i am savannah

Think about it.

How much do you represent the place where you live?

I'm not talking about your job description or any position held in city offices.

I speak of how much you embody the everyday rhythm within your community.

If I were to have asked a question today of Mischa Richter, I would have asked why he had not included anyone associated with the tourist trade.

Was he wanting to concentrate only on those who stay there year round?

After all, those are the ones with the task of keeping the place alive when the population shifts back to the few thousand - less than 4,000 - present on any census count.

The 2020 documentary, "I Am A Town", focused on life in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in the absence of those who had been on vacation, those who have flown back out to their own everyday lives in their own towns.

If there are any tourists present during the filming, folks on holiday who have flown in for the artists' wares and beach life, they must be in limited areas of P-Town, as they certainly are not visible.

Perhaps that small community are graced with tourists only in their downtown area, much like we are in Savannah.

Tourists rarely, if ever, venture south of Victory Drive, except perhaps to visit Wormsloe Plantation or Fort Pulaski.

Seriously.

Those of us who reside midtown and southside have no contact with those out-of-towners.

Unless we venture to events downtown, we need not even consider the seasonal flocks of vacationers who are partaking of the history or folklore or famous architecture, the ghost stories and walking bar tours and southern cuisine, of this centuries-old seaport.

I would think the residents of that small New England town regard the tourists as the industry that keeps their schools and hospitals and police force and fire department in fine working order for the rest of the year.

What did I like about the slow-paced film?

I liked that, on more than one occasion, someone held a book - a real, paper-pages, book - and read aloud a passage or two to share what it said.

I liked that, on more than one occasion, a piano repairman would burst into song after getting the ebony and ivory keys in working order, singing a Tom Waits song the first time, then an Iris DeMent tune a bit later, before his third number, which was his own creation.

I liked that those in the movie felt at ease with the director, no doubt because his own family has been part of that community for a century.

And I liked that Richter dedicated the film to the man in the rowboat, a Vietnam veteran who fairly much kept to himself and did a bit of line-fishing until his death.

I'm glad I brought this event to the attention of the J-Dawg.

The physicist does like documentaries and this was surely one he would not see elsewhere.

In fact, this was its last screening at a cinema, so I'm glad the Tybee Post Theater had it.

I had always enjoyed the Southern Independent Film Tour screenings at the Lucas Theatre, and this reminded me of those, complete with artist Q&A afterward.

This one used Microsoft Teams, which the bfe recently was exposed to, and so he got a kick out of seeing that technology in this venue, too.

Yes, all in all, a very lovely adventure on a Sunday afternoon - having a late lunch with the bfe at a place new to both of us (Papa's BBQ & Seafood), topped off with a different kind of cinema experience down at Tybee, on a blue-sky, fairly warm, day.

Just perfect...

(smile!)