Richmond Times-Dispatch from Richmond, Virginia • 21

TUESDAY AUGUST 4 SECTION MUSIC REVIEW Da A time at the Ozzfest TEIIWSION D2 ENTERTAINMENT D3 COMICS B4 Kings Dominion coaster sfiews volcanic action BY USA SINGH stakk Wiiitkh early 4(J0 years after a Russian showman built a wooden sled covered it with ice and charged it down a hill coasting along undulating surfaces remains popular And now Kings Dominion has unleashed a roller coaster called Volcano The Blast Coaster on which riders travel at 70 mph in scats suspended from hxiping tracks With its debut yesterday Volcano became the fastest inverted (hanging from tracks) coaster in the world surpassing the Alpcngcist (at 67 mph) at Busch Gardens The coaster loops around a volcano that erupts with fire at the beginning of every ride From the base of what was once Smurf Mountain the ride slowly treks out of the station and into the mountain The ride then shocks its passengers by suddenly blasting off into a dark cavern The coaster briefly emerges from the mountain slinging riders outward before re-entering the volcano The coaster rockets straight up through the dark mountain then erupts through its peak However just as lava cools so does the rest of the ride The remainder of Volcano is tamer as it corkscrews around the sides of the mountain until it reaches bottom Planners wanted to incorporate the new ride into the existing landscape which featured a volcano that once housed The Lost World Built in 1979 the area had a kiddie train water flume and shaft ride But with UMJU Pilgrim beholds Mecca of the material world If there is a Mecca of the material world chances are it's Street Fabrics Last month I made my first pilgrimage there To call it a mystical experience would exaggerate the metaphor But it definitely was marvelous I had heard alxmt Street for many years And when readers wrote to tell me about their transforming experiences I just had to sec for myself In some ways Street does seem larger than life It's so big in fact that a brochure includes a map of where to find everything Street Remnants was founded in 1942 by David Grecnzaid in downtown Washington The store moved to Rockville Md in 1983 In 1994 the Grecnzaid family opened another store in Ccntrevillc Va What's the difference between the two stores? "I think the Rockville store is a little bit said Mary Morris who is publications editor and book buyer for Street And customers at the Rockville location a little mure formal At the Ccntrevillc store quilting fabrics are more prominent as arc fabrics for Civil War rc-cnactors But designer collection is the heart of the at both Street stores Morris said how it all Fabrics can run $300 to $400 a yard but Street is also known for its $197 table a mountain of cut-ting-room end pieces "I suspect we've got some sales associates buried under there" Morris said with a smile as she showed me around the Rockville store There are racks upon racks of really nice remnants all at reduced prices That's STREET where I found a F1RDIPC piece of auber- nUHIIH gine velveteen rockvxle MDJ that I just had to 11854 Rockville have Pike (301) Street has 231-8998 extensive collcc- CENTKVXlE VAj tions of bridal and 5077 WestfieWs evening-wear Blvd (703) fabrics and I 818-8090 counted more than 100 bolts of velvet I also counted more than 60 colors of linen I loved looking at Chantilly lace from France at $14995 a yard Thai silk embroidered in India for $9895 Liberty of Ixmdon prints for $1966 and cotton from Senegal for $588 Just as fabric at Street comes from all over the world so do the customers and employees "Our staff here is very Morris said and that comes in handy when members of the Washington diplomatic corps come to call immediately obvious when you walk through the stores is that the folks working there love fabric everybody's here because they love to said Nicole Balding manager of the Ccntrevillc store "There's a lot of healthy peer pressure to make a kit of what you wear" a real creative said Morris very exciting to sec wluit people arc wearing every While I've never seen more material anywhere (the Rockville store has two fkxirs the Ccntrevillc store has two buildings) Street is more than fabric The stores sell sewing machines and sergers books boas and buttons patterns magazines ckith ribbons and trims Street also has dressmakers on staff a Portfolio collection of fabric swatches for subscribers a mail-order service newsletters on various topics tours of the stores monthly quilt exhibits and a vast educational program teach a gazillion said Morris which averages out to several hundred a year Students range in age from 5 to senior citizens Kids attend classes after school on Saturdays and during school holidays as well as in summer Classes geared to boys arc called "Construction Crew Camp" On the day I was visiting 8- and 9-ycar-old girls were HJLISE ShJi THREADS page D6 Common Threads Marggie Graves THERE SHE BLOWS A special effect of Volcano The Blast Coaster is an eruption of fire just before riders fly into the heart of the mountain theme park when he was 11 but the speed terrified him He didn't ride again until he was 30 when he grudgingly agreed to go on Busch Gardens' Loch Ness 1 Ic got hooked Now the 50-ycar-old certified public accountant goes on one or two trips a year with the 350-mcmbcr club to ride coasters in America and abroad By yesterday afternoon he had ridden Volcano seven times and was ready for more of that adrenaline rush" "It's a fast smooth pacing from the moment you're sling-shotted out of the loading said Paul Rulxrn an editor at Park World a magazine fur the amusement park industry "I think everyone likes to test the edge" he said Times-IHspatch Staff Writer Jaymes Powell contributed to this article those attractions gone the park looked to a design team in Charlotte NC for new possibilities They decided on a coaster that would have four heart-stopping inversions and would travel up the volcano's shaft during its two-minute ride Substituting linear induction motors for chains and cranks the coaster which has half a mile of track travels smoothly upward said David Ferguson a creative director of Paramount Parks Design and Entertainment in Charlotte and one of the designers And it's one of only four or five roller coasters in the world using the motors he said Steven Thompson of the Mid-Atlantic Coaster Club said Volcano was "certainly the most unique steel he had ever been on 1 Ic first rode a coaster at a Maryland WHAT A BLAST Kirs Dominion's Volcano is rated the world's fastest suspended roller coaster surpassing the Aipengeist at Busch Gardens by 3 miles an hour At a minimum is with swamp fever a popular CBS scries that premiered in July 1990 "They've given us a great launch for the summer And like we can go out there and gamer an audience and get word of mouth going before we'll be on the regular season said executive producer Barry Josephson putting on his best save-face for TV critics ABC had originally ordered 13 episodes of the show which was reduced to a half-dozen when "Maximum became a summer series And no guarantee that it will return mid-season As distinct as is from everything else on TV it docs represent two trends you'll be seeing more of: summer-time TV series (if not this summer then next) and big-time movie directors and producers launching TV series Among "Maximum Bob's" three executive producers and the one who make it to ABC's recent press event in Pasadena Calif is Barry Sonncnfcld the director responsible for last summer's extremely successful sci-fi spoof in Sonncnfcld who directed tonight's "Maximum Bob" premiere and Josephson arc also producing ABC's new "Fantasy another scries that wouldn't mind having the word attached to it In this darker cruder version of the old Aaron Spelling series PLEASE SEE VI EW PAGE D3 are as common as large reptiles First she is stopped by a deputy because of a busted tail light on her car lie tries to elicit a bribe from her then proceeds to frisk her No sooner has Baker survived that experience than the judge throws her into jail for resisting his advances "I one of us at heart If he puts his mind to it he'd be moonlighting 'gators for hides and meat instead of sitting on the bench and getting explains one of cellmates in the faux folksy dialogue that underscores the southern Florida location On a brighter note Baker also keeps running into Sheriff Hammond (Sam Ro-bards) who has taken up ballroom dancing to recover from his death Arc you starting to get the picture here? This represents the (protest concentration of small-town quirkincss since "Northern Exposure" and we even mentioned Dirk and Bogart weird twins Judge wife Lcannc (Kicrstcn Warren) former amusement park mermaid turned psychic and the lawyer who arranged to have his casket put in his office so he could spend his last day above ground at work "Maximum producers don't mind being compared to "Northern Ex clcomc to Deep Water Fla where inbreeding and alligators flourish and the local judge Bob Gibbs rules the town as if he owned it I loping to scare away his current wife (there have been others) he arranges to have an alligator put in his back yanL Lawyers who question his decisions find themselves behind bars By the way premiering at 10 tonight on ABC-Channcl 8 is a comedy or what passes for comedy from author Elmore Leonard Beau Bridges Douglas stars as Judge Gibbs DURDEN better known as Maximum Bob be- View cause of his tendon- pnittc cy to go overboard on sentencing Take that young cx-cun caught drinking a beer The judge sentences him to death This comes as a brutal shock to Kathy Baker (Liz Vasscy) Deep Water's new public defender who has experienced several brutal shocks since arriving in a town where eccentricities ADC SOUTHERN EXPOSURE? Beau Bridges plays a flamboyant power-hungry Florida judge in "Maximum a quirky one-hour ABC summer series premiering at 10 tonight TOMORROW: GIVING BABY WITH HEART DEFECT EVERY CHANCE TO SURVIVE 4.