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Reel, local culture continues... for now

I dreamed I was sleeping. I didn't even know it was possible to dream you're sleeping. Seems like one of those Möbius thought puzzles. I'm sure I only nodded off briefly but in the netherworld of half here, half there, I dreamed I was sleeping.
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I dreamed I was sleeping. I didn't even know it was possible to dream you're sleeping. Seems like one of those Möbius thought puzzles. I'm sure I only nodded off briefly but in the netherworld of half here, half there, I dreamed I was sleeping.

And when I jerked to wakefulness, I felt like I was half asleep. I wasn't. I was, however, surrounded by people restlessly waiting for the next film.

Shaking off my embarrassing confusion — we're all a little embarrassed to realize we've just nodded off in a room crowded with people juiced on Monster, alcohol, street drugs and the hormonal rush of hoping they're going to get laid later — I was further confused by the over-amplified voice of my friend, Feet Banks, explaining how, now that he's a father, he's trying to swear less but nonetheless, someone had just done something fuckin' amazing. No more confusing than many of Feet's other proclamations, just ironic timing.

I was in the middle of the 11th installment of the 72 hr. Filmmaker Showdown. When this cultural competition was launched way back when, it hit the town and the festival like a shot of Red Bull with a chaser of battery acid, or as I like to say, Red Bull neat. Almost everyone who attended the first Showdown expected the obvious, some variation of ski/snowboard porn. Why not? Hatched as an experiment in a ski and snowboard festival still morphing from athletic competition to cultural phenomenon, sited in and around the undisputed centre of the snow sports world — at least in April — and entered largely by local filmmakers, it wasn't hard to imagine a collection of seen-it-all-before huckin' 'n' jivin'.

But, if a memory well on its way to being referred to in the past tense serves, none of the finalists fell into the ski porn mode. The winner was a witty, funny film about kicking the nicotine habit. In hindsight, maybe we all should have seen it coming. But we didn't and there hasn't been a single winner, and damn few finalists, in 11 years that came anywhere near the genre, Tuesday evening being no exception.

This year's Showdown, as it has in recent past years, sold out in the blink of an eye — three days after tickets went on sale. The room was crowded with instant locals, graying locals, visitors from all over and filmmaking teams from here and away. Notably absent, again, was strong representation by the local "culture" mavens who see arts and culture as a continuing quest for additional tourists as opposed to something we do. Too bad. They missed yet another outstanding example of real, true, local culture... the kind of thing experts say actually draw people to a place and differentiate it from, well, everywhere else. Their loss.

And so it goes. TWSSF chugs along, year after year, under the careful nurturing of Watermark and the Queen of Festivals. Still wringing the most bang out of the fewest bucks, finding sponsors when other festivals seem incapable of doing the same, operating with sponsors' money as opposed to one form or another of tax dollars, and bringing people to a ski resort at a time of year most others are hanging "Closed" signs on the gates, it somehow seems like just another diversion too many people take for granted.

That's the nature of things grown familiar. Always been there, at least in our attention-deficit memories, always will... won't it?

Well, probably not. The smart money is on this being the last year of the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival. Next April we'll likely be gearing up for the uninspiringly named X-Fest. Sounds almost clinical.

In many ways, the seemingly inevitable shotgun wedding between ESPN's X-Games and TWSSF is going to create a reflective microcosm of Whistler. It'll be a coming together of the tribes of Haves and Have Less, big show homes and cramped suites, large paycheques and underpaid service workers, champagne and Monster, contrived and real.

No one knows what effect bringing X-lite will have but it may be instructive to remember what happened in the wake of the 2000 festival. That was the year Tom Sims — is he still in business? — threw cash at the Sims Invitational World Snowboarding Championship. There was lots of hoopla and US$230,000 of prize money, back in the day when U.S. dollars were strong and we were referring to the Loonie as the Canadian peso.

The snowboarders didn't know what hit them. But like most people who suddenly have the opportunity to make more dough than they ever imagined, they quickly absorbed the message that this was what they were worth, this was where the "market" valued them. The foreseeable result was they didn't want to compete the next year, when Tom was nowhere to be found, for the kind of chump change they'd been offered before. In fact, it took about a snowboard generation for them to come back, by which time skiers were kicking their asses in the pipe and big air and no one really cared whether they were back or not.

But hey, X-lite will bring TeeVee cameras along with inflated salaries and prize money. It'll bring exposure. It'll bring the kind of publicity we can't buy... but can definitely buy us. It'll be bigger, better, shinier, newer, more wowzer.

And with luck, we'll survive it. Of course, the cultural side of the festival won't have the cameras, coverage and dollars but with a little luck, no one who currently puts those things on, largely for no money, will mind. Or will they?

Well, that's for the future to decide. For now, we still have a few festive days left, better weather coming, pro photographers tonight (April 19), fashion tomorrow (April 20) and, of course, an encore presentation of A Long Time Ago: In a Ski Resort Far, Far, Away, for which there may still be a ticket or two sloshing around.

And tomorrow, Friday (April 20) is a free concert by Michael Franti & Friends. Saturday is Michael's birthday; it would be a nice present if we filled Skiers' Plaza for him. That shouldn't be hard considering he's playing on 420, around 4:20pm, and this is a town that does, and should, celebrate all things 420ish. What say we lay down a cloud of smoke that'll be visible to the weather satellites, Whistleratics?

In fact, now that this town's elected officials have shown the grit to speak out against Northern Gateway — big round of applause — maybe the next windmill they should tilt at is the asinine prohibition against cannabis. Maybe it's time to join Vernon, Victoria, Metchosin and other municipalities who have come out in favour of legalization and against wasting time and money on cops busting stoners, as the RCMP inevitably will on Friday.

Pipe dream?