Anytime you take on a new hobby or are learning a new task, you must eventually step away from whatever it is you are creating and tear it down to see what it is you have done.

For several years in the mid-1990s, I took pottery classes. From the giddy days of learning to center a block of clay on the wheel to the first successful bowl/cup/ashtray, each try at a new pot felt as if I were mastering the craft.

It wasn’t until a teacher had me throw a cylinder and cut it in half that I really began learning. While it was painful to ruin a perfectly good vase/mug/pencil holder, it showed my strengths and weaknesses in full cross-section detail.

Unfortunately, I gave up pottery right before hitting the top of my game. The lesson of dissecting my own work, however, has carried on.

So when I finish writing something, do I rip it in half? No, I don’t. I look at where it is too thick or too thin. Or where I got off center, or where I applied too much pressure. I look at my screenplay/short story/blog post as if it were merely a blob of clay, ready to be reshaped into something that might be useful.

While volunteering for the Portland International Film Festival, I received a coupon for a free pint of microbrew at the Livingroom Theaters, a new cinema in Portland that focuses on independent film and good food. While I had wanted to visit the Livingroom Theaters since its opening a few months ago, a free pint (and my wife and daughter being out of town) sealed the deal.

I was drawn to the Scottish film Late Night Shopping (2001) because it had similarities to a script I’m currently writing. As I sank into my plush seat while sipping on a Blind Pig Dunkel Weizen, I thought about David Denby’s recent article in The New Yorker (”Big Pictures,” Jan. 8, 2007) in which he questioned the new age of digital distribution of films while wallowing in the nostalgia of the grand theaters of his youth.

As much as I love movies, and the experience of seeing one in a theater, I have only a fourteen-inch TV at home. Unlike the crispness of the large flat-screens Mr. Denby mentions in the article, my TV doesn’t engulf me in the movie. While I might miss out on some of the details of the cinematography, I do find, however, that if a movie has a great story at its core, I get lost all the same.

Mr. Denby misses the point of the video iPod. It will not replace seeing a movie in a theater, be it a rank chain that pushes large popcorns and sodas, a cozy theater with wine and beer, or a home screen in front of a couch. I’d love to own a few of my favorite movies on a video iPod so I could revisit them whenever and wherever, just as I would do with photos.

I hope Livingrooom Theaters is successful. Their screens aren’t bigger, their sodas aren’t giant, and their seating capacity is limited, but they create an atmosphere where you enjoy arriving early and not rushing out the door the second the movie is over.