Beth and Stoler Travel Back in Time
In May 2002, Beth and Stoler dressed up and walked the Bay to Breakers race across San Francisco, and on the way home, met an Englishwoman who was so taken with their costumes that she gave them some extra vouchers she had for two nights at the York Hotel, a classic location in the City which was used in Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (and, subsequent to Stoler and Beth staying there, was remodeled and renamed to capitalize on this connection.)
So a few months later, they made use of the passes to celebrate their second anniversary as a couple. It seemed to Stoler as if they were traveling back in time, and or that through proper costuming they might be able to do so. It's like in Jack Finney's classic -- sorry to reuse that word -- "Time and Again", which
SPOILER ALERT
uses the idea that time is a psychological illusion, and that by getting deep into character, by living in a building that hasn't changed for a century, and dressing and otherwise living the part, and through self-hypnosis, the protagonist is able to step back into 1880's New York. Read it! (Hollywood has talked for years about making a movie of it, but the closest they came was 1980's "Somewhere in Time" (which is directly based on a novel by Richard Matheson, but Matheson has acknowledged his debt to Finney.)It's also kind of like that great story by Ray Bradbury (which is sort of redundant, because almost every story by Ray Bradbury is great) called "The Fox and the Forest" in which
SPOILER ALERT
a couple fleeing a future tyranny take refuge in the past. That portal thing in Union Square looks like it could allow time travel ...
Now, this wasn't the first time Beth and Stoler had attired themselves retro-ly to attend an event. Back in 2001 and 2002, they went a couple of times to the 80's dance party New Wave City, because Stoler loves 80's music (read: is stuck in the 80's) and Beth, who actually hates 80's music would occasionally manage to tolerate it to make Stoler happy.
