Photography by Ian L. Sitren

Posts tagged “classic movies

National Olive Day

A giant martini glass containing oversized olives stands beside a standard martini in an upscale cocktail lounge. The contrast in scale creates a humorous visual concept inspired by National Olive Day and the idea that olives deserve a much larger glass.

Auntie Mame says “Olives take up too much room in such a little glass”.

I’ve remembered that line for years.

It comes from the 1958 film Auntie Mame, and for some reason it always resurfaces whenever olives are involved. Not because it makes much sense, but because it solves a problem that probably never existed in the first place.

Today is National Olive Day, and rather than photograph a bowl of olives, I started wondering whether Auntie Mame might actually have had a point.

Maybe the problem was never the olive.

Maybe the problem was the glass.

The traditional martini has always forced olives into cramped living conditions. One or two olives suspended in a relatively small volume of liquid, expected to spend an entire evening crowded together at the bottom of the glass. No room to stretch out. No room to enjoy the scenery.

That seemed unfair.

So a solution was required.

Not fewer olives.

Not smaller olives.

A much bigger glass.

The result is a martini glass so oversized that the olive finally has all the room it could ever want. The standard martini sitting beside it serves as a reminder of the old days, before progress, before innovation, before anyone considered the spatial needs of cocktail garnishes.

I suspect Auntie Mame would approve.

Or perhaps she would simply ask for an even bigger glass.

Either way, National Olive Day seemed like the perfect excuse to finally solve one of cinema’s most overlooked problems.

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Big Movie Big Screen

WOW! I just saw the original 1933 “King Kong” in a theater on a big screen. Over the years I am sure I have seen it maybe 100 times but always on a television. But this was like seeing it for the first time. Big movies should be seen on a big screen in a theater. There is no comparison.

King Kong