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September 27,1984 Page 6
ENTERTAINMENT
The University Daily KANSAN
Up,
Up,
and
Away
Joel Jackson/KANSAN
Balloon business is more than a lot of hot air
By P.M. LEWIS Staff Reporter
It was one of the best birthday presents Barbara Etzel ever received. In fact, she floated all the way home. Last week, Etzel, professor of human development, spent her birthday in a hot air balloon.
"All my life I've wanted to go for a balloon ride," she said. The former World War II airplane and glider pilot was surprised with a birthday flight by her students and fellow teachers.
Eitzel's pilot for the trip was local ballooning githusiast Alan Miller.
Miller, 36, is a former banker turned balloonist. He and his wife Vickie own Lawrence BalloonPort, RFD 2, the area's only commercial hot air ballooning operation.
AS WELL AS being available for birthday flights. Lawrence BalloonPort offers champagne training and wedding flights.
The champagne flight culminates with a bottle of champagne when the balloon touches down. "It's sort of a ballooning tradition," Miller said.
Occasionally passengers request that the cork be popped in flight, and Miller readily honors the request, but as the pilot, he is excluded from the festivities, he said.
Training flights are available for aspiring balloonists, and wedding flights accommodate those wishing lighter-than-air nuptials. He booked his first wedding flight this fall. A wedding flight is about the same as the champagne flight but a justice of the peace or a clergyman gets to ride along.
ALL FLIGHTS LAST about one hour and cost $175. During that hour, the balloon travels six to 15 miles, depending on the wind. Miller said. Flight altitudes average
about 1,500 feet, but some of the most exciting flying is contour flying, skimming along just above tree tops, he said.
"Each flight has its own beautiful characteristics." Miller says. "The actual lift off is always controlled by the speed of the wind. Although it is always smooth, a higher wind makes a more exciting launch."
makers.
The balloon's wicker basket can easily hold four people, but Miller prefers flying with two simply because it is roomier. The eight foot tall triangular basket is suspended from a balloon that stands seven and a half stories tall and is printed with a traditional elephant pattern of blue, gold and green.
THE BALLOON CONTAINS 77,000 cubic feet of air and takes about 15 minutes to inflate. The air is heated by bursts of flame from a ten gallon propane tank. When it goes up, the balloon carries three more tanks which can keep it aloft for one and a half hours. Miller said.
Miller described his business as "pretty well laid back." He is that way, too. He got into ballooning because he enjoyed balloons, not because he wanted to make a fortune.
"You can stay as busy as you want with advertising," he said, "but we rely on word of mouth." Miller does not advertise much because he does not want the business to get too big.
"one season we flew 100 hours," he said,
but that was unusually high. We probably average 25-50 flights per year."
BALLOONING TENDS to be seasonal, he says, but it doesn't have to be because hot air balloons actually fly better in colder weather.
Miller says balloons can even fly at night if properly lighted, but landing in the dark can give even the most experienced pilot problems. While he prefers to fly during the day, Miller usually only flies in the dark
when he launches his balloon before dawn and lands after the sun has risen.
The Millers first experienced ballooning at their wedding. On May 1, 1976, they launched from Loose Park in Kansas City, Mo., and were married at an altitude of 1,400 feet.
Miller enjoyed the flight so much that he used $1,200 he received as wedding presents to take pilot's lessons. After the lessons, he had to pass a Federal Aviation Administration test before he received his license. The test includes written, oral and flying sections.
THE COUPLE purchased their balloon soon after Miller received his license. Miller's first balloon cost $10,000.
The FAA regulates ballooning like any other aircraft, but balloonists do not have to notify anyone of where and when they are flying.
The city of Lawrence places additional restrictions on balloonists. The city wants flights in town to be launched from Broken Arrow Park, and land at the Lawrence Municipal Airport. Miller said that this was "pretty much impossible" because it was difficult to determine exactly where the balloon will land.
To solve this problem, he tries to land before he reaches city limits, or he flies over town. But if he wanted to launch from or land in the city, the city office's office would probably give its OK
Usually, Miller launches from his house six miles south of Lawrence, and his favorite landing site is at Clinton reservoir.
Does Miller still fly for pleasure?
"Well," he said, "we just make the commercial flights, but it's always a pleasure."
JacksonKARA
Above, John Howard, RED 4, and Rich Camkins, 2133 Ohio St. inflate the Lawrence BalloonPort balloon before it takes off Top, Alan Miller, owner on near Pleasant Grove. Miller runs the business from his home near JacksonKARA.
Joel Jackson/KANSA
Arden Trio opens Chamber Series
Rc KAREN MASSMAN
By KAREN MASSMAN
Associate Entertainment Editor
The power of the piano, blended with the delicacy of the violin and the cello, will ignite Sunday when the Arden Trio performs at the University of Kansas.
The trio, composed of Suzanne Ornstein, violinist, Clay Reude, cellist, and Thomas Schmidt, pianist, will perform at 3 p.m. in the Crafton-Preyer Theatre in Murphy Hall. The group opens the 1984/85 Chamber Music Series.
For audiences that don't have much knowledge of chamber music, the piano trio has a great attraction. Schmidt said.
It is the most popular form of chamber music next to the string quartet for composers. The trio also provides variety for an audience, Schmidt said, because of the piano, unlike the string quartet, which has four similar sounding instruments.
The Arden Trio
"I THINK THAT in the last 10 to 20 years there has been an enormous growth and interest in chamber music" . Schmidt said. The Musical Quarterly has 15 tiers listed,
and that humility is certainly are committed to the Archeo Trio as a lifelong commitment." Schmidt said. "Our intentions are to pursue it that way. Not all groups are as committed. With us there has been a commitment from the very beginning."
The Musical Quarterly has 15 trios listed,
and that number is growing fast.
The trio rehearses an average of two to three times a week, he said.
"We are constantly working on a piece even if we've performed it 30 to 40 times." Schmidt said.
On Sunday, the trio will perform a standard repertoire, he said. It will play Trio in C Major by Hayden, Trio in E Minor, Op. 67 by Shostakovich and Trio (1915) by Ravel.
CRITICS OF THE TRIO have described the group as playing like a single instrument because they blend so well. The group prides itself on that precision, Schmidt said.
The group has also commissioned composers to write pieces specifically for the trio with grants from the National Endowment for Chamber Music and the American
Since the eperon is in In addition, the musicians try to resurrect older pieces that have been unjustly neglected, he said. For example, next year, the group will perform a concert of seldom played pieces in Carnegie Hall.
Society for Chamber Music. Schmidt said the group felt it was their responsibility to continue the repertoire of music for trios.
in the piano.
"The pianist always has to be the 'mixer,'" he said. "He has to put in the right amount of piano sound. You learn to adjust since there is a problem with balance."
HOWEVER, WITH A piano trio there was a problem, Schmidt said, with balancing the sound of the strings, the cello and the violin, with the piano.
Although this is only the group's fifth year together, it has already played at Carnegie Hall, at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, performed on "Live from WNCN," and in 1981, it became the first ensemble to win the Concert Artists Guild Award.
The three members of the Arden Triet met in 1975 when they were graduate students at the Yale School of Music. They began playing together in 1979
Last year, the group performed in more than 40 cities and is planning a tour of Great Britain, France and possibly Germany next year. Schmidt said.
year, Scout said.
When the trio is not performing or rehearsing, its musicians are involved in music in their own manner.
Schmidt teaches at Concordia College Ornstein freelances and is the concert master of the American Symphony Ruede, who is also a freelancer substitutes in the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera.
Romance film can wait until another September
By DAVID LASSITER
Staff Reporter
"at nil September." Playing at the Hillcrest
Theatre, Ninth and Iowa streets. Rated R,
$3.75 for adults and $2 for children. $2 for both
children and adults at the 5 p.m. shows.
Until September which opened last weekend in Lawrence, almost has all of the key elements of a good romance.
It has two dark, stunning actors with beautiful, watery eyes. It has scenes shot on location in Paris, and it follows the fail-safe formula for Hollywood love: boy meets girl; boy gets girl; boy loses girl and boy gets girl back
MOVIE REVIEW
But if you're looking for a worthwhile romance film, you might have to wait until next September.
next supervisor.
Mo Alexander, played by Karen Allen, is a horticulturist from the Midwest who gets stranded in Paris for three weeks. While she waits for her visa to be cleared, she decides to stay at a girlfriend's posh apartment
NEXT DOOR LIVES Xavier de la Perouse,
a French banker played by Thierry Lherr
mitte. He is kissing his wife好idge as she
leaves for a three-week vacation.
That's how their perfect high school romance begins. He leaves her little gifts at her door, and she plays shy and hard to get
By accident Mo wanders into Xavier's apartment looking for her friend. Xavier explains that she lives next door and is out of town, and then, he invites Mo to have dinner with him.
but not for long. They quickly become sexually involved. The emotionally involved comes later.
Xavier is used to having mistresses and casual romances. Mo, who is recently divorced from her husband, is a simple Midwestern, not used to such affairs.
The plot is simple and the dialogue is so bad that it leaves the characters shallow and undeveloped.
AFTER THREE WEEKS, Xavier nounces that his wife is coming back and that he has no place for Mo in his life.
This kind of exchange occurs throughout the movie. Maybe the makers of this film United Artists, thought that if they stuck a French accent on half the lines in the movie that they could grab the audience's attention
No is hurt and starts to cry. Xavier asks her "not to spoil the memories" and "don't worry about them."
in MA. Another disappointment comes when the credit roll. The screenplay was written by a University of Kansas graduate, Jance Lee Graham.
But she failed to bring any of her Midwest homefront background to the character or Mo. Ma talks a lot about when she was "back home in St. Louis," but her character never convinced me that she was ever anywhere west of the Mississippi River.
SURE. MO STUMBLES and stomps around like Anne Oakley in "Annie Get Your Gun," but I wasn't sold on it. Aren't most of us from the Midwest? How many of us on this campus stumble and stomp around? Some director in Hollywood who was probably born and grew up in California probably showed her how it done "out in this here part' o the country."
If you go to the $2 show you might get your money's worth, but otherwise, "Until Septemember" is one one-night-stand that's definitely not worth the price.