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April 2009

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Joanna Kanow]

4-20 Green Film On April 20, 6 p.m., Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library in collaboration with The New Community Coalition and Joanna and Daniel Kanow’s EcoSpaces continues its Green Film Series with "Addicted to Plastic: The Rise and Demise of a Modern Miracle." The program opens with a trailer of “Bag It,” another look at the shrink-wrapped world we live in, a work-in-progress by local Suzan Beraza.

Sign From styrofoam cups and boxes to tote take-out to artificial organs and the credit cards we use to buy them (often referred to simply as "plastic"), the demand for plastic in our culture is so great, my tortoise-framed sunglasses could become an endangered species. For better and for worse, no invention in the past century has had more influence than these synthetics, affecting nearly every ecosystem and invading nearly every nook and corner of human society, including our dinner table, where the toxic chemical compounds on land and in our oceans travel up the food chain and wind up in our food.

18 April, 2009 /

April 16 to 23, 2009

Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter
Evening: Mercury and Saturn

Sc0008c31b I recently built my own website – www.alacazem.com - and in the process I reconnected with Venus – planet of love, art and creative desire. Moving retrograde through the cardinal sign of Aries the Ram, Venus has been retracing the territory it traveled in March to early February. In my natal chart this journey takes place in the 11th house of shared hopes and dreams, future visions and collectively held goals. It is a house of inspiration, ruled by air Aquarius and the planets Uranus and Saturn.

Everyone knows – don’t they? - that we are presently in the budding phase of the revolutionary new Age of Aquarius. But everyone may not know that Aquarius rules information and knowledge, electricity and electronics, technology, inventions and – of course! – the Internet. It also rules the collective heart, friends, associates and associations, camaraderie and fellowship. Wherever one finds Aquarius in the natal chart is where one discovers “we” - our heartfelt connection to humanity, and our purest intentions and desires for becoming essential and effective contributing factors to a more progressive, more enlightened whole. It is here we offer our gifts and talents, energy and efforts to the world, with little or no attachment to the outcome.

17 April, 2009 /

Telluride's Nugget Theatre is showing "I Love You, Man" (Rated R, Language, sexual situations), Friday, April 17 through Thursday, April 23. Nightly at 7:30 pm, except Thursday, April 23 at 6:00 pm. There is a Telluride Film Festival presentation of "The Wrestler" at 8:30...

16 April, 2009 /

Sus and I returned to Telluride for a few days. We're between visits to family and friends on the West Coast and more of the same in the East. It's great to be home, even for a short time, even if the main activity is...

14 April, 2009 /

Telluride local Mark Berenson will be performing at the Wilkinson Public Library in a free concert Wednesday, April 15 at 6:00 pm. Mark's performance is another in an ongoing series of public events in the program room hosted by Scott Doser, Program Director at...

13 April, 2009 /

by Art Goodtimes

(a more-or-less monthly on-line column for TIO)

6a00e553ed7fe18833010536ac498f970c-120wi The International Herald Tribune/New York Times took a swipe at Telluride March 25th, with Bernstein’s “True Environmentalist, or Mountains of Vanity?” calling out “hot tub environmentalists” for driving the town’s finances into the ancient glacial rockbottom of today’s Valley Floor – the pristine gateway to a postcard box canyon, draped with wisps of waterfalls and backdropped by the snowy alpine peaks of the San Juans.

Hokay, you caught me. I live in the vicinity of Telluride. Claim it as county seat. I contributed to the Campaign to Save the Valley Floor. Save the Gunnison Sage Grouse. Save the Preble’s Mouse.

I’m a tree-hugger, media-mugger, and all-around Ned Ludd monkeywrench enviro of the greenest persuasion. But I’ve learned to tame my wild inner self.

12 April, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to listen to Susan's conversation with film MC Seth Cagin]

Telluride Film Festival and Wilkinson Public Library: Chabrol's "Les Bonnes Femmes"

Les Bonnes Though less famous than sidekicks Godard and Truffaut, Claude Chabrol may be the most prolific of the French New Wave directors, having averaged almost one film a year since 1958.

"Les Bonnes Femmes" is early Chabrol. The film is a biting social drama with a Hitchcockian ending that presages the director's reputation as a master of mystery thrillers . (Chabrol co-authored with colleague Eric Rohmer a book on their film idol/mentor Alfred Hitchcock.)

"Femmes" covers three days in the lives of four Parisian shopgirls doing their best to escape their likely fate: marital ennui and tedious work lives. One is a party girl; another a mouse ready to sacrifice her hazy identity to secure a mate; an aspiring singer so insecure she hides her ambitions from her hanging buddies; and a day-dreamer yearning for a Prince Charming to rescue her from a vacant existence.

Bottom line: "Femmes" is a valentine to working class women  – written with a poison pen

11 April, 2009 /

by Kris Holstrom

(Editor's note: Tellurider/director/coordinator Kris Holstrom and The New Community Coaltion (TNCC), the change-agent charged with the greening of the Telluride region, are doing more than talking. TNCC is walking its talk, making a difference, only the changes it is affecting are not flashy and often get lost in the many meetings required to sort out details.

To set the record straight, this is the second in a series of posts to explain what the TNCC has accomplished to date.)

Since its founding in 2007, The New Community Coalition has emphasized energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy.

DSC00517 TNCC's Green Fund (2007): Collects donations/funds for local projects, including a 1900 watt solar array on the High/Middle School installed by local solar providers, funded by donations and a $15000 carbon offset payment from the Mountain Village. An educational component includes a remote readout to  monitor power output and hands-on renewable energy kits for the students.

 Partnerships: Governor's Energy Office (GEO), San Miguel Power Association (SMPA), EnCana, and the Colorado chapter of Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) have worked with TNCC to provide rebates for homes and businesses to install solar photovoltaic and hot water systems, and to make energy-efficient home improvements.

10 April, 2009 /

April 9 to 15, 2009

Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Jupiter     Evening: Mercury and Saturn

Life is funny – and so is death, for that matter.

Sc00086b53 My Mother always loved Easter. As a little girl, I can remember being thrilled that we got to go out and buy new shoes, a new dress and an “Easter bonnet” before the big day. I always went for shiny patent leather and pastel pink. We boiled eggs and decorated them – I’ll never forget that smell of vinegar - filled colorful baskets with grass, jelly beans and chocolate bunnies. Then on Easter Sunday morning, we had an Easter egg hunt. All five of us kids ran around inside and outside looking for hidden treasures. It was kind of like Christmas, only different. Later on, dressed in our Easter finery, we went to church - which wasn’t really the big deal of the day because there were religious wars in our family and it was always an issue of which church to go to – and heard about Jesus; the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. That part was sad, happy and confusing. Being nailed to a cross? Ascending into Heaven? Coming back to Earth in 3D form? Questions of reality, truth and faith, but I knew for certain that Jesus Christ was a good guy. “Jesus loved me” and he loved children. He was an advocate for Peace, he forgave betrayal and he had apparently “died for our sins” – whatever that meant. His life story reminded me to be kind and compassionate to others, say my prayers and be good. 

I could never figure out exactly why my Mom liked Easter so much. It certainly wasn’t due to religion. Maybe it’s because she loved ham, and that’s usually what she cooked for Easter dinner. Or because she could eat the leftover hard-boiled eggs on her famous “grapefruit diets.” Today, I think it was because she was revitalized and invigorated by the hopeful, inspirational energy of spring. It was Mother Nature’s time of rebirth and regeneration, new growth and fresh life. I think she also felt renewed and reborn at that time. As an eternal optimist, she was mostly happy in every season. But in spring, her spirit soared. When the first hyacinths and tulips popped up, she smiled. Winter had ended.

Years later, I was driving to Denver on Good Friday. My Mother was dying. There is no way to describe the deep sorrow and devastating emotions I felt on that day. We are all born of mothers; we are carried in their wombs and suckled at their breasts. We are all given life by the eternal feminine, the force of nature that creates, nurtures and provides, holds and protects. We are born of women, we are born of mothers.

09 April, 2009 /

Telluride's Nugget Theatre is showing "Knowing" (Rated PG-13), Friday, April 10 through Thursday, April 16. Nightly at 7:00 pm.In 1958, a girl's submission to a time capsule, a set of apparently random numbers, turns out to predict all the major disasters of the next...

09 April, 2009 /