7 ER sroenter

9 PC. DINING ROOM SUITE
CLASSIC ELEGANCE WITH AN

Well, the next best
thing. I was one of some
500 people, half of them
kids, who climbed into the
Omnimax theatre at the
top of the Expo geodesic
dome to see the Canadian
premiere of the film The
Dream Is Alive.

Astronaut Mark
Garneau was sitting a few
seats over, looking every
bit as wonder-struck and
delighted as the rest of us.
The fact that he was one of
the people to float by on
screen ~~ he has been there
— didn’t seem to dampen
his pleasure. Enhanced it, 1
wouid guess.

In case you haven't
taken in the Omnimax
theatre at the Expo dome,

-do so by all means. Failing
to try this particular expe-
rience, yet living anywhere
within a thousand miles of
Vancouver, is like living

J and dying. in North Van
without ever having gone
up the Grouse Mountain
gondola.

Fine, but what IS Om-

‘nimax, you ask.

It is a camera technique,
perfected by a. group of
_whiz-kids in Toronto,
. which gives a 360-degree
_picture, just like the
equipment in a planetari-
um. You sit underneath an
overturned bowl, as it

ORIENTAL FLAVOUR.

' @RECTANGULAR TABLE WITH TWO
APRONED LEAVES, FOUR DOOR BUFFET
LIGHTED CHINA WITH GLASS SHELVES,

4- Friday, December 6, 1985 - North Shore News

Bob Hunter

® strictly personal ®

1 WENT into space last week.

were, staring straight up.

The picture that unfolds
on the “‘screen’’ seems to
happen all around you,
right to the edge of your
peripheral vision.

“Sometimes it
felt like I was a
Jly perched on a
ceiling or a wall

fy

Unless you make a de-
liberate effort to look to
one side or the other, it is
as though your face has
been slipped into a mask of
some kind, and you are
looking out through some-
body else’s eyes.

To try to explain it
another way, it is also like
sitting inside a giant fish-
eye lens.

The ‘footage’? I was
seeing was the first ever
taken using an Omnimax
camera in space.

Sometimes it felt like I

was a fly perched on a ceil-

ing or a wall, or
underneath a pillar of fire
and smoke as a rocket
blasted. aloft, or at the
front of a space shuttle
coming in for a landing, or
hanging on for dear life as

FOUR SIDE AND TWO ARM CHAIRS

WITH CANE BACKS.

WE ARE OPEN

a

wet

you slid down a rope into a
net during training.

I got to drift weightlessly
through the shuttle in or-
bit, free, at last, of gravity
— or at least 1 perceived
things as though that was
the case.

But the best part, better .

than anything 1 have expe-
rienced in any medium
EVER, came when the bay
doors of the shuttle opened
and | stared up (or down)
at the Earth, 120 miles
below (or above).

There was the boot of ©

Italy, floating by. Egypt.
The necklace of the Nile.
Look, the Andes, like a
contour map, exquisitely
painted. The Baja Penin-
sula, dun-colored. The
Hawaiian Islands nearly
obliterated in vortexes of
storm...

And here comes the sun
over the vast arch of the
earth, like a blazing eye
opening. My God, I started
to weep, it was so
beautiful.

I remember when
Cinerama was unveiled, it
was supposed to knock
your socks off, and it did.

I remember experiencing a ‘.

70 mm screen and Dolby
Sound for the first time
and thinking: this is the
ultimate cinematic trip!

But the Omnimax pro-
cess is so terrific it makes
all those previous

breakthroughs seem like
mere tinkering. 1 foresee
the day when everyone will
have an Omnimax system
in their rec room. We'll lie
there on futons, exploring
the universe through a
machine's eye.

The trick with Om-
nimax, incidentally, is to
sit in the very middie. Off
to the sides, I'm told, the
distortion is pretty bad.

By the way, I see now
why the astronauts, when
they come back down,
always do such a pitiful job
of telling us what it’s like
in space. They don’t even
try. It’s because they hap-
pen to be in on the secret:
it’s too overwhelming, im-
possible to convey.

Garneau had it all fig-
ured out. He smiled a lot,
answered questions as
directly as he could, and
saved his energy.

The bad news for all you
earth-bound types is that
the film (somehow that
doesn’t seem like a good-
enough word) isn’t sched-

-uled to be shown in Van-

couver again, so far as |
can find out.

If you want to go up into
space, via Omnimax, you'll
have to get on the case of
the people running the

- B.C. Pavilion to make sure

they bring The Dream Is
Alive back absolutely’ as
soon as they can.

WE HAVE A LARGE SELECTION
OF DINING ROOM SUITES
STARTING AS LOW AS

DAY OR EVENING

WE HAVE THE LARGEST STOCK
) AND SELECTION OF LA-Z-BOY
f IN THE LOWER MAINLAND

- TRADITIONAL
STYLE IN
PLUSH VELVET

FRENCH IMMERSION

FRENCH GAMES, BOOKS, MUSIC
GREAT CHRISTMAS GIFTS!

To order gifts or to get cur
free catalogue

Call CANADIAN CHILD

224-5025 §
224-7703 §

Gould & Melue Sewellers
"The Village Seveller ”

ordially invites you lo our
Chiistmas Jewellery event to be :
held the sth, bth and 7th of
December, 1985.
Cur Collection will give you an unusually large
vaniely and selection of jewellry, Our manufac.
turer's tepresentatives will be on premises and
this selection will have the special price “of ,

for this eveni only. :
2 5 % Oo ( We will do temount quotes on the spat)

Gould Q McCue Sevellers -
gree Edgemont Blod., Tlarth Vancouver
985-1500

‘YLOW PRICES! oo

AND..OUR BARGAIN CENTRE |:
IS NOW BETTER THAN EVER!! }

~ SOLID OAK TAMBOUR
= PULL OUT FOR VCR
- PULL OUT FOR TURNTABLE
SOLID OAK AND OAK VENEERS

| REMEMBER: |
NO INTEREST
FOR AFULL §
YEAR OR NO
SALE TAX |

BUY

AT SANDY'SIt

Sa pe, 17-1 CU.FT.
Inglis REFRIGERATOR

895.

WHEN YOU f

APPLIANCES §f