Met a friend at the Brattle last night for a movie called Word Play, part of the indie film festival there. The Brattle is a not for profit art cinema, but thank God they’ve just gotten new seats. A lot of art cinemas expect you to suffer for their art. They think it’s quaint to have ratty old seats and a stained old bedsheet to project a worn-out copy of whatever movie they’re showing on. Sorry, but it’s not 1942 in a bombed-out ghetto. Would you go to a restaurant that expected you to sit on a sticky floor and eat your day-old dinner off paper plates with plastic cutlery?

So the seating was better than I remember from the old days. I was definitely happy for that. But by the time we got there, the place was already packed so we didn’t exactly have our choice of seats. It’s a small theater and, actually, I don’t think there’s a bad seat in the house, so it wasn’t a problem, except that I sort of hate making people get up to let me pass.

The only thing I’ll say about the audience in my immediate vicinity is—while most were very well-behaved, as you would expect from the seasoned cineastes that would go to the Brattle, the woman next to me was belching through the whole friggin film. Sometimes they were these silent burps, almost like little onion-flavored yawns, but more often than not she did it right out loud. But all through the movie she was doing it.

My friend said afterwards that she must have had a condition. And I say, that’s well and good, but take care of it before you go out, or rent a movie. Let’s get this straight, there is no God-given right to go to a movie and belch all through it. And if you cannot behave appropriately, either on account of a medical condition, mental disorder, traumatic childhood, ill-socialization, whatever, just stay home, where you can belch to your little heart’s delight. Whatever it is, it’ll come out on HBO shortly. You’re really not missing anything. Because, I’ll tell you this: it’s not worth all the bad karma you’re inviting by going out and befouling the air with your toxic burps. It will come back to you. Count on it.

Despite the nonstop burp-o-rama to my right, I did enjoy the movie. It was not a profound or revelatory experience, but it was enjoyable

After the movie we went to the Algiers, a teahouse next to the cinema. We’d been to the place before, and it has this kind of Bohemian feel to it, but, again, Bohemian has just become sort of code word for dirty and expensive. These places in the heart of Cambridge can’t possibly be authentically bohemian—they are faux-bohemian at best.

As if to prove my point: the waitress would not bring me a beer because I could not produce ID, which is ridiculous, the little nazi. I have not been carded since I was about thirteen. I could not be mistaken for a minor by anyone with even a quarter of a brain in her head. And the notion that she’s just following orders, well, that’s almost as disgusting as the orders themselves. That’s the Nuremberg defense, after all, isn’t it? Must we follow orders that make no sense, or cause undue suffering to others?

I drank water and ordered a bowl of lentil soup. But I can tell you this much: This little Bohemian won’t be going back to Algiers.