The Sundance Stare

I think I've perfected The Sundance Stare. It's the slightly overly long eye contact you make as you walk by somebody that allows you to confirm that the other person is not, in fact, anybody famous.

It's only natural to glance around as you walk around a neighborhood, the mall, the prison yard, what have you. You catch the eye of the person coming towards you, access threat or familiarity, and move on. At Sundance, however, everybody is wearing a hat, a parka, a scarf, sunglasses if you're a chick, three days of beard if you're a guy. There's about twelve square inches of face space on which to base your decision to keep scanning or go, "Oooo, that's that guy from that thing, or possibly Mira Sorvino!"

It's interesting to get scanned like that. People look at me, 1 ("Is that Noah Wyle, Josh Charles, or one of the skinny Baldwins in a Mad Bomber fur cap?") ... 2, 3, 4 ("Nope."); and move to the next face. It's nice just to be nominated.

The chance of seeing celebrities is kind of fun, despite the challenge.

But it's even easier to spot celebrity by watching for the paparazzi. They swarm with their massive cameras; you glance, identify, catalog, move on. It's like letting the vultures guide you to the body.

Paparazzi kind of suck, by the way. They're looking for the $1500 picture of Mariah Carey wearing nothing but a ski cap, and they get the kid that played Frodo trying get a free can of Monster energy drink. And they'll shove old people to the ground for either one.

But you have to be sure. I also saw four little girls practically in tears with excitement over getting a picture with an attractive redhead yesterday. They were thrilled to have run into this woman, clearly a star of some kind. "We LOVE YOU," they sighed. The redhead was so gracious.

But she wasn't anybody. As she walked away, I heard her say, "I wonder who they thought I was..."