Author: Susan Viebrock

[click "Play" to listen to Ben Clark's conversation with Susan]

Benbioshotlr This is day-in-the-life-stuff for Telluriders.

Backcountry turns? Sure. Ice climbing? Ditto. Bouldering and climbing in the desert? But of course. Long runs in the high country? What do you think. But Telluride local Ben Clark is not just any Telluride jock.

Clark is a successful filmmaker/enterpreneur and alpinist blessed – cursed? – with an unusually high level of the enzyme monamine oxidase (MAO) and the hormone testosterone, both of which are associated with thrill seeking. In other words, the guy is biochemically suited to the extreme endeavors such as his annual pioneering expeditions in the Himalaya. (And for flying without a net in the world of business.)
[click "Play" to listen to Peter Sterios speak about yoga]

 


The Telluride Yoga Center presents a man for all reasons: Peter Sterios.


The smoothie clown & dadda 01 8-09 Sterios is the principal of Sterios Architecture and founder, in 1997, of Manduka, a leading eco-yoga products company and key sponsor of Telluride Yoga Festival. He is a writer and former contributing editor for Yoga Journal, and an inspiring Yoga instructor/presenter at 2009 Telluride Yoga Festival. Sterios is in town to lead a workshop at the Telluride Yoga Center this weekend, Friday, January 22 – Sunday, January 24.

"Gravity and Grace: Creative forces for sustaining self-practice" is a catchphrase encompassing the teachings of a new lineage Sterios developed over three decades of study and practice in America and India. But Gravity and Grace rests squarely on the ancient yoga teaching channeled through Sri Krishnamacharya, the man credited with opening the door of yoga to the West.

[click "Play" to listen to Laurie Madison about her CD]

Laurie - Squat-BW It is not a stretch to think of Telluride Inside... and Out as an exhale, the direct result of 17 years of inhaling – and covering for the local daily –  Telluride’s considerable cultural zazz. It is thanks to Viniyoga I learned how to manipulate my breath to create different energetic, transformative effects.

Laurie Madison, who hails from Nelson, British Columbia, was one of many wonderful people I met over a two-year course of study with Gary Kraftsow to become a certified Viniyoga instructor. (We both completed the program August 2009.)

[click "Play" for Susan's conversation with Sherab Kloppenburg]

Quilting2 Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts includes courses in time-honored crafts such as quilting. Up soon, case in point, "Crazy Quilting with Sherab Kloppenburg, Tuesdays, January 26 – March 9, 6 - 8 p.m. (Five classes with a two-week break.)


American quilting has been a constantly evolving amalgam of color and texture, pattern and symbolism since the days of mass immigration from across the pond. Eventually the combinations of styles brought by women from their different homelands blended and became known as the American Melting Pot quilts, and later, patchwork or crazy quilts.
[click "Play" to hlisten to Bunny Friedus-Steel speak about "Carmen"]

116 In one scene, the lovers are hitting high notes while coupling on the floor. Coming soon to your local theater in Telluride: Sex, rebellion, and violence.


Are we talking about the subject of the latest country & western hit or one of The Nugget's nuggets, a Tinseltown bodice ripper starring the babe du jour. Answer: neither of the above. On January 22, 6 p.m., New York's Metropolitan Opera, live in HD, is coming to Telluride's Palm Theatre. And not just any opera, Bizet's 1875 masterpiece "Carmen," reputed to be the most famous opera in the world.

[click "Play" to hear Lawry de Bivort speak about his lecture series]

DSCN0693 Ldb stream Tride CROP When this part-time Telluride local opens his emails in the morning he finds the same daily reminders, sales, Oxfam, Moveon.org, we all find. There might also be a message from someone on the Obama team asking him to rethink an aspect of our government's policy towards Israel and Palestine. Welcome to the world of Lawry de Bivort, PhD., whose mission is life is to give CPR to those magical elements of human existence that have temporarily succumbed to darkness.


Scott Doser, program coordinator at Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library, managed to convince de Bivort to do a series of lectures on his current obsession: the future of the human species and how we can ensure a beneficial future for it.


Legendary guitarist and gypsy Tim Reynolds is in Telluride to perform with his trio,TR3, at the historic Sheridan Opera House on Wednesday, January 20. Showtime is 7:30 p.m.

Out of the gate, Reynolds got spoiled by adoring fans. As the child of pious, fiercely conservative parents, he began playing electric bass in a gospel band at age 12 before writhing congregations of ecstatic worshippers. Reynolds performed at church three times a week  – over 1000 times – until his high school graduation.

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.



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.)

[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.