Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: olympics, special events

Looks like the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are starting with a bang!
And as always, the Opening Ceremonies left us with some incredible visuals. Lots of floating islands. Incredible projection imagery. Thousands of performers. And an incredible gantry system that moved all of the hanging scenery pieces across the stadium. A little disconcerting to hear that this entire stadium, and the MILLIONS of dollars spent on it, is only being used for the Opening & Closing Ceremonies. No sports will be played in there. Seems like a waste… even though it was stunning for us to watch on TV. I can only imagine seeing it in person… some day…

And then there was the moment when they did the traditional “Dove Of Peace” representation that happens at every Olympic Opening Ceremony. However, they did it in an incredible, mesmerizing way… twirling, glowing, undulating… practically flying!

Of course, a production this huge can’t go off without a hitch somewhere. The only one I really saw was when the fifth snowflake didn’t open up into an Olympic ring as planned. No biggie… we still knew what they meant.

Now we leave it up to our American Athletes to go out and conquer Sochi.
Bring on the games!!!… and bring home the GOLD!!!

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