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I saw a fascinating documentary earlier this week by brother and sister duo Jeremy and Randy Stulberg entitled, Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa.  The Mesa it turns out is in an undocumented area of New Mexico (in exchange for access to the community, the Stulbergs agreed to do their best to keep the location secret).  There, in quite literally the middle of nowhere, live 400 or so military vets, aging hippies, transients, and radicals.  They live, as the title suggests, completely off the grid.  In shanty town houses, powered by a mix of solar panels, gas generators, and wood burning stoves, the residents sing, shoot, smoke, and philosophize (guns and pot are clearly the most valued posessions in this libertarian paradise).

It was enjoyable for me too to spend an hour or two off the grid as I watched the film.  Theatres seem to be one of the last places that one can escape the grid in an urban environment.  In fact, they are one of the few places that one can escape place itself.  I remember back in my college days at Dartmouth sitting in the small Hanover movie theatre, the Nugget (pictured above), losing myself in a film only to emerge into the dreamlike snowfall of New Hampshire, my mind racing to recalibrate where exactly I was.

I now run a business that uses “the grid” to help enable transactions that ultimately finance films.  I guess it sounds a tad postmodern to be proud of using the grid to help enable our escape from it, but my life has always been a balancing act in one way or another.  I don’t mind being tethered to the grid, in fact, in general I quite like it.  But, I do love the movies for giving me enough leash to forget where the cord is anchored and for introducing me to people like those captured by the Stulbergs who are bold (or crazy) enough to sever ties with it.