Vignettes #51

Sometimes people amaze with their kind of self-concept especially concerning the jobs they work. At my cinema we had an annual Shakespeare festival which was basically a week long screening of movie adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays. It was organized like a real festival with 3-4 different movies each day, and we printed a poster and a leaflet to advertise for the program. We tried to find sponsors and advertisers for the festival, and Ursula had the idea that the largest bookstore could support us by decorating one of their shopping windows with the author's books and our program. The man at the bookstore responsible for their promotions declined and said: "I don't see what Shakespeare would have to do with a bookstore."

A similar incident concerned a local newspaper. As a cinema we regularly informed all newspapers and periodical mags about our program. This was besides our usual advertising in any of the papers that you had to pay for. You would just write up the names of the movies and the dates and hours when the screenings would be, and once a week you'd fax this information to all the papers. Usually a good newspaper has a billboard listing all kinds of local events like club meetings, small concerts, even the old ladies' Bingo evening, but also the movies of the week.

There was one free Sunday newspaper that was new, and I had been sending them our information for about a year, when I got a phone call from one of the editors. He was obviously astounded why he was getting these faxes from me, so I told him that that's what we - and anyone else organizing events - routinely do. He asked me to quit sending our program and said: "As a newspaper we have no use for such information."