A Slice Of Life In The Minneapple

In Uptown there's a used electronics place on the main drag, Hennepin Avenue, called Reboot.  It's right next to a place I've come to frequent more often late on weekends, Red's Savoy Pizza.  Recommend both its pizza as well as its signature philly cheesesteak.

I first noticed this when eating at Red's for the first time.  Reboot has a window display of all the refurbished TV and computer screens they have for sale.  But after they close, they don't just shut everything off.  Instead, one of the screens displayed a movie -- Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.  I remember watching that a long, long time ago!

They continue this movie on a loop, presumably all night.  I've come across the film whenever I eat at Red's or I'm just walking around, and the scene of the movie when I come across it either sparks a memory in me or is so captivating that I always stop in my tracks and watch at least a few seconds.  Tonight, I saw the scene where Pee-Wee chains his bike.  So he opens up his compartment and starts pulling out his chain ... and he keeps pulling it out ... and pulling it out ... and pulling it out until he has a mountain of metal links in front of his bike.  When I first saw this many moons ago, I swore I could see the bottom of the compartment; the "endless" chain was being fed through the bottom, even though we obviously weren't supposed to see it.

I don't know how much in energy playing Pee-Wee's Big Adventure every night costs Reboot, but I hope it's not too much.  And I hope they're getting what they want out of it, whatever it may be.  I cherish it.  It's a minor miracle, I think.  Because for me, I imagine some homeless guy, or someone who just broke up with his girlfriend or her boyfriend, or a woman down on his luck, or even a lonely man wanting a late-night bite to eat because he doesn't want to go home to his family and his troubles yet, stopping to see a familiar movie playing on a storefront in the middle of the night for no apparent reason.  Whatever the circumstances and regardless of the randomness, he or she just stops, looks, and smiles at the very funny movie he gets to watch for a little bit right on the street as if he or she was watching it at home.  And all the troubles that are plaguing him or her are vanquished, just for that little period of time, in this little pocket tucked away in the city of Minneapolis.