The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 57

i THE TAMPA TRIBUNE llrRlW Saturday, January 2, 1988 Section r- lau 'r i OK. It's the day after New Year's and you're itching to get out there to do something anything to avoid breaking one of your new diet resolutions. So before you settle down to your breakfast of grapefruit juice and dry toast, take a moment to see what's on tap for events this weekend. Weather So much for the cool temperatures we had -A this past week. The weekend forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with highs near 70 and lows in the low to mid-50s.

A 1 7 Brunch bunch World War II is the main ingredient in two brunchtime specials offered by the Sarasota Film Society. "Come and See" is the tale of a young Russian's adventures during the Nazis' invasion of 1943. It plays at 11 a.m. at the Sunshine Mall 5, 1200 S. Missouri, Clearwater.

"The Wannsee Conference" is a dramatization based on transcripts of a 1942 meeting of high Nazi officials who discuss the "final solution of the Jewish question." The film shows at From the book "The Art of Hot-Air Ballooning" 11 a.m. at the Main Street Cinema, 11778 N. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa. Admission to both films is $3.50. Artist gets project off the ground Fame game TAMPA College football at its best makes its way into Tampa Stadium.

The University of Michigan Wolverines will try to keep the University of Alabama Crimson Tide at bay in the Hall of Fame Bowl, scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Reserved tickets are $15.75 and $21, available at the Tampa Stadium box office or all Select-a-Seat outlets; 874-5400. For those who would rather stay at home away from the crowds, WXFL, Channel 8, is televising the game. Singin' the blues TAMPA The soulful strains of blues music will be heard from the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory when the Blues Cabaret Festival kicks in at 8:30 p.m. The festival will feature perfor mances by Clarence Carter, Marvin Sease, Dennis La Salle and Lattimore at 504 N.

How ard Tampa. Tickets are $15 day of the show, available at College Hill Pharmacy, 3503 22nd Tam pa, and Pntchett Star Records and Tapes, By PHILIP MORGAN Tribune Staff Writer CLEARWATER Artist Roger Bansemer says he had trouble convincing New York publishers that "The Art of Hot-Air Ballooning" is not a how-to book. "And I kept sayng, it's not a book for balloonists. It doesn't tell people how to fly. It doesn't tell people why balloons fly.

It's not a history of balloons. It's a book of fantasy." Rejected and rejected again, Bansemer, dejected but not defeated, took on the project himself. He raised the money by selling original illustrations for the book at $1,000 a page. He published it himself, then took it around to bookstores, often getting blocked by a clerk out front, who would tell him the boss was busy; come back tomorrow. "You go back a day later and you finally get to this person, and they say, 'Oh, I don't Bansemer relates.

"I take it real personally. And I can't do it." The 39-year-old artist finally got a distributor in Miami, who had the means to distribute the book to stores throughout the country. The distributor also suggested that Bansemer send a copy to the NBC Today Show on the off chance that Gene Shalit would mention it during his yearly recommendations of Christmas coffeetable books. "It's a long shot," the distributor told him. But, bingo! Shalit liked it.

He heaped 10 seconds of praise on it during a program before Christmas to 9 million viewers. Bansemer's book, introduced by world-famous artist James Rosen-quist a friend who lives in Sarasota is splashed with illustrations of colorful balloons and colorful characters, those who fly them and those who stay on the ground and 1411 22nd St St. Petersburg. Homeward bound frtd. Ufa- TAMPA It's a crazy night in New York City for Griffin Dunne as he meets some strange "acquaintances" on his way home in the R-rated film "After Hours." Directed by Martin Scorsese, the film also stars Rosanna Arquette.

It shows at the Tampa Theatre, 711 Franklin Street Mall, Tampa, at 8 p.m. Admission for Tampa Film Club Season memDers ana Best of the Silverscreen members is free. General admission is $3.50 for adults, $3 for senior citizens and $1 .25 for chil dren under 13; 223-8981. watch. The pages are packed with scenes from below, from up high and from Bansemer's imagination.

Handwritten comments accompany them, ranging from describing the feeling "At 12,500 ft. a balloon ride is so quiet and still it is almost deafening" to wry observations "Bridges offer little or no problem considering that you go over and not under them." Bansemer is struck by his good fortune, that Shalit picked his self-published book among offerings from major publishers, some of the same ones that turned him down. "I think what it might do is help me get a publisher for my next book," says Bansemer. It will be scenes from Florida's coastline, with comments. The artist's most widely seen work, perhaps, is the mural of the balloon on the side of Clearwater Beach's Spyglass Motel.

The spherical splash of color on the 100-foot edifice can be seen from miles away. Bansemer tied a rope to his foot and hung over the top of the building to sign his name. "I started as a sign painter and I still do some of that," he says. "Fortunately, I don't have to do too much anymore." The graduate of Sarasota's Ringling School of Art says his abstracts he gets $3,000 to $4,000 for a large canvas have enabled him to build his home. He designed the house and large studio connected to it.

The complex, on secluded, spacious grounds in an upper middle-class suburb, is cedar and stone, with large, gothic, stained-glass windows. Paintings have paid the bills, but the power of books excites Bansemer. "The nice thing about the book that paintings have never given me is that when I do a painting, it goes in a gallery, somebody buys it, it goes in a lobby of a building or a home, and it pretty much disappears off the face of the earth. (With) the book, I'm left with a painting that can still go in a lobby or a home or whatever, but I've got thousands and thousands of images out there for other people to see, and boy, that's a nice feeling." Bansemer credits the inspiration for the style the illustrations and handwritten comments to Dutch artist Rien Poortvliet, who has created several successful gift books, among them the popular "Gnomes." Handwriting sets a personal mood. And, the practical Bansemer points out, cuts costs and headaches of typesetting.

Bansemer was swept away by ballooning after a flight some eight years ago. Bansemer approached a balloonist giving people tethered rides during a promotion at the Clearwater Mall. He offered to paint a picture of the man's balloon for him in exchange for a real ride. Though untethered, the ride was a short hop; up, then back down again. But Bansemer was hooked.

"About five minutes was all It took." Now, when he looks out the win-See DREAM, Page 2F Seeing into the future TAMPA "FutureSight: Innovations in Holography Art," closes today at The Museum of Science and Industry, 4801 E. Fowler Tampa. The museum also offers permanent exhibits about the sun, energy, weather, hurricanes, Florida geology, fiber optics and "Energy Pin- ball. It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for children ages 5-15, and free for children under 985-5531. Flight of fancy Joey Cramer stars as 12-year-old David Freeman who gets the ride of his life in "Flight of the Navigator in the Disney Sunday Movie. The first of the two parts airs tonight at 7 on ABC (WTSP, Channel 10, and WWSB, Channel 40). Part 2 airs Jan. 10 at 7 p.m.

WMkand To a Mtocltv ouM to area ovon. To havo Monro Hon conMored tof Mur column, writ 10 WMkond Tak. P.O. tot 191. Tampa, na 33401.

Comptad by (MM MVTMT Jirtil Bulb Inside Epiphany story 4 On cold winter days in Tarpon Springs in 1935 and 1936, two brothers found golden crosses and believe i their lives are better for it. Lives blossom with roses 6 Some north Tampa residents have found that getting out and planting roses is like a fountain of youth for them. 1.