ON SCREEN/IN PERSON: Germantown, MD

Germantown seems like a town built out of whole cloth in the last 20 years, but the Montgomery Public Library is impressively large and BlackRock Center for the Arts is large and open and inviting.

They had an announcement on the light board outside (see video).  That always excites me and makes me feel important – clearly, my ego is easily fed.

The screening was in a lovely theater.  Laura Young, BlackRock Development Director, asked me substantive questions before the screening, which usually doesn’t happen.  I prefer to allow the audience to experience film without too much mediation from me, but I think they appreciated the discussion.  After the film, Krista Bradley, Executive Director of BlackRock, and I talked about the film.  I got to speak about the making of the film and some of the difficulties of the editing process.  

Later I had a more informal conversation with Krista and her sister Donna Rimple about the situation in Germantown, its relationship to DC, the demographics of the area and the situation around AIDS.  Certainly, I love showing my film and it’s still exciting to see it projected and to feel the thrill of seeing years of work up there on the screen, but for me, making these kinds of personal connections is the most exciting part of touring

I was immensely pleased that Krista decided to do another screening of the film in the fall.  I will look forward to that and meeting more members of the community then.

The next day, the birding at Patuxent Wildlife Refuge was a bit disappointing, but I did see plenty of Wood Ducks, which are beautiful, and Eastern Bluebirds, which I rarely get to see in New York and are a delight to up close.  While I was birding, a man who was taking photographs asked me to identify a bird in one of his shots.  It was a Double-Crested Cormorant, a very common bird.  As we walked back to the visitor center, we started talking.  He said he was one of those conservatives.  I told him I was a socialist, so we discussed politics on the way back.  It continues to amaze me that people can see themselves as solely a product of their own making without any understanding of the political and economic structures that make their success possible.  The concomitant lack of empathy for anyone in a different circumstance never fails to shock me.

And I’m glad to have the chance to rest a couple of days in Baltimore before setting out for the second half of the tour.

Jim Hubbard and Krista Bradley