The Nightshift: 11 February 2017

Press Clippings:
Good Morning. It’s Saturday, 11 February 2017 and this is the morning edition of The Nightshift.
The East Coast is digging out from a major snow storm and the drama in Washington continues.
All seems relatively normal.
Today is the third round of the Pebble Pro-Am, which has been hampered for the first two days by bad weather, rain, and fog. The tournament, which features Pro-Am play in a format devised by Bing Crosby (more on Der Bingle in another post today) is one of the most popular and picturesque in America.
Don’t forget: Valentine’s Day is Tuesday. Make your dinner reservations and buy your roses and gifts today. Don’t wait until Tuesday morning…..
And..the world goes on.
Catch up on what’s happening with the rest of the world by reading the front pages of the World’s Greatest newspapers.
The international Headlines are all at your fingertips:
Our annual Winter Film Festival has started. The WFF posts will go up after the The Nightshift’s daily international news feed. The Winter Film Festival posts start at 12:15 PM  for the first post. See you at The Bottom. 
The Times (London
Financial Times (UK)
The Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)
The Wall Street Journal (European edition)
Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
New York Times (New York)
The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles)
Daily News Egypt (Cairo)
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
The Moscow Times (Moscow)
Le Figaro (Paris)
The Jerusalem Post (Jerusalem)
The Japanese Times (Tokyo)
The Buenas Aires Herald (Buenas Aires)
The Sidney Morning Herald (Sidney)
Deadline Hollywood (Hollywood)
FiveThirtyEight (New York City)
The Fine Print: This post is number 957 for this site.  

The Winter Film Festival: Rossignol on Binding Position

Edgework:
A short but good on essential knowledge for skiers: where to place the binding on your ski. This one is produced with the emphasis on freestyle skiing. It’s information you should know before you put a new set of bindings on your new skis (or your old ones for that matter). The video is produced by Rossignol as one in their “Coaching” series; if you ski, you know Rossignol as one of the great ski companies and ski makers in the world, so the information presented is coming from a high level of expertise.
And it’s important: the binding is your interface (or connection, to use an old-fashioned term)with the ski. Do it right and you have a great connection. Do it wrong, and you’re in a world of trouble. Even though you’re probably not going to mount the binding on the ski yourself (let the ski shop mechanics do it), it’s good for you to know the theory involved.
Good bindings/binding position is one of the steps to good skiing.
Thanks to Rossignol for making this available and sharing.
And, if you’re looking for an evening of skiing entertainment, just scroll down catch the full-length Warren Miller film “Live Like There’s No Tomorrow”.
See you at the bottom.
The Fine Print: Embed courtesy of our friends at You Tube, who have an amazingly large collection of great ski videos available for your viewing pleasure. Thanks, guys, for sharing. This post is number 956 for this site. 

The Winter Film Festival: Warren Miller's "Live Like There's No Tomorrow"

Edgework: 
It’s not the Winter Film Festival without a film from Warren Miller (or to be more specific, Warren Miller Entertainment).  Today’s treat–the full length feature “Live Like There’s No Tomorrow”–has all of the highlights we’ve come to expect from a Warren Miller film. Terrific camerawork. amazing skiing, big air, exotic locations, laconic athletes who only come alive when facing huge risks, and a running audio commentary that sounds as if you’re in an auditorium in some mountain town while Miller’s film is running through the A/V department’s projector and he’s reading off a crumpled up typewritten script. Perfect, in other words.
Warren Miller’s ski films are the frosty descendants/brothers of the surfing films of years ago (our first annual Summer Film Festival now in prep at the Media Bunker). In fact, in the beginning–which for Miller was 1946–he and a friend , Ward Baker, would film each other skiing in the winter and surfing in the summer.
The format for both skiing and surfing films was basically the same: get some great athletes, film them in exotic locations doing amazing things, edit everything down to a tight one hour and change presentation, and play the footage while doing live narration that was partly written and partly ad lib. Miller was one of the original developers of this style of presentation and he also brought a relaxed but enthusiastic attitude to his movies, leaving in mistakes, big falls, little details that otherwise might have been edited out. Miller’s approach and production found an audience and after initially showing his movies (with comments) to friends, he realized that it was possible to make a business of it and formed Warren Miller Entertainment in 1949.  His corporate goal was to produce one feature length film a year; that gave him time to do it right, to tour the world, and to fine tune the finished production. In the beginning, he rented out auditoriums and gyms to show the films; at one point he was doing 130 live presentations a year, showing his films in venues around ski resorts by night and shooting skiing scenes at the resort by day (typically efficient Miller style).
It evolved and it got bigger and it provided Miller with a career and a business. He did it long enough to earn the term “legendary” in front of his name producing one full length film a year from 1950 to 2004, when the last film with his personal involvement was released.  As the business grew, it became more complex (and valuable) and Miller sold his company first to his son who ran eventually sold again.  After a series of owners, Warren Miller Entertainment, the firm Miller started,  is now owned by Active Interest Media (2013). The film presented here, then, is a descendent of Miller’s earlier work but not a precise clone.
Did the new owners of Warren Miller Entertainment enhance the legacy of the legendary adventure sports film maker? Only one way to find out: watch it.
There’s more to come as the Winter Film Festival continues.
See you at the bottom.
The Fine Print: Embed courtesy of our friends at You Tube, who have an amazingly large collection of great ski videos available for your viewing pleasure. Thanks, guys, for sharing. This post is number 955 for this site. 
 

The Nightshift: 10 February 2017

Press Clippings:

Good Morning. It’s Friday, 9 February 2017 and this is the morning edition of The Nightshift.
A huge snowstorm–with the emphasis on “storm”–hit the Northeast last night. Schools were closed; traffic disrupted; streets clogged. But as big and impactful as the weather can be, it takes second place this week to national politics.
The Washington made-for-TV government drama continues. The  immigration ban is still in force;  the court disputes became more heated; and there appears to be some confusion about ethics at the highest levels.
It’s the made-for-TV government. And no, you can’t switch channels for at least four years.  It’s like a bad cable plan–you have to ride it out until the end. Maybe things will settle down. Maybe not.
In more important news, at least for sports fans, Duke outlasted North Carolina last night, 86-78,  in Part 1 of their two part annual basketball rivalry, played at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium.  Carolina was bombarded with superb three point shooting from the Blue Devils, as one of the greatest rivalries in sports once again lived up to its reputation.
And..the world goes on.
Catch up on what’s happening with the rest of the world by reading the front pages of the World’s Greatest newspapers.
The international Headlines are all at your fingertips:
Our annual Winter Film Festival has started. The WFF posts will go up after the The Nightshift’s daily international news feed. The Winter Film Festival posts start at 12:15 PM  for the first post. See you at The Bottom. 
The Times (London
Financial Times (UK)
The Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)
The Wall Street Journal (European edition)
Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
New York Times (New York)
The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles)
Daily News Egypt (Cairo)
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
The Moscow Times (Moscow)
Le Figaro (Paris)
The Jerusalem Post (Jerusalem)
The Japanese Times (Tokyo)
The Buenas Aires Herald (Buenas Aires)
The Sidney Morning Herald (Sidney)
Deadline Hollywood (Hollywood)
FiveThirtyEight (New York City)
The Fine Print: Embed courtesy of our friends at Getty Images, who have the photographic history of the 20th and 21st century on file. Thanks, guys, for sharing. This post is number 954 for this site.  

The Winter Film Festival: Skiing The Bumps

Edgework: 
From out friends at Ski School, another very good video on how to ski bumps.
Bumps can be either an absolutely disaster if you don’t have the right technique, or a lot of fun if you do. Some people dread skiing the bumps–they’re terrified because they don’t know how to handle them.
Face it: if you ski, you will be forced to ski bumps. Might as well learn to ski them well.
That doesn’t mean you have to reach a level of expertise that will put you in mogul contests (it could happen, but…if you’re going that route, best amp up the physical training) but it does mean that you should be able to handle anything that comes your way on the ski slopes. With a little practice, your self-confidence will rise dramatically and you might find out the hidden secret of bump skiing: it can be fun if you do it right.
Good instruction, with lots of good information on technique. Watch it a few times before you hit the slopes again and get the mental picture of how to ski bumps in your mind. It won’t be long before you cruise right through them.
Being a competent skier means having the ability to ski in all types of conditions, not just on groomed slopes. With competence comes confidence and with confidence comes freedom.
And isn’t that one of the reasons we ski?
There’ll be more from the Winter Film Festival tomorrow, starting at 12;15PM.
See you at the bottom.
The Fine Print: Embed courtesy of our friends at You Tube, who have an amazingly large collection of great ski videos available for your viewing pleasure. Thanks, guys, for sharing. This post is number 952 for this site. 

The Winter Film Festival: A Giant Slalom Lesson

Edgework:
To follow up on our previous post about Giant Slalom skiing, here’s another nice video,, this one by FISI TV, featuring Frederica Brignone of the Italian National Team. The dialogue is in Italian (you do speak Italian, don’t you), but there are subtitles and plenty of good action shots and overheads to give you the mental picture you need to emulate.
Don’t forget that muscle memory is one of your best training aids. You train and train and eventually your muscles learn the movements and the sequences and timing to execute the athletic moves you need to make. Some people have the ability to see someone do something athletic and visually record that image and then to play that image back in their mind for their muscles to emulate. Of course, you want to watch the very best athletes to form that mental image; this technique works especially well for sports like golf and tennis and skiing. A friend has that ability–he went from never playing tennis to playing on the very best team in the state in two months because he could replicate perfectly the strokes of professional players. He also had another advantage: no short term memory for results, which most athletes will tell you is important.
Why?
Because in athletics–like life–it’s good to live in the moment, the present, and not to look back at what went wrong or ahead to what the outcome might be. Nick Saban makes this rule (“be where your feet are”) a huge part of his program (“The Process) with Alabama football. Others might call it “mindfulness” but the point is simple: what matters is the moment, not the past. Ask the Atlanta Falcons what happens when you start looking too far ahead and don’t stay in the moment.
A good video, well-shot and edited and featuring a world class athlete. Enjoy it. More to come, as the Winter Film Festival rolls on.
See you at the bottom.
The Fine Print: Embed courtesy of our friends at You Tube and FISI TV. You Tube has an amazingly large collection of great ski videos available for your viewing pleasure. Thanks, guys, for sharing. This post is number 951 for this site. 
 

The Nightshift: 9 February 2017

Press Clippings:
Good Morning. It’s Thursday, 9 February 2017 and this is the morning edition of The Nightshift.
The Washington soap opera rolls on. Are we making any real progress?
America voted and got the government it wanted. It’ll even out–sooner or later. But maybe not.
And..the world goes on.
Catch up on what’s happening with the rest of the world by reading the front pages of the World’s Greatest newspapers.
The international Headlines are all at your fingertips:
Our annual Winter Film Festival has started. The WFF posts will go up after the The Nightshift’s daily international news feed. The Winter Film Festival posts start at 12:15 PM  for the first post. See you at The Bottom. 
The Times (London
Financial Times (UK)
The Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)
The Wall Street Journal (European edition)
Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
New York Times (New York)
The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles)
Daily News Egypt (Cairo)
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
The Moscow Times (Moscow)
Le Figaro (Paris)
The Jerusalem Post (Jerusalem)
The Japanese Times (Tokyo)
The Buenas Aires Herald (Buenas Aires)
The Sidney Morning Herald (Sidney)
Deadline Hollywood (Hollywood)
FiveThirtyEight (New York City)
The Fine Print: This post is number 950 for this site.  

The Winter Film Festival: Skiing The Trees

Edgework:
One of holy grails of skiing is skiing the trees. It’s right up there with deep powder, helicopter skiing, and skiing the backside of the mountain. The attraction is a combination of danger and exhilaration: get it right and it’s one of the best experiences you’ll ever have on skis. Get it wrong and you’re out of here or waded up like a ball of used tin foil..either way, not good.
So the mandate is simple: get it right. Train so you’re strong enough. Work on your technique so you’re bulletproof competent. And go with a guide or someone who is massively experienced. It’s one thing to take chances and another to disregard the dangers inherent in the experience.
Do it right. To get you acclimated, here’s a nice short video from Ski School that you will enjoy. The team at Ski School has produced a very nice, high def series of videos; we’ll be featuring more as we go deeper into the WFF.
See you at the bottom.
The Fine Print: Embed courtesy of our friends at You Tube, who have an amazingly large collection of great ski videos available for your viewing pleasure. Thanks, guys, for sharing. This post is number 949 for this site.