Snow Job

I’ve spent more than my usual amount of time at Disneyland this winter. Just because I wanted to.

While there I’ve encountered three distinct kinds of snow. The first is the hardpack. It’s plastic or resin or some such and mostly adorns the roofs of buildings; designed to make them look like they’ve been accumulating snowfall throughout the season. The next kind is both fresh and transient. It’s made of small bubbles smaller than the ones kids blow through wands, more like what detergent makes in a washing machine. It gets blown out of tall towers and in the lamplight of night does a credible job of looking like falling snow. The final kind is made of soft paper. Not tissue soft, but not as hard as what you write or print on. It’s cut into the shape of oversized snowflakes and gets blasted out of air cannons for a quick burst effect during shows. It doesn’t look real, but it’s suggestive and entertaining, so it’s kind of in the tradition of animation.

God told me that if I were an eskimo I’d have a distinct word for each of these kinds of snow. I told him that was a myth.

RSS feed

Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.