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January 2010

IMG_8474 It was snowing lightly in Telluride this morning, with more snow in the forecast, as the judges made their rounds to pick the winners of this year's CoolSculpt contest.

The finished products were indeed something to behold: beautifully executed, and very imaginative. In the end, the judges must have had a difficult time deciding.

IMG_8482 IMG_8480 The First Place winner ($850) for 2010 is "The White Castle". by D. O. Double-G's, sponsored by Telluride Ski and Golf. This entry featured a castle, complete with towers, stairs, and a dragon clinging to the ramparts. The castle was also attractive to young and old who climbed up to view the Plaza from the walls. Well done, and congratulations.

18 January, 2010 /


When I got to the Mountain Village Thursday morning the big blocks of compacted snow had already been delivered. Telluride's CoolSculpt was underway. On Saturday afternoon, January 16, I went back to see what the artists were up to.

I spoke to Colin Sullivan, who was on hand to turn the Ah Haa School's block of ice into a giant Space Invader, complete with a girl with a handheld controller.

18 January, 2010 /

6a00e553ed7fe18833011570134a4b970c-120wi Jennie Franks' Telluride Playwrights' Festival owes a debt to the Bard. Four hundred years after his death, Shakespeare is still the most popular playwright in the world because his every word, every phrase offers dozens of possibilities for the pace, rhythm and trajectory of every scene. Directors and actors only have to get out of the way for the structure of the whole play to reveal itself. The Telluride Playwrights' Festival is all about words, not the production.

18 January, 2010 /


Talk about flights of fancy.

To celebrate 51/2 months of wedding bliss, on January 6, Telluride locals Eliot Brown and Mary Sama-Brown, a broker with Telluride Real Estate Corp, headed to Las Vegas for a romantic getaway. Only Eliot and Mary did not have to deal with the hassle of booking a flight. The happy couple simply commandeered their own Twin Commander/Grand Renaissance 840.

Eliot's day job is operator and chief pilot of MayaAir, a Telluride-based air charter carrier. The Grand Renaissance became his airplane of choice for its all-around reliability and performance. This bird is just as strong and flexible as the acrobats in Cirque du Soleil, which the Browns saw on their trip. (Word is "Zumanity" is both funny and sexy, very sexy.)

17 January, 2010 /

Tuesday evening, January 12, it was the Wailers filling the Telluride Conference Center . There were people waiting outside in case anyone left early. And the Wailers kept everyone moving until time to turn out the lights.  The Sheridan Arts Foundation and the Telluride...

17 January, 2010 /

Ted Hoff of Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel shows us a training session with his one year old Labrador retriever, Mae. TIO has watched Mae's progress from an eight week old puppy. She continues to impress.A well-mannered dog, attentive and anxious to please, is...

16 January, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to Erika Gordon speak about Sunday at the Palm]

Endurance.11x17 The Telluride Film Festival's Sunday at the Palm series kicks off the 2010 season with the award-winning docudrama, "The Endurance: Shackleton's Lengendary Antarctic Expedition," back on Telluride’s big screen for the first time since its Telluride Film Festival premier in 2000.

Vain-glory-mongering or scientific curiosity? A desire to get there first? What motivated Ernest Shackleton matters less than the fact that, when all was said and done, after 22 harrowing months, he emerged from his dangerous and failed adventure a hero, having led 27 men to safety.

16 January, 2010 /

Banner5 Dr. Marshall Whiting, a psychologist, is known and respected in Telluride for intelligence, intuition, and empathy. What may not be common knowledge is that her heart is way too big to be confined within the walls of a box canyon. Whiting is the board development chair of Project Concern International.

With over 45 years of experience, Project Concern International is a leading international health organization that saves the lives of children and families around the world by preventing disease and providing access to clean water and nutritious food. The nonprofit reaches over three million people a year with programs in third-world countries to Bolivia to Zambia. Project Concern is on the ground in Haiti today.

Dr. Whiting sent the following appeal to her friends in a morning email:

15 January, 2010 /

January 14 to 21, 2010

Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury and Saturn
Evening: Mars and Jupiter
A New Moon Solar Eclipse and Doing Laundry by Hand

Dawn On Jan. 15th at 12:11 am MST the Sun and Moon come together at 25º01’ Capricorn in the exact conjunction aspect of a New Moon solar eclipse. This is the first eclipse of 2010 and one that reiterates energies from January 1991, when that year’s first solar eclipse was very close in zodiac degree to this one. Eclipses take place four or five times each year, but each and every eclipse repeats the theme and near exact degree of an eclipse occurring almost exactly 19 years prior to it.

This year, my husband, our three dogs and I are in Baja California, Mexico, staying at a friend’s house on the East Cape of the Sea of Cortez, about 30 miles north of Cabo San Lucas. In 1991, my husband, our two dogs – both now deceased – and I were building a house in Cabo Pulmo, just 10 miles north of where I am today.

15 January, 2010 /

In Telluride it can sometimes seem we are beyond the troubles of the wider world. Sometimes those troubles break into our consciousness in spite of the physical and cultural distance. President Obama has requested that Americans do what we have so often done around the...

14 January, 2010 /