These Are the Times That Call for Escapism

We pledge to direct your feet to the sunny side of the street

Are you about fed up with the media’s daily count of the ways these are hard times?

I thought so, so I’m not going to add to the litany.

You can read in your daily paper, see on television, hear on radio and plug in on-line to find out who’s the latest to fall. There are plenty of people to do the job of bringing you bad news, and I’m glad I don’t need to be one of them.

Here at Bay Weekly, we figure that our business, in times like this, is to give you hope.

So in these groundhog days of winter — when Americans above the 35th parallel pin their hopes for winter’s remission on a truculent rodent — we make escapism our mission.

Yes, if we’d already lost or otherwise retired our jobs, we’d be escaping to Florida, joining our friends and neighbors in enjoying winter’s fullest service of sunshine.

Here in Chesapeake Country, where we’re wedded to jobs we’re lucky to have, we’ll get the occasional reprieve, like last Sunday with sunshine and temperatures pushing above 60 degrees — on the first day of February. But we’re in for six more weeks of winter. So our best escape is to burrow into the movies.

When new releases are good, (read Bay Weekly reviewers Jonathan Parker and Mark Burns, plus our Cineman shorts, to keep abreast of what’s good and what’s not), pump up the economy with trips to the multiplex. But our home fires are the warmest spot in our winter, and there — thanks to Netflix, Blockbuster and On Demand — the movies are always good.

This being an especially cold, hard year — and Valentine’s Day just around the corner — we’ve torched our 12th Annual Groundhog’s Movie Guide up a few degrees. Thirty love stories are what you’ll find in this year’s guide, in flavors from mild to torrid (though none is X-rated). The choices are made by anybody in the Bay Weekly family avid enough to heed movie-maven and staff writer Diana Beechener’s call for submissions in 10 clever categories. Then we debate to pare the long list down to three per category.

We hope there are some you love and some you hate. Because we love your letters — and because spring is 43 whole nights away.

• • • • •

Other weeks of the year, we pledge Bay Weekly to adding spice to your too-steady diet of bad news. Our regular columns and features continue our menu of diversion and mental stimulation. At the same time, we’re reminding writers that you’ve got a world of choice in what you read. If they want you to read their stories and columns, they need to thrill you — with stories of people and communities whose wit and wisdom give you reasons to hope.

Question of the Week

What’s the love story we missed? And what’s its category?

Brief it in 125 words or less for next week’s answer to Question of the Week. Send your loveable photo, too.