Sundance, day one: Let me clear my throat

Yesterday, I survived a debilitating flight to get here. (I thought United Airlines was all about more legroom. For $45, I could have had more somehow. Instead, I toughed it out. My seat was between a small woman from Cambridge who wore about 50 pounds of chenille and a girl who didn’t want to be grazed but had no apparent problem sleeping all over me.)

In Park City, the admittedly minor hassles persisted. For the first time, I made sure all my credentials were all right before I showed up, in order to avoid the two-hour line to have my photo taken with a webcam. What sounds like a matter of vanity is really a matter of expediency, especially since the festival’s pictures aren’t terrible (as a teacher once told me during yearbook photos: there are no bad pictures, only bad faces). In any case, all my prudence won me was a spot in the two-hour line, where I heard producers and cameramen for CNN and KTLA in Los Angeles vent about how the line was eating in to their set-up time. I was just hungry.

Eventually, I made it to dinner, where some friends and colleagues expressed concerned that Sundance has lost its mojo. Given what a low-quality bazaar the place has lately, it was hard to argue. But we we left determined to keep our minds as open as is reasonable. I have to. I haven’t seen a movie yet.