Sooner or later I'm going to have to get another job. I'd like to work in a cinema. Concomitant to liking movies, I like cinemas. I've worked in two previously.
Firstly this one, from 1997 to 1999. I was also apprenticed to the projectionist there for a while. Prior to discovering Peter Greenaway at the age of 14 and deciding I wanted to be a film director, my ambition was to become a lighthouse keeper. Lighthouse keeping is a dead profession, alas, but I reckoned projectionism would be the next best thing. In some ways even better; lighthouse keepers can't splice single frames of pornography into children's films. Unfortunately what with increased automation, not to mention the inevitable imminent digitalisation of cinema exhibition, it's also a dying trade.
Subsequently, in London, I worked at this incredibly cool and scruffy old revival house in Hampstead called the Everyman. It's since been sold and upmarketed beyond all recognition, which is sad.
The downside of seeking employment in a cinema is that it will involve cold canvassing, which - shy & retiring semi-recluse that I've become - fills me with unholy dread. Also, I don't really feel like I've been taking enough interest in movies lately to be very convincing as a prospective cinema employee.
(Digression: Didn't get to Sideways, due to its timing being misadvertised; saw The Life Aquatic instead. It wasn't great, but it was unique, and had a number of absolutely classic moments. And it looked really nice as well.)
One of the great virtues of my current job is that pretty much anything would be a step up from it, so I'm not hidebound by snobbery. I'm easy. As long as it doesn't involve really severe public humiliation, or cold-call telemarketing. Or wearing a suit, goddammit.
All of this is theoretical at the moment, though, coz I'm going to Canberra next weekend before hitting the employment trail.
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