Dining in the Dark Insomnia

It's 4 a.m. Sunday morning and I have about 4 hours until I have to wake up to do interviews for "Love in the Time of Cholera." Due to my bad weekend habits, I can't go to sleep at all and staring in the dark in my ridiculously tiny studio has me recalling something I did two nights ago. Maybe it's that sense memory perception thing or something. Since there seems to be no chance of me falling asleep anytime soon, I thought it'd be nice to break out the 'ol blog again...

So to promote the movie "30 Days of Night," Sony Pictures invited members of the press to do this thing called "Dinner in the Dark." I had heard of "Dinner in the Dark" in LA because on the reality TV show "Hell's Kitchen," one team won a challenge competition and got to experience "Dinner in the Dark" in the L.A. branch of the restaurant. In a nutshell, it's this weird, strange idea where they lead you into a PITCH (absolutely pitch) black room with ZERO light and you are to eat, talk with people, and drink as you would in a restaurant but without the use of sight. The idea is that by eliminating one of your five sense, your other senses - especially taste and smell - would be subsequently heightened.

The studio had flown in the cooks and waiters to the Regency Hotel. Usually, if you do this in L.A., you have to make a reservation weeks in advance and a meal costs $99+tax per person. I'm sure Sony thought it would make for this nice little story for the press - how we all sat through a movie about vampires preying on an isolated Alaskan town where in the winter, darkness falls for 30 days. (Fun Fact: In actuality, Bristow, Alaska is shrouded in 55 days of darkness during the winter.) A good number of press folks showed up for the dinner but hilariously, very few of them showed up to do interviews the next day. (P.S. The movie sucked.)

The usual web movie geeks had already seen the movie because there was a cocktail party for the film the week before but I had opted to wait for the Dinner in the Dark thing. Some of the usual press folks I know did the dinner as well but for the most part, everyone there were members of other press outlets (radio, TV, print, etc...) who I don't usually chat with. So for the most part, going into this thing, I was pretty much alone in a group of about 100 strangers.

The bus pulled up at the Regency Hotel and we were led into a gathering room before the dinner began. They were serving Bloody Marys there (get it?) and everyone thought we were going to eat soon.

But no. We got a lecture from a professor: a professor who teaches a course in vampires at the University of Texas. It's unfortunate that I don't remember his talking points but for 15-20 minutes he tried to relate the history of vampires in film as it related to "30 Days of Night" then tried to draw comparisons between vampires attacking an Alaskan oil town to the Bush administration attacking Iraq. Yeah, I think it's a bit of a reach, but it was interesting nonetheless. I also later learned that his syllabus at UT includes watching the 1922 film "Nosferatu" all the way to the 2006 Russian film "Daywatch." He say to me, however, that next year's syllabus will have "30 Days of Night". How unfortunate for those kids.

Anyway so the dinner was about to begin. We were randomly divided into groups of ten. I was towards the front of the line and so I knew the two people ahead of me. I, however, had no idea who the people behind me were. Keep in mind, most of the people in the room were strangers anyway. We were asked to turn in our cell phones and any watches that might glow in the dark or give off light so that it would not ruin the experience for those hoping for a pure, dark experience. We were instructed to place our hands on the shoulder of the person in front of us so that when we were being led into the pitch black dining room, we would not get lost.

Now, I've been in the Regency Hotel ballroom many times before so I thought that if I had gone in there in pitch black, I would have known how to get out of there if need be. But as we were first led into the room, I noticed that we were making all sorts of turns. The waiter for my group of 10 described what we were going through as a maze of sorts, which made me realize the idea was the disorient us from trying to figure out exactly where our table would be in relation to the door we had just walked through.

Upon entering the dining room and as the last ray of light disappeared behind me, you could immediately get a sense of the craziness of the concept. People were giggling and laughing while taking baby steps, as we kept bumping into tables left and right of us. I don't remember the last time I was in any room or situation where it was pitch black and being immersed in that total darkness was kind of a nervous but freeing feeling at the same time. There were some people who couldn't handle it and I could hear behind me people saying, "I can't do this. This is too freaky, I got to get out of here."

So as we made our way to the table after what seemed like an eternity, the first person was asked to find and feel their way to their chair, and each of us behind him would have to feel for the chair to the right of the person. As soon as the shoulder in front of me let go of my hand, I (and leading the 3 other people behind me) made my way to find my chair and luckily, did so without incident. I had my messenger bag with me and so as to not lose it or not to have to feel my way around for it, I clutched onto it and placed it in my lap so I would know exactly where it was at all times.

We sat down and heard from our waiter:

"Hi, my name is Michael and I'll be your waiter. Your salad is in front of you."

Eh? I felt around in front of me and sure enough, there was a plate of salad. I then felt around for the forks and like any typical dining setup, the forks were of course to the left of the salad plate and the knife was to the right.

"Anyone know if there is any bread?" asked one guy.

"Yeah, I think there is. I feel it in front of me." said one lady.

There was almost a moment where it seemed like - however cheesy this sounds - that we were all in this together, and that we'd have to work together verbally and physically to get anything done. So in figuring out who had the bread, we had to vocally call out who had the bread and pass it directly to the left. When the bread got to me, I had unknowingly grabbed the whole roll for myself. When I passed it to the woman next to me, she goes:

"I don't think there's any bread left."

I kept my mouth closed. Funny enough, it's something you can get away with, just not seeing things. And the butter? Someone asked about the butter.

"Uh, I wouldn't even try that" someone laughed.

And so as we passed the butter, the lady next to me yells

"I totally just got my hand in butter!"

And that was pretty much the rest of the night. The idea that we couldn't see each other or anything was a freeing experience and in doing so, people started acting more and more silly as the night went on. Maybe it was the wine too, I don't know. But other tables started singing cheesy hair metal '80s songs and the phrase "This is just weird" was uttered over and over and over again.

Eating in total darkness wasn't tough at all, although I could never tell whether I had actually cleaned my plate or not. We were served the salad first, then an entree of boneless chicken with string beans, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes. I didn't bother using a knife at all so I was using my fork to do everything - cut my chicken, scoop the potatoes and find the string beans. All the while, I kept a visual imprint in my head as to where my diet coke was in relation to my plate, in relation to my glass of water, in relation to my napkin. It was funny how easily and quickly I was able to adapt to figuring out the layout of what was in front of me and around me. Did you ever see "Daredevil"? When Ben Affleck uses sound to figure out the outlines of objects in front of him? That's what I felt like I was doing. As the night went on, I knew the people and where they were, I knew where utensils, food, plates were and I could tell whenever the waiter walked by me. All your senses really do become heightened as a result of not being able to see.

Going back to the "freeing" aspect of the dinner, what's funny was that we had all these open conversations with one another and not only were most of us strangers, but we also didn't really know who we were talking to or what they looked like. The girl sitting next to me was talking about her ex-boyfriend and I was listening and responding. But do I know who she is? Absolutely not.

So that was that. I left after finishing desert (which was a lemon tart pie thing) which must've been about an hour and a half later. If you guys ever get a chance to do it, I'd recommend it, although if you're in there for too long, it can get a bit paranoid. But it was definitely an experience and definitely one that I think should be tried at least once in one's lifetime.