It was Friday night at the movies in Lone Pine, and a wonderful and dedicated crowd gathered to watch The Mono Lake Story film. Only, this was not your average movie night.
It was as unlikely a spot as it was perfect—the Metabolic Studio’s IOU Garden on Main Street in downtown Lone Pine. Yup, right out there on the highway, nestled in between garden boxes bursting with budding strawberries and young onions, we had one of the most unusual and fun showings of the film that I know of.
It was part of Metabolic Studio’s “100 Conversations About Water” series that is set to explore a diverse range of topics relating to water as a commemorative action during the centenary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. And that, we certainly did. Together with filmmaker Ryan Christensen of Bristlecone Media, the movie night crew hung out together at picnic tables and in plastic lawn chairs for over an hour after the film—bouncing around great questions and ideas on everything from brine shrimp to water year types to the techniques used to capture the beauty of Mono Lake on film. Southern Californians with snowboards on roof racks and big rigs rolled by, and as the IOU Garden’s Jane McDonald observed, we were all so into it, we barely even noticed.
As I drove home with a lovely thank you gift of a bag of earthworm castings for the Committee’s garden in the back of the truck, I kept thinking about that great little community gathering space, and couldn’t help but smile. I highly recommend a stop at the IOU Garden the next time you’re in Lone Pine—they’ve got something magic happening there.
