Another Dimension, Another Time and Space
The übergroup has been reborn in a way I never would've anticipated.
(For those of you who are unaware of the übergroup, I previously provided a brief rundown of its history. Despite my ruminations at the time, there was only one subsequent bit of activity after that before it went dormant again.)
At some point in December, I casually dropped a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey in the course of a conversation, and one of the people I was talking to said they'd never seen it before. I mentioned that I owned a copy of the film and invited them to come over and watch it sometime, then thought nothing else of it...
...until a very similar conversation happened with someone else a few days later. Since I'd just extended an invitation, I told this other person that they should come over to watch 2001 as well.
Mentioning the two independent invitations to other people led them to talk about how they're never seen it and express interest in joining us, and it snowballed from there. Every time it came up, more people were into the idea, to the point that several people whose places were arguably more conducive to watching movies with a larger group (such as eurekagray and prizypussypants) offered to host what was quickly turning into a true gathering.
I ran with that and chose eurekagray's place (it really is oriented well for something like this, as well as being more centrally located than my own), so we had to coordinate our schedules. By then, versions of this plan had been floating around for over two months, but the next date that worked for both of us was April 12...
...which only increased the factors in its favour, as if this was all inspired by the Monolith itself. After settling on the date, I realised that not only was April the original release month for 2001 in 1968, April 12 is the precise anniversary of the first human spaceflight aboard Vostok 1 by Yuri Gagarin--an event celebrated every year with "Yuri's Night" parties around the world, including one right here in Winnipeg. How could we not head over to a "celebration of humanity's exploration of space" after watching this movie, of all movies?
There was no denying this was an übergroup-worthy gathering now (even if I'd wanted to do so), with eurekagray putting together a specific Facebook Event page for it (which is probably how I would've done übergroup outings back in the day if the option had existed...and if I were on Facebook) and what seemed like a custom-made followup just waiting for us. I even went ahead and ordered an appropriate T-shirt for the occasion, which I couldn't imagine doing when it was just having a couple of people over and introducing them to a cinematic classic.
Anticipation is high amongst the friends who are coming, there's already been talk of planning a similar event for Blade Runner later in the year with other movies of future past to follow--and I know for a fact that I never would've been able to make any of this happen if I'd attempted to do so on purpose.
Somehow, I just got the band back together again without really trying.
(For those of you who are unaware of the übergroup, I previously provided a brief rundown of its history. Despite my ruminations at the time, there was only one subsequent bit of activity after that before it went dormant again.)
At some point in December, I casually dropped a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey in the course of a conversation, and one of the people I was talking to said they'd never seen it before. I mentioned that I owned a copy of the film and invited them to come over and watch it sometime, then thought nothing else of it...
...until a very similar conversation happened with someone else a few days later. Since I'd just extended an invitation, I told this other person that they should come over to watch 2001 as well.
Mentioning the two independent invitations to other people led them to talk about how they're never seen it and express interest in joining us, and it snowballed from there. Every time it came up, more people were into the idea, to the point that several people whose places were arguably more conducive to watching movies with a larger group (such as eurekagray and prizypussypants) offered to host what was quickly turning into a true gathering.
I ran with that and chose eurekagray's place (it really is oriented well for something like this, as well as being more centrally located than my own), so we had to coordinate our schedules. By then, versions of this plan had been floating around for over two months, but the next date that worked for both of us was April 12...
...which only increased the factors in its favour, as if this was all inspired by the Monolith itself. After settling on the date, I realised that not only was April the original release month for 2001 in 1968, April 12 is the precise anniversary of the first human spaceflight aboard Vostok 1 by Yuri Gagarin--an event celebrated every year with "Yuri's Night" parties around the world, including one right here in Winnipeg. How could we not head over to a "celebration of humanity's exploration of space" after watching this movie, of all movies?
There was no denying this was an übergroup-worthy gathering now (even if I'd wanted to do so), with eurekagray putting together a specific Facebook Event page for it (which is probably how I would've done übergroup outings back in the day if the option had existed...and if I were on Facebook) and what seemed like a custom-made followup just waiting for us. I even went ahead and ordered an appropriate T-shirt for the occasion, which I couldn't imagine doing when it was just having a couple of people over and introducing them to a cinematic classic.
Anticipation is high amongst the friends who are coming, there's already been talk of planning a similar event for Blade Runner later in the year with other movies of future past to follow--and I know for a fact that I never would've been able to make any of this happen if I'd attempted to do so on purpose.
Somehow, I just got the band back together again without really trying.