2/10/2004 02:24:06 AM

Okay, here’s a pretty charming concept: You’re a musician who combs estate sales for the personal slide collections of the deceased – family vacations, corporate presentations, educational slideshows, etc. You create stories from the photos, write songs to tell the stories, and project the slides on a screen as you perform their accompanying songs live. You sing and play guitar and keyboard, your wife runs the slide projector and designs the costumes, and your ten-year old daughter plays the drums. Yours is the story of the vaudevillian Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, who visited the North Star Bar on Friday night. It was way cool.

On Sunday, I sat in the Prince Music Theater for nearly ten hours to watch the entire Godfather trilogy. It was the first time I had seen any of the Godfather films on the big screen, and hopefully it won’t be the last. What magic that big screen performs! Even the notoriously disappointing Godfather III was rendered almost enjoyable by the glorious 35mm projection and surround sound. The prints were all far from mint (especially the magenta-drenched Godfather II), but the experience was still well worth the posterior numbness, and the $10 ticket price was an offer I couldn’t refuse.