OCR Text |
Show Wednesday, October 3, 2001 :: A-14 Sunday in the Park 5 a ir By Teri Orr The Park Record Mk"" The iff IFOffiil ilMKW KIDS PRIZES FOR EACH AGE GROUP $50 US savings bond AND a FREE student pass for 2001-2002 ski season ADULT PRIZES 1st prize $700 cash 2nd prize $200 cash 3rd prize $100 cash 1 - V em Sponsored by: TIIK Canyons PARK CITV, UTAH in cooperation with the Park City Fire Service District Order of Events: ADULT TRICYCLE RACE 18 and Older KIDS TRICYCLE RACE (ages 4-7,7-11,12-17) STREET DANCE WITH SAUTEED MUSHROOMS ENTRANCE FEE: $10 (all proceeds support families of fallen NYC firefighters) Costumes and helmets are required for all participants. in Park Record SmiingSummit Count met MO 649-9014 fotim 1670 Bonanza Drive RO. Box 3688 MGty,Utah84060 if) r. Sf w fiS? W i s his orv k&-m in the maKing. mmim My bags are packed... My son-in-law thinks it is patriotic. My mother moth-er thinks it is downright "foolhardy. But it is neither. My daughter and I are simply taking our annual business trip to New York this week. All right, maybe "simply" is the wrong modifier. But we are going because our trip was long planned and the organizers of the event would have been disappointed disap-pointed if we canceled. Besides, I have been looking look-ing forward to the privilege of giving a speech honoring hon-oring my good friend from American Express for his work in the arts. Sure, there was talk, right at first, of postponing the gala celebration by the National Orchestral Association. But the chair of the event remembered remem-bered her grandfather insisting on conducting a concert on the night Pearl Harbor had been bombed. People needed the music, he told Fran years later. It was as simple and complicated as that. So once again, The Lotos Club, the oldest literary lit-erary club in Andthe shopping. Well, with every major elegant store in the world represented, repre-sented, it is heady stuff to just go in and out of the buildings. But my favorite purchases pur-chases have been right there on New York City streets... We will do our small part to add to the economy of the city. " Teri Orr America, will open its enormous rosewood doors to the finest classical musicians in New York City. And the rag-tag bunch from Park City will descend upon their very civilized world and mix it up for a couple of days. Of course, when New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani gave his hhhhhh fighting cry to help New York, come, shop in our stores, eat in our restaurants, see a Broadway show it was a rally we could get behind. We have already made reservations reser-vations for a Broadway show for which, we had been told just a month before, itwould be impossible impossi-ble to get tickets. We never make dinner reservations. reserva-tions. There are so many fabulous places open all hours we just walk down the street until our mood finds the right aromas. And the shopping. Well, with every major elegant store in the world represented, repre-sented, it is heady stuff to just go in and out of the buildings. But my favorite purchases have been right there on New York City streets. Colorful umbrellas, purses, scarves and jewelry from colorful color-ful vendors. We will do our small part to add to the economy of the city. This year I had planned to go to Ellis Island and look up those Irish ancestors who I think entered the country legally in the mid-1800s. I have only been to the Statue of Liberty once in all my visits to New York. And that was 29 years ago when my daughter, who is accompanying me on this trip, was in utero. My husband and I took one of those glori ous helicopter rides around the city and then' walked up the steps of the Lady until we could step outside and view the city, and the country, from that amazing perspective. At eight months along I was certain I was going to deliver on the spot. But I am told the statue is not open right now and trips to Ellis Island have been put on hold. The best we could hope to do is take one of those harbor cruises cruis-es that circles the statue. But we will go as close as we respectfully can to Ground Zero. One of the women attending asked me why I would want to go there. What was the point? And I struggled to explain. It was so different differ-ent from the response I had heard from my friend who is married to a Delta pilot. "You must go there. It is hallowed ground. It deserves your respect," she said, her voice cracking just slightly. My friend from American Express will go there. He lost 11 colleagues in the attack. Not many, he says, when you compare it to the losses from other financial institutions but even the loss of one life, he concludes,' is too many. I know from my friends who have been traveling since the -moment the airports reopened, travel will, be different, longer,, more complicated. I. will leave manicure bhhhhomhh scissors at home. Ditto . the nail clippers and my razor. I will not be able to drive up minutes before my flight and throw my bags at a skycap as I . race to park the car. These things will take time but they are doable. I know this because, determined to " get to her brothers wedding, my tnend Jane changed planes four times that first weekend to get from here to North Carolina in time for the nuptials. nup-tials. My friend Barb, who travels all the time for business, has already been to Colorado and California and Hawaii. My godparents didnt hesitate hesi-tate to fly to Arizona and Nevada and back and they are 80 and 76. They are not afraid. It is not brave to travel. But neither is it business as usual. It is still a bit surreal for me and the fact that we are taking the red-eye flight out on the night of the full moon will put us in an altered reality real-ity anyway. I do love New York and so it is, with a strange mixture of anticipation and trepidation, we are going there to see her right now. The world feels like such an uncertain place but just for this week, I will wake up with long "to-do list" on Sunday, just steps from Central Park. . . Teri Orr is a former editor oThe Park Record and director of the Park City Performing Arts Center. y Core Samples 0 Escape mechanisms I'm outta here. I'm getting away. No more "be here now" for this guy. It was a vaccination that didn't take. My head's going right back in the sand. It's much more comfortable down there. I'm putting back on my blinders. I'm back in that "denial" saddle again, back where a friend is a friend. Jimson weed isn't just for breakfast anymore. This cant be happening. Gene and Roy, where the hell are you when we need you? Black Bart has knocked over the bank and is dragging drag-ging the new schoolmarm back to his cave. Things ain't like they used to be. Soon we'll be putting on our shoes before our socks. All bets are off. Science is dead, especially the branch which states that the Dodgers have been mathematically eliminated. Maybe we could replay all games that have occurred since September 11. There's got to be an upside to this mess. I'm back to reading escapist fiction, genre stuff, hardboiled and poached. All those books from the museum gift shops are going straight to the back burner. The violent themes of Picasso's "Guernica" no longer tickle my fancy. I could care less what Rodin really thought about Balzac. Give me an L.A. cop tracking down a lead in a Vegas strip joint. Put me in the backseat of a cab with a nosy hack who can't take his eyes off the rearview or the sultry sul-try dame on my knee. Give me a smoking gun, a ballistics match, or a confession sweated out of a three-time loser after an all right grilling. Give me a drink, for chrissake! Even my trusty "gizmo," that high point MiHMHaaH of invention that takes you through ISO channels one click at a time, no longer turns my crank. There's nothing on the independent inde-pendent or classic movie stations that are nearly as scary as the hard news, and that includes Orson Wells' slimy sheriff in "Touch of Evil." Music-wise, I've degenerated to pure "pablum." If it has any more edge than Miles Davis' "Love Songs" or Coltrane's "Ballads," it stays in the rack. A "Stones" tune would probably send me screaming scream-ing into the night for another dose of blood pressure pres-sure dope. At this rate, it shouldn't be long before I'm humming "Sunshine on my Shoulders." I haven't read Doonsbury in over a fortnight. In fact, I havent thought of "fortnight" in over a fortnight. fort-night. I realize my President wants me back to normal nor-mal as soon as possible but it's easier said than done. I'm trying to escape, remember. My friends understand. If I ever return to normal, it will be too soon for them. I've been babbling and muttering more than By Jay Meehan ...in order to get back to normal, one must first submerge him or her self in the abnormal. I mean you gotta get right down and wallow in it, you know what I mean. Feigning normalcy is the true denial. Mutter now or scream later, baby." Jay Maehan usual. More people than before are beginning to ' stare my way. The other night at the library, while "r verbally, and very much out-loud, getting to the V heart of the Dewey Decimal System with a card file ' to this day I can't check on the availability of a book on their computer I noticed a good half-dozen half-dozen reader-types gawking at me. Before long, they too were muttering. Now this is just a guess but I would bet that they felt them-' selves to be less neurotic than they felt me to be. They, you see, were muttering to each other, not to I a card file drawer. In their minds, they were back to , normal. No residual trauma with these folks. Their" jT President must be so proud. That took place soon after a buddy caught me ..; muttering to a bottle of pinot noir down at the liquor store. Being my buddy, he tried not to call . . attention to this seemingly bizarre behavior, but I 7 wasnt about to let him off the hook that easy. I : smiled at him and then turned my full attention back to the object of my one-sided discourse and resumed my muttering, only louder than before. , The crowd down near the zinfandels began to ,' grow, as did the throng in cabernet-land. It wasnt , : long before the mutterings from the other aisles drowned out my own. The Rasputin in me gave the Nixon in me a high five. My buddy found solace in the sim--. -pie act of distancing..; i himself. -,j What these folks don't understand is that , j in order to get back to normal, one must first , submerge him or her, self in the abnormal. I mean you gotta get right -, ' HanHBMnai down and wallow in it, ; you know what I mean. , Feigning normalcy is the true denial. Mutter now or , rv scream later, baby. , , Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, my degeneration. I , havent bottomed out yet. There still is a ways to , go. The abyss is always deeper than you think. I still v - havent bellied up to the bar and ordered a round of ,., Creme de Menthes for the house yet. I ought to get -.,;j some mileage out of that. At some level this is all about purification, or so . it seems when I'm alone in the basement with all the lights out and the shades drawn. These are the moments when I expect to hear Francis Ford t Coppola mutter "cut, beautiful, it's a wrap." , ;,j That's my new mantra. "We don't need no stink- ?r, ing light switch." Obviously, illumination isn't all it's cracked up to be. If we are all as illuminated as ' we think we are, where is all this darkness coming ;ot from? Well, I suppose it does have to be darkest,, before the dawn. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. I'm outta here. 7 "Walk the Talk" On Thursday, Oct. 4, at noon, meet at theTransit Center for a tour of the Olympic celebration sites on Main Street, led by Frank Bell. Ask questions... get answers. And it's free! |