1997_04 The Daily Collegian April 1997

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THE DAILY
COLLEGIAN
Thursday, April 10,1997
Paparazzi — Costa Rican style
By Doug Lansky
MONTEVERDE, Costa Rica —
Costa" Rica's lush national parks
attract nature lovers like country
music festivals attract people in
skin-tight jeans. The reason: rain
forests are "picture" perfect.
Before I arrived in Costa Rica,
I'd never done any nature photog¬
raphy hut I figured this would he
the perfect place to start. I look iwo
Kodak panoramic disposable cam¬
eras and boarded a bus to the fa¬
mous Montevcrdc Cloud Forest in
the north central part of the coun¬
try.
I met Lars and Jens, two Danish
travelers, on the bus. Lars was a
butterfly aficionado: He showed me
his entire collection, telling me how
and where he caught his favorites.
Jensrthe larger of the two, weigh¬
ing in at about 280 pounds, had just
spent the last five years working as
a cook al a scientific oulposl on a
glacier in Greenland. He had no
visible interest in Monteverde. but
seemed to have been dragged there
hy his buddy.
After we ate lunch together at
the park entrance, Jens decided to
stay in the restaurant for another
hour. His mouth crammed full, he
waved a chicken breast, motioning
fur us to go on without him.
Lars and I started down the path,
and in moments he spotted his first
prey: a yellow and white butterfly.
1 watched as he crawled silently
with his net. raised it slowly into
striking position and nabbed his
victim with a laser-fast swipe.
Through the mesh net, Lars gave
the butterfly a few finger flicks to
the head to knock it unconscious.
Then he carefully folded a paper
coffin, inserted the butterfly and
dropped it in his satchel.
Costa Rica has one of the larg¬
est butterfly populations in the
world, and Lars was in heaven. We
decided to split up so I could take
some pictures of my own.
There were no actual clouds in
the cloud forest while I was there,
but the vegetation was amazing.
There were plants growing on
bushes growing on trees. I began
snapping pictures of wild flowers.
It wasn't long before I ran into
my first fellow photographers. Tom
and Susan, from Colorado, wore
matching khaki-green fishing vests.
Tom was staring through a lens
.the size of the Hubble telescope and
Susan was holding something that
looked like Captain Kirk's phaser.
I walked up next to them and. us¬
ing my onc-focus-fits-all dispos¬
able, took a picture of the beautiful
red flower they were shooting.
I had, according to Tom, just
pulled up to the Indy 500 in a Dodge
Dart.
He suggested I look through his
lens. As it turned out, Tom and Su¬
san weren't even taking a picture
of the flower. They were taking a
picture of the navel of some micro-
bug surfing in a dew drop inside the
flower.
Me: How many pictures are you
taking of lhat bug?
Tom: A few. I'm just bracketing
my exposures.
Me: Of course you are.
Susan: We have lo account for
the neutral density filter.
Me: Naturally.
Tom continued showing off his
camera. This knob adjusts the f-
stop. he explained. This red button
over here is the aperture filament
locator, blah. blah. blah. I just kepi
nodding my head. Susan tried lo
convince me I was never going to
enjoy nature photography until I
spent at least $ 1,000 on equipment.
I walked with them to the nexi
flower. Tom carried the light mclcr
and his bag of equipment. Now it
was Susan's turn and she decided
to shoot two flowers together. This
took a while to set up.
"What's the problem?" I asked
after 15 or 20 minutes.
'  "I'm having trouble focusing."
Susan said.
I left tbcm and continued along
the trail, taking as many pictures of
the other nature photographers as I
was taking of nature. They were all
contorting themselves into awk¬
ward positions to gel the "right"
shot. The bugs and birds and frogs
were just sitting there, probably
watching the photographers with
the same curiosity I was.
When I got back to the park en¬
trance.I found Lars and Jens in the
restaurant. Wc took a short walk
over to the hummingbird feeders to
watch the high-speed birds in ac¬
tion. Tom and Susan arrived shortly
after and I introduced them to the
Danes.
Susan began explaining the chal¬
lenge of photographing a humming¬
bird. The object, she said, was to
capture the hummingbird's wings
without motion. I snapped a few
shots, which Susan announced
would turn out blurry. So what. I
said, that's how they look in real
life. If I wanted to take a picture of
a bird without blurry wings, I'd go
lo a natural history museum.
As Tom and Susan set up their
synchronized flash. 1 realized na¬
ture photographers love the hum¬
mingbird because it's a "gearhead"
bird. You need aboul $ 10.00YJ worth
of equipment to gel the perfect shot.
All five of us were watching the
same hummingbird and (hinking
different thoughts.     '
I was trying to capture the natu¬
ral blur of the wings.
Tom was probably shooting an
amoeba on the bird's head.
Susan was calculating how to
make the wings appear to stop flap¬
ping.
Lars was poised with his net.
dying to catch one of those buggers
just to test his.specd.
Jens was probably wondering
what they lasted like.
Doug Lansky is a travel writer
occasionally found in Minneapolis.
Commentsareappreciated and can be
sent care o)f this newspaper or by e-
mail: DougDylan@abl.com
ACROSS
1 ATVSknpton
5 Rhyme MfMRM
9 Consequently
13 Remarkable
tting
14 Plumbing
problem
16 Chafe
17 Suit to-
18 Go ready fast
20 Fanuty circle
member
22 Projectile
• weapon
23 Aching
24 Mob scene
25 Shrewd
28 Certain truck
driver
32 Wilkes -. Pa.
33 Oevoutness
34Comp.pt.
35 Softening agent
36 The Picture of
Dorian Gray*
author
37 Makes lace
38 Wager
39 Parts of antlers
40 Harass
41 Miscellaneous
43 Most cruise
Ships
44 Washes, in
search of gold
45 Set of type
46 •— Mame'
49 Tangerine
53 Slow movement
55 Give up
56 Josip Broz
57 More certain
58 Asian land
59 bke - ol
bncks
60 Spreads hay to
dry
61 Building
extensions
DOWN
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2 Part of am.
3 Stagger '
4 Hold precious
5 Th«nk highly of
6 Face with
courage
7 Two-wheeler
8 Chimp or orang
9 Propaganda
pamphlets
10 Hayseed
11 Actress Sommer
12 Cozy place
15Markwilh
grooves
19 Spacious
21 Cany
24 Cattails
25 Adds -
26 Transachons
27 Hurries
28 Ukeamosaic
29 Razz
30 Go in
31 Takes a
breather
33 Evergreens
36 See
37 Octopus Vm"
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39 Follow
40 Tie
42Choee
43 Recluses
45 Confronted
46 Thin Man's dog
47 Army group
48 Alliance
acronym
49 Horse
50 Genuine
51 Hero
52 Loch -
54 Place
vi£wi/^g caa/ iMp^ovf yoof-Mood
'Fargo' inspires drunken students to make crank calls to Minnesota
By Matt Nelson
Duluth News, Knight-Ridder
DULUTH, Minn—A gaggle of inebriated
college students from Tucson, Ariz... who'd
just seen the film "Fargo." couldn't believe
Upper Midwesterners actually spoke like the
characters who were featured.
On Sunday, the four or live students ended
up testing the limits; of Minnesota Nice with
a woman from Duluttvs Central Hillside,
whom they phoned at 4 a.m. — six limes.
The woman. Sheila Knkelas. captured the
callers' number on her caller ID unit. She
contacted Duluth police, and a detective ex¬
plained lo the young researchers thai their
activities should be limited to daytime hours.
Later on Sunday, the students called
Knkelas to apologize
University of Arizona senior Ryan Morse
described the group's motives.
"We're watching a movie, and we're hav¬
ing a debate about whether people there re¬
ally talked like that." Morse said.
So how were they going to find out?
"Wc called information looking for a 24-
hour business."
That call was lo Minneapolis. They got a
waitress at Denny's, but their results were
inconclusive, so they pressed on, eventually
tracking down Krikelas.
Morse said he's not really sure how they
wound up calling Duluth. In fact, he said he
wasn't really sure what night il happened or
how they got Knkelas' number through di¬
rectory assistance.
Apparently, they asked for Circle K, a 24-
hour convenience store common to the
Southwest but not to Minnesota. The opera¬
tor provided a number for a Krikelas' Circle
K Kids and Circle K Greenhouses.
Krikelas' greenhouse and daycare center
were not open at 4 a.m.
"They said. 'You know I got this bet go¬
ing with my friends.' and, 1 said. 'Do you
know what time it is?' and hung up," Krikelas
said on Tuesday.
"The bet was they wanted to hear a 'youse
guys' or 'don'tcha know,'"
After six calls to a polite but increasingly
edgy Krikelas, the young men seemed to have
abandoned their extracurricular research into
Midwest dialects.
When they later apolo¬
gized to Krikelas over her
answering machine on
Sunday, they still were
pleading with Knkelas lo
lalk to them, hoping for
confirmation on how Min-
nesotans talk.
"We were slumped."
Morse explained. "We
thought we were off (base)
until we talked to the assis¬
tant police guy."
Apparently, a Duluth
officer who spoke to Morse
and his buddies satisfied
the young men's quest for
the Minnesota dialect. -
"So some people talk
that way and some don'l?" Morse asked a
Duluth News-Tribune reporter on Tuesday.
Oh ya, sure, you betcha.
Photo courtesy of Grammercy Pictures
Frances McDormand stars in "Fargo "