Nevada County Special Film Programming for March

(Credit: Author)

In this hellish time, it’s more essential for the sake of our collective sanity to seek temporary shelter from the storms that crowd our skies. As Shirley Jackson wrote, “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.”

Take her word for it: it’s either make a little time for dreaming or go mad. Luckily, we who live in beautiful Nevada County have a variety of avenues of temporary shelters from the storms. One of them is going out to a movie at one of the venues located in both Grass Valley and Nevada City.

Silent Comedy Shorts with Walt Strony (Sunday, March 2, 4:00 PM, Peace Lutheran Church, Grass Valley). The first Sunday in March starts off delightfully as Nevada County’s own distinguished organist, Walt Strony, along with Peace Lutheran Church, presents a program of silent comedy shorts featuring the great Buster Keaton, the little-seen Charley Chase, and cinema’s greatest comedy team, Laurel and Hardy. As of post time, the L&H film is “Sailor’s Beware” (1927), which was shot on the eve of producer Hal Roach’s and director Leo McCarey’s realization that the big fat guy and the little skinny guy would fit like peas in a “pod-duh.” (Sons of the Desert fans know what I mean.) Admission is free, though donations are encouraged. These…