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Author: Susan Viebrock

(editor's note: We did get the video uploaded, finally, so take another look.)

The play's not the thing. "The Audition" is simply a vehicle for a talented group of Telluride teens. Watching them in rehearsal, it was obvious how much they love and respect their longtime director, Jen Julia, and how much they enjoy one another and strutting their stuff on the boards.

"Closing night of Grease, the kids said, 'We want more,' and so I began searching scripts that met the following criteria: Kids would play kids as they had in 'Grease,' and get to work with material with some dramatic grit, something they could sink their teeth into," explained Jen.

14 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Kimberly Rose] The adjective "hairy" has two distinct meanings. Telluride locals seek out hairy moments in the mountains: hazardous and frightening are turn ons. Hairy also means "having or covered with,...

13 May, 2009 /

DSC_2264.cover.6x4 copy Lots of things were broken in the early 1990s: the economy and my arm. The country turned to the Man from Hope to fix the economic downturn. (Clinton did.) To fix the arm, the result of a horseback riding accident, I turned to a part-time Telluride local, world renowned hand and arm surgeon Dr. Hill Hastings of the Indiana Hand Center/Shoulder & Elbow Institute, our Indianapolis connection.

Meeting HIll was yet another in the endless variations on the theme of six degrees of separation: a friend of a friend, he happened to be in residence at his Telluride Ski Ranches home just three weeks before I was scheduled for surgery in New York. The man's genius was apparent after our first meeting: he had created architectural drawings of my arm, complete with moving parts to illustrate what needed to happen. He generously offered to participate in a conference call with my New York doc. Clint and I decided to jump ship and have him do the surgery.

10 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Sarah Klein]

GoodMotherCardscreen Forget to make a brunch reservation on this special day and you wind up in the Seventh Circle of Hell. In Telluride, as in the best of all possible worlds, Mother's Day would be everyday. The Hallmark Card model of the holiday is a set-up, a guilt trip, that should, I believe, go the way of the Hummer.

Truth be told no matter how many saccharine cards, roses, truffles, heart necklaces, or brunches we buy, we can never ever pay off that eternal debt we owe the woman who packs our lunches, bandages our boo-boos, soothes our bruised egos, cuddles and encourages us through thick and thin, believes in us no matter what. The best of the breed inspires success without ever pushing an agenda. They teach, but don't preach, the requirement for a straight spine and strong moral fiber. They are smart, loving, resourceful, and charming. And, they do this with no guarantee of a quid pro quo.
09 May, 2009 /

The consensus is that Telluride is a place " to die for." But the phrase is simply a figure of speech to describe the physical beauty of our surroundings.

Last week in New York,  on April 30, friends invited us to attend the Sixth Annual Foreign Policy Lecture and Benefit given by the nonprofit Network 20/20.

Former U.S. Senator/Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle was the evening's guest speaker on the subject of "America's Role in Global Security." During his lecture the senator observed, "People with nothing to live for, find something to die for;" there was no mistaking the cold reality surrounding the genesis of terrorist impulses. His point: "civility and decency" towards our global neighbors are "strategic imperatives." We need to stop regarding people on the other side of the world as The Other.

06 May, 2009 /

[Press the "Play" button to hear Telluride's ChefBud ]

ChefBud's new program, Books and Cooks, premieres at Wilkinson Public Library at noon, Tuesday, May 5.

IMG_5521smaller You won't find Telluride's Bud Thomas stranded on some high horse when it comes to preparing food. The talented young chef believes in keeping it fresh and keeping it simple.

5-5 BooksCooksPoster A McKinsey study of the last recession (1990-1991) found companies that remained market leaders or became serious contenders were the ones that invested in R & D and stayed in the public eye. ChefBud's response to the current downturn was to turn up the heat on a new venture. He teamed up with web wonk Dennis Lankes of TellurideWorldWide.Com to market himself and his business by creating a live cooking show, chefbud.com, now with viewers from London to the Far East.

Programs for chefbud.com are shot Wednesday at 2 p.m. at venues around town. In March, Bud and his wife Jenna, a talented amateur chef, were cooking up peanut butter and jelly crepes for a rapt group of local first-graders in the kid's section of the Wilkinson Public Library, when program director Scott Doser approached with another one of his great ideas.

03 May, 2009 /

[hear Susan's conversation with Sharon Shuteran and Freddy Shapiro]

_DSC9386 Law Day, U.S.A. is officially May 1, a national event meant to reflect the role of law in our country's foundation. In Telluride as elsewhere in the country, Law Day is a vehicle for may bar and legal educations associations to promote the use of law as a legal education tool, particularly for students.Only in Telluride, we celebrate the event on "Telluride time."

Photo 4  On May 4, 6.pm. at the Wilkinson Public Library, Judge Sharon Shuteran and longtime lawyer/former legal professor Freddy Shapiro co-host a program about the High Court based on insights and questions derived from Jeff Toobin's book, "The Nine."  (Having read the book is a nice but not necessary condition for showing up for the discussion.)

In "The Nine," Toobin humanizes the quirky justices and provides a basic understanding of the inner workings of the most important legal institution in America, including the role of political intuition in decision-making.

02 May, 2009 /

IMGP0280 In Germantown, New York, we visited friends Jane Taylor and Frederic Ohringer, newly transplanted Telluride locals. Their new home is a newly renovated farmhouse from the 1800s. Their no-nonsense aesthetic features white walls and white floors that act as a giant canvas brightened for the whimsical iconography of their lives. The colorful, minimialist whole amounts to a beautifully executed inside joke between two artists – she a painter; he, a photograher-turned- farmer,  have almost always bucked prevailing trends with aplomb and a wink.

IMGP0285 In sharp contrast to the tasteful restraint of our friends' home, on a hilltop above the nearby town of Hudson sits the Persian inspired mansion of American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church. It is one of those grand houses with a name: Olana. The best we can say about the place is that the views of the Hudson River and the Catskills are magnificent. Olana itself is chockablock with the kind of maximalist flourishes and really bad art (faux old masters Church purchased in Italy to wow his dinner guests) that are especially out of favor now in this economic meltdown.

It was on to Hackensack, New Jersey to visit my parents, where we can sit on their balcony and look out at Manhattan like kids hanging over a  fence, mouths watering as they witness a BBQ in their neighbor's backyard.

01 May, 2009 /

Trio Solisti is the founding ensemble of the Telluride Musicfest, this year June 25 – July 5, and featuring world renowned composer Philip Glass as Composer-in-Residence.  "Telluride Inside...

25 April, 2009 /