In 1985, friends of mine in Somerville, Mass. started renting a storefront on Highland Ave. just East of Davis Square and opened it as a used bookstore. This was before the T Red Line opened in Davis, and this spot was strategically located on the 96 bus line or the long loping walk from Medford to Harvard Square. A number of these new entrepreneurs were alumni of the Tufts radio station WMFO or had worked at the Somerville Theater. Lenny DiFranza, who had managed the theater and served as program director at WMFO, and Jeff Strauss, a film and literature student, were two of Some Books' initial signatories. They re-painted the sign out front to read REALITY CENTER, up from REALTY CENTER as it had once been occupied. Jake Dillon built bookshelves from discarded wood into every nook and cranny of the place. This funky little shop became a significant meeting place for many of us, and we took turns running the shop and organizing events there; usually 2 people would manage the place for 4-6 months, burn out and pass the candle. There was a late-night breakfast joint across the street that didn't open until 11PM. (Was it called Kay and Chips or Phyllis and Ted's? I think the former. Rodney Dangerfield was always singing "I don't get no respect" from their jukebox.)
I recall a number of marvelous micro-events taking place at SOME BOOKS. Tracy Chapman did some sets of her acoustic music before signing to a major label. Kip Chinian showed a brilliant series of large format (20x24") Polaroid photographs of himself in Viet Nam war make-up. And myself and Bill White organized monthly screenings of 8mm films, as we were both amateur filmmakers. Bill managed a number of movie theaters in Cambridge including the Orson Welles, and he was a serious movie buff who I believe writes reviews for a paper around Seattle, where he's from.
Bill and I called the film meetings Wide Open Cinema, a name I came up with for our film organisation or company. My theory was that film could be anything, or something different in the hands of whoever used it. There is also reference to opening the camera aperture to let more light in and take focus, and a minor reference to sport, of a player "being wide open" to make some sort of play. You get the picture.
Anyhow, we had several meeting of this film group. Bill showed his remake of Murnau's "Sunrise". I showed my growing body of super8 experiments. A guy named Todd Larsen showed his super8 narrative attempts. I rented some 16mm experimental films and showed them at the Somerville Theater and at Mass Art Film Society, Saul Levine's salon-like screening series intown. Jeff Plansker and I started showing our films side-by-side on 2 projectors as "Toronto/Spain". Harvard Epworth Church had a wonderful film series in those days and Ricky Leacock taught at MIT. Somerville had a developing cable access studio where I tried to create some programs, but found it a bit of a club. From there, I reached out to the larger World of filmmaking and got swallowed by it.
But that period at Some Books was significant to a number of people. I dedicate this blog to them and that time, the foundation for my love of cinema. Ah, Somerville.
