{"id":1572,"date":"2008-10-28T23:09:50","date_gmt":"2008-10-28T23:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2008-10-28T23:09:50","modified_gmt":"2008-10-28T23:09:50","slug":"where_somebody_knows_your_name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2008\/10\/28\/where_somebody_knows_your_name\/","title":{"rendered":"Where (Some)body Knows Your Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some time back in the dim mists of history — farther back than I really want to admit — The Girlfriend and I discovered this neat little place called The Organ Loft<\/a>. I’ve written about it before<\/a>, but for those of you who are just joining us, I should explain that The Loft is an unassuming little building in South Salt Lake wherein resides an unexpected treasure: one of the few surviving theater pipe organs of the type that were designed and manufactured in the early 20th century to accompany silent movies. Now, I’m the sort who would be satisfied if the organ had simply been preserved for people to look at, but the really<\/i> cool thing about The Loft is that its owner puts it to use. Once or twice a month during the fall, winter, and spring, you can see silent movies there with live music (and sound effects!) played on the Mighty Wurlitzer, just like you would have experienced if you’d been around in about 1925.<\/p>\n

It’s great fun, and for several years, Anne and I were regular fixtures around the place. We went frequently enough that we — or at least I<\/i>, since I was the one who always made our reservations — got to be known by name. Every time we walked through the door, the owner and host, Larry Bray, would greet me with a jaunty, “Good evening, Mr. Bennion.” It was curiously gratifying to be recognized like that; it made us feel like we had a personal investment in the place, like we were in a friend’s entertainment room rather than an impersonal movie theater. It made us feel like, well, somebodies<\/i> instead of just run-of-the-mill nobodies, like everyone else.<\/p>\n


\nSadly, life has a way of interfering with established habits, and Anne and I stopped going to The Organ Loft several years ago. I don’t recall exactly what happened — we were busy for a couple of shows, then there were a couple that didn’t particularly appeal, and then… well, then, three or four years had passed. You know how it is. We’ve talked many times about how we needed to start going again, but we just haven’t managed to make it happen until this year, when I realized that The Loft’s annual screening of Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera<\/i><\/a> was upon us once again. That film — upon which Andrew Lloyd Webber based his immensely successful stage musical — had been our introduction to The Organ Loft and it’s a particular favorite of ours. It was our October tradition for several years until we lost the habit, and we’ve both missed it. So this year, we decided to mark the day in our calendars and try to re-establish our tradition.<\/p>\n

And wouldn’t you know, as soon as we walked in the door, Larry Bray looked at us and said, “Good evening, Mr. Bennion. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you two…”<\/p>\n

I couldn’t help but smile and say, “It’s good to be back.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some time back in the dim mists of history — farther back than I really want to admit — The Girlfriend and I discovered this neat little place called The Organ Loft. I’ve written about it before, but for those of you who are just joining us, I should explain that The Loft is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-color"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}