Beyond Telluride

Late morning, on a Colorado blue sky day in Megeve, we headed up the mountain to meet friends who had traveled by snow shoe up 2,000 gnarly (read, "icy in spots") vertical feet to our rendezvous spot. To get there, the rest of our party drove...

Now I know where the snow gods traveled when they went AWOL around the New Year. They made a beeline for the Alps. For the past several days we have been in Megeve, located in the Haute-Savoie department, Rhone-Alpes region, southeastern France. Megeve started its development as...

Yesterday we did a lot of looking again, this time thinking outside the frame as it were. We were not focused on paintings, but on clothes. My friend and I determined to shop until we dropped. January is the month the government sets for sales. In...

Apres le boeuf, la creme brulee. After the steak, dessert. The Stein Collection for example versus the show at the Musee D'Orsay, "Beaute, morale et volupte dans L'Angleterre d'Oscar Wilde," apologetically about sex and sizzle. Oscar Wilde was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and critic. As one of...

The historic Beaux-Art building known as the Grand Palais (Grand Palace) on the Champs Elysee (8th arrondissement) marked the first stop on yesterday's tour of the City of Lights. The Grand Palais is currently playing host to a family reunion of sorts. Art collected by writer...

Talk about window treatment. The boys from the 13th century really got it down. The most famous feature of the 13th-century royal chapel known as Sainte-Chapelle are the stained glass windows: 15 of them fill the nave and apse and a large rose window dominates...

Telluride is not the only place to achieve (or underachieve) in hedonistic bliss. There's also Paris. Mais oui: Paris. Air France touched down at 6:30 a.m. and within hours I found myself a refugee from Woody Allen's latest gambit. Paris. Always an epiphany. Sometimes, like now,...

Clyfford Still Museum quietly shouts for joy, provides counterpoint to Denver Art Museum. A paean to the artist, Denver's brand spanking new Clyfford Still Museum is also a monument to the glory days of America, which emerged Phoenix-like from the ashes of World War II as...

 

"The Apple Pushers," kicks off the weekend, when Mountainfilm in Telluride returns to the Big Apple, October 21 – October 23, for an encore program at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theatre.

"Apple Pushers" is not about the friendly folks who sell bites out of the technological magic "The magician" (The Economist, October 8 – 14), Steven Jobs conjured. The documentary features a whole other category of vendors.

"The Apple Pushers," written and directed by Mary Mazzio, narrated by Edward Norton, and underwritten by the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, follows immigrant street vendors who roll fresh fruits and vegetables into the inner cities of New York, where finding a fresh red ripe apple can be a serious challenge. These pushcart vendors, who have immigrated here from all parts of the world are now part of a new experiment in New York to help solve the food crisis and skyrocketing obesity rates, particularly in the inner city.

 

NYCMountainfilm in Telluride began as a homespun gathering of outdoor enthusiasts 33+ years ago has evolved into a colorful tapestry of talks, exhibits, music and films. And Mountainfim has grown legs. Good news for Telluride, because there could be no better ambassador for the "brand."

The road show that travels the world as Mountainfilm on Tour spreads the gospel according to the Festival, which is all about supporting endangered cultures, species, and ideas. In September, Mountainfilm's World Tour landed in Sao Paolo, Brazil. In October, the Tour is back in North America, scheduled for an encore in The Big Apple. Friday – Sunday, October 21 – October 23, Mountainfilm returns to Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater for a weekend of outstanding adventure programming, cutting-edge environmental films and incisive explorations of cultures far and near, with filmmakers and documentary subjects in attendance at almost every screening.