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Show Page A12 D Thursday, February 4,1993 The Park Record Section A i r r f t if I t I I " I " I t tug? lltflk fljtijM m$hm mmw JJere's your chance to "test drive" some of the finest ski equipment around. . . all those skis you've been dying to try will be available (and in most lengths you want). Bring your credit card as a deposit while you try these skis. Ski models you can demo include ROSSIGNOL, PRE, FISCHER, VOLKL, SALOMON, LACROIX AND K2 as well as telemark boots and skis from BLACK DIAMOND andREDFEATHER snowshoes. Come by and try all of the 1992-'93 gear that we sell at JANS. . IJf you find a ski you'd like to buy after trying skis on this weekend, JANS will deduct the price of your lift ticket ($43) from the regular purchase price of your new skis; PLUS we'll give you a $100 gift certificate that you may apply towards any other merchandise at JANS. MOUNTAIN OUTFITTERS Where Park City Buys Skis 1600 Park Avenue 649-4949 Park City Resort 649-2500 Deer Valley 649-8770 Vakntine, 's (Day & Presidents1 Day Don't miss your opportunity to advertise for these two important occasions. Valentines day falls on Sunday, February 14 and President's Day is observed on Monday February 15. The Park Record will be publishing on Thursday, February 11, as usual. The deadline to place your ad is Monday, February 8 at noon. Please note that due to the holiday, there is an early deadline for the February 18th edition. Copy and space reservations must be in by Friday, February 12 at 5pm. Don't miss your opportunity to advertise in one of the most widely-read papers of the year. Press run is 8800 649-9014 Annqfl Sad Pit (Goes... BY TOM CLYDE Cabin fever sets in I don't know about you, but I had a great celebration on Groundhog Day. It's a major holiday out in the hinterlands where cabin fever is running a little high by this point in the winter. So at sunrise on February 2nd, I was anxious to see what the great groundhog had to say about spring coming. The trouble with groundhogs as prognosticators is that you have to be sure you get the right groundhog. There is no point in betting on the season on the basis of an impostor groundhog. For example, on the morning of the 2nd, KPCW was still running about two minutes of music to 58 minutes of fund-raiser promotions, plus they started the radio auction. I have on good authority that station manager Blair Feulner stepped outside and saw his shadow. Does that mean that spring is on the way? No way. All that means is that we have six more weeks of the fundraiser. Personally, I can only take about ten minutes of the real Robin Williams, so the three months of imitations is wearing thin. Let's parteeeee! No, let's change the channellll! If we all send them lots of money early, maybe they'll stop. So while I waited for the real groundhog, I faced up to a mechanical failure on my Zamboni. The Zamboni is the old pickup with a snow plow that I use to keep the road to my house open (more or less). It's a fme piece of equipment, from the plastic lights on the roof to the 1988 license plate on the back bumper. But it had sprung a leak. When I tried to lift the plow blade, there was a lot of moaning and groaning, and hydraulic fluid squirted half way to Steamboat Springs, but nothing happened with the plow. It had blown a gasket This thing has only been around since the Coolidge administration. They don't make 'em like they used to. With the Zamboni on the injured reserve list, the last few little snow storms have kind of built up in the driveway, so getting in and out is a little tricky. It's about a quarter mile out to the highway, but it's like a bobsled run now. If the car gets stuck, I have to climb out the sun roof because the snow is stacked up so deep and narrow on the road that the doors won't open. It's been a long time since we had winter like this. The skiing has been great, but the roof shoveling and search and rescue operations between the house and the garage are beginning to get old. There is nothing quite as dispiriting as sound of tire chains. The neighborly good will that prevailed a month ago is fading fast Last month, when somebody else got stuck on the lane, there were immediate offers of help. "Can I help pull you out I'll go get the tractor" has been replaced with "If you think you can leave that piece of junk blocking the road, you've got another think coming." I don't know much about hydraulic hoists on antique snow plows. In fact, I know almost nothing about them, except that the fluid is red, and when they are operating properly, the liquid is tightly contained in the pistons rather than squirting on the windshield or hemorrhaging into the snow. But I started tearing in to it, looking for the blown seal. In the process of fixing it I learned a few things about the whole system. Not necessarily important things, but they were useful in their own way. For example, hands soaked in hydraulic fluid when the wind chill is about -S actually feel colder than if they were wet with just plain water. And when you bash your knuckles, you can't put them in your mouth because the hydraulic fluid is poison. But it all more or less came together. The Zamboni is back in fighting condition. The groundhog had not appeared, so I decided to walk out to the mailbox and see if there was any news of the worMbeyond. The wind was blowing, and it was trying to snow. My hands were numb, but so covered with the red fluid that I wasn't about to put them in my pockets. I realized that the lane is too narrow for the propane delivery truck to get down, and the tank is getting low. For some reason, I remembered the story about Napoleon's soldiers, retreating from Moscow, taking refuge from the cold in the carcasses of dead horses. It wasn't out of the question. My brother's horse eyed me suspiciously from across the fence. They're not as dumb as the look, i J The mailbox has been completely mangled by the j snow plow, and it takes two hands and one foot to it pry open these days. The mailman carries a crowbar, avalanche probes, a shovel, and a search dog with him on this route. I was able to break most of the mail loose. There were a few things frozen to the bottom of the mail box that will be there until June, a glacier of Wal-Mart ads. But I got most of it and started back to the house. The horse ran when it saw me coming. Still no sign of the groundhog. But there in the mail I found something even better. There were two (soggy) new catalogs from bicycle shops. They were filled with pictures of people on bikes or cooling off after long, hot rides. They were wearing only one layer of clothes, or almost no clothes at all. Shorts without gooseflesh. Their skin was not fish-belly white. There was a picture of a couple of happy cyclists wearing a miracle fabric that "wicks perspiration" and "keeps them cool" which has not been a serious problem around here lately. There were pictures of people wearing sandals standing in what I thought was a pile of road salt but later realized was sand. Hot sand. And green grass. There were several pages of swimming suits on models who had just jumped out of the pool and were dripping wet but not shivering or thinking about the Dormer party up there in the Sierras snacking on each other. I quickly turned past the section on "Winter Close-Outs" Close-Outs" to the camping gear. Sleeping bags guaranteed comfortable at temperatures as low as 40 degrees. More short pants. There was somebody windsurfing on the lake in the background, and a kayak loaded on a roof rack next to the mountain bike. Frankly, me effect was not unlike pornography. All those summer activities that can only be imagined. Summer is still months away. When you come right down to it winter is only about half over. March and April are the heavy snow months. But summer will come eventually. And when the groundhog finally poked his little head out of his burrow to check for his shadow, I ? whacked the mangy little so-and-so over the head with a snow shoveL Stofllfae' si Venim DY TEH! Oltll One frame at a time Now that the festival is over, the story can finally be told Robert Redford is in the toilet The moment of epiphany came as I shut the door of the one stall unisex restroom at the Main Street Deli. Hanging on the wall was an old Sundance poster with a much younger version of Redford than the one I saw in the flesh around town this week. The framed poster sang the praises of Sundance a marriage of the arts and the environment I returned with clean hands to grab my sandwich turkey, no cheese, on sourdough and to quiz Mike on why Bob (I learned those in his inner circle call him that) was hanging on the outhouse wall during the week of his reign in Park City. Mike laughed, this was not a recent development. Turns out Bob has been there for years. "Almost 10 years ago somebody came by from Sundance and gave a bunch of Main Street merchants season passes to ski the mountain. I hung up the poster in the front of the store that year. The next year they returned and wanted us to buy season passes for ourselves and our employees. He's been in the toilet ever since. And that was the last time I skied Sundance." Conversely, Redford was not spotted getting a morning bagel at the deli at any time during this festival, or the year for that matter. On the last day of the festival when I hadn't eaten for hours I ducked into Davanza's next to the cinemas to grab a slice of pizza to go. I stood in line, which I learned to do rather well last week, and I noticed a Butch and Sundance picture still hanging right out front next to one of those blow-up-the-world video machines. I thought about asking the guy behind the counter how long the boys had been on the wall and the circumstances of their arrival, but when you spend your life asking questions of people, there are days you just want to grab the pepperoni and run. While the week was filled with close encounters of the celebrity kind, my favorite moment came while standing next to Bob as he waited to address the audience at the awards ceremony. As they started rolling the now all-too-familiar promo for the festival which runs before every movie, he turned to me and groaned, "Oh no, not the trailer again!" And I said, "Don't tell me even you're sick of it?" And he nodded. And while I was certainly tired by the time I saw my last film Sunday, I loved the festival this year. I think the selection was of the highest quality, and the spectrum of films offered really ran the gamut. The press room arranged everything we couldn't set up ourselves the parties actually had enough food to eat and the menu was varied, the volunteers who now come from all over the country for the chance to work for movies were friendly and well informed. And let's not forget the obvious....for a few days the town looked like a microcosm of the real world. There were Vietnamese people, older people, Black people, Chinese people, and people of different ethnic backgrounds. Yes, the pervasive were the Obnoxious People In Black but they claimed no single race or religion. One of my favorite events is the panel discussions, and this year, due to other commitments, I only made one. But the panel about screenwriting was filled with witty literate types who threw snippets of substance out into the room. The moderator talked about the creative process between "making the work and pissing and moaning about the work." He said it often made for split people the two halves torn, with congratulating and encouraging yourself in direct conflict with criticizing the work. "You know words like this and people like this," he said, "take 'military music' , or say 'creative executive'. We call these oxymoronic." Then one of the panelists added the challenge of creating from nothing, "It's like trying to sculpt the Mona Lisa out of marshmallows. It's very different." The panelists laughed that next week would be "the invasion of agents" who would try to capitalize on all the hard independent work the filmmakers had done. And finally the panel agreed it took, "will and guts and a good nervous system" to complete an independent film. Like everyone else, I had a hard time getting to the post office. I didn't grocery shop for almost two weeks, and I didn't just drive up Main Street for no reason as I often do. Still, it strikes a vein with me that I had a chance to learn from the best filmmakers in their independent field this week. I could learn about technique, or financing, or screenwriting, but I could also learn from the body of the work. I could learn ' how one small school in the Bronx embraces the Arts ;, to save the child, I could learn how the pain of losing a loved one bit by bit to a hideous disease is a fact of life for thousands of couple like Mark and Tom. I could ' learn making it and keeping your soul intact is what really making it is all about. I could learn not all movies, like not all of life, have happy endings. For a few days, without packing any bags or buying any transportation tickets, I was pretty certain I was out of my own zip code. And this winter, when the snow has been relentless and the cabin fever symptoms pretty obvious, having a vacation come to you seems like something to celebrate. Recycle... for your children's future. i ft |