Break for Seniors Joe Fusco Jr. Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
After Cyndi and I were fully vaccinated for COVID-19, we decided to visit our fellow senior-friends in Tampa, Florida. Thirteen minutes into the trip to T.F. Green, the “check engine light” glowed in our 2008 Entourage, so a sense of dread accompanied the remaining 40 minutes to the airport. We parked in Garage B and left the car and its plethora of possible problems for contemplation six days later. We were going to have fun in 2021, dammit! At the security-check, I re-
moved the belt holding up my pajama-shorts. As I held my hands up for the full-body scan, my checkered pantwear fell to the ground. “Oh my,” the woman behind me exclaimed. The security guard was nonplussed but did pat me down as my hip-replacement always gets me to 2nd base. In the men’s room at T.F. Green, I had my fi rst encounter with an Automatic Toilet Seat Cover. Mesmerized, I kept standing up then sitting down so the protective shield would revolve like a carnival ride. Our friends in Tampa live across the bay from Tom and See BREAK, Page 11
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW: Sometimes, you stop and look at Worcester, and realize that it’s a really weird town, and one of the things that’s brought that weirdness into focus was the closing of Showcase Cinemas North, which left the city without a movie theater. Sure, you can just go over the town line to Millbury and see fl icks at the Blackstone Valley 14 Cinema de Lux or the Elm Draught House Cinema, but it still feels weird that you have to leave the second biggest city in New England to see a fi lm. Of course, that doesn’t count organizations such as cinema-worcester and Cinema 320, which play more esoteric fare, and a handful of festivals. And of course, it seems these days you can just look out your window and see a fi lm being shot. This may be Hollywoo, but you’re still gonna have to leave town to see “F9 The Fast Saga.” Mind, for all the nostalgia it’s enjoying, Showcase North could be a rough place to see a fi lm. One showing of “The Cabin in the Woods,” for instance, got a good 10 minutes in before the staff realized they were actually playing the animated fi lm, “The Lorax.” Another day, a screening of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” was brought to a halt as the corner of the fi lm melted. The theater, which had a nice run of foreign
Showcase Cinemas North remains closed. T&G STAFF/ASHLEY GREEN
fi lms and second run showings, was a casualty of audiences demanding the luxury of its shinier corporate sibling in Millbury, or the convenience of streaming services and pretty awesome home entertainment centers, the latter of which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. TIMES THEY ARE A’CHANGING: Sometimes, the world just changes and makes some businesses less viable. There was an interesting discussion on the Reddit Worcester community the other day, about why there’s not a lesbian bar in the city, and that really the only gay bar in town at all is the MB Lounge, which mostly caters to gay men. Excepting some internal community issues, the basic reasons for the paucity of such places seemed
pretty simple: dating apps made meeting people easier; marriage equality and other social watersheds made the need for such places less pressing, and a general acceptance at other venues normalized mixed crowds. Still, at least judging from the tone of the conversation, there seemed to be a demand for places like that, and if that’s the case, maybe they’ll reappear. After all, not long ago, the only place to buy new books in town was Barnes & Noble. (Excepting of course the endearingly eclectic used bookstore, Annie’s Book Stop, and the goto place for comic books and graphic novels, That’s Entertainment.) Now, B&N is gone, but we have Bedlam Book Café, See F9, Page 11
