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Beyond Telluride

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Kevin Rucker

Denver is Telluride Inside... and Out's home away from home, so last weekend we decided to get an up close and personal look at the oldest part of the city.

LoDo is the handle Denverites assigned to the Lower Downtown Historic District, located just northwest of Downtown Denver near the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. LoDo, the original settlement of the city, is now a mixed-used neighborhood known for its vibrant nightlife with 70+ bars and restaurants – and at least as many ghosts. More later.

College history instructor Kevin Rucker is a descendant of Puritan settlers. His grandma, a hardcore genealogist, hooked him into an exploration of the past. Dressed in uniform, a paisley vest and bowler hat, the man cuts as colorful a figure as the miscreants and madams he describes on his spirited walking tour. (We are talking the liquid and supernatural variety.)

23 February, 2010 /

by Ben Clark

Ice Fest 2010 033 Flying into Marquette, MI late on a Thursday night in February was about as exotic as my life could get. I'm a climber from Colorado and heard there was ice here, in the cold and windswept upper peninsula. Not just normal ice of course, ice that had drawn climbers to the region for a climbing festival running into its 26th year. Really???

For all the promise of cold, it was the warmth of the locals that made the trip so worthwhile. Heading out to Sand Point on Friday with Rep Bryan Kuhn and his friends, I was treated to thunker swings in a savory pillar of steep waterfall ice. We shared it with several locals, looking to experience the privacy that makes ice climbing so cherished in this region about to be inundated by weekend festivities. I was psyched to be there and happy to be surrounded by such nice people.

22 February, 2010 /

Mrs Robinson Fox
Tracy Shaffer as Mrs. Robinson

Editor's note: Telluride Inside...and Out now has a regular Denver contributor, Tracy Shaffer, for readers who may want a big city fix. Tracy is an abundantly talented playwright and well-known actress around the Mile High City, currently starring as the original coyote, Mrs. Robinson, in "The Graduate," which we got to see last Saturday (February 13). White hot always cool Tracy, not Benjamin, was the show's center of gravity, its heft and its raison d'etre. In a sleek production with minimal sets, the other rest of the cast became props to set off Mrs. Robinson's aria. The director, John Ashton, seemed to have pushed everyone else over the top to create cultural stereotypes of the 1960s  – The Successful, Golf-Playing Dutiful Dad; the Well-Intentioned, Hysterical Mom; the Rebellious Son. These contemporary riffs on Chaucer's archetypes allow the story of a complex woman's complex relationship with her daughter to emerge with greater understanding. Denver Post critic John Moore saw it differently: he saw underwear. We see his perspective as the emperor's new clothes, which Tracy describes in her  "Naked Truth."

My Naked Truth: Sex, power and ticket sales

by Tracy Shaffer

Much ado about wearing nothing in the Aurora Fox Theatre’s production of "The Graduate." In his Sunday column, Denver Post theatre critic John Moore took the Fox to task for "copping out" and clothing the star (though scantily) to suit its subscribers. The conversation was off and running.

17 February, 2010 /

As Telluride looks to a more sustainable future, is every old model new again?

Zermatt On February 10, 6 p.m., The Telluride Historical Museum presents a lively, invitation only, slide show illustrating the unprecedented 1979 investigation of the gold standard for mountain communities: Zermatt, Switzerland.

In 1978  the Idarado mine, the last dynamic link between the mining town that was and the resort town yet to be, shut down. The ski company had changed hands:  Ron Allred became the new Joe Zoline and the county planning process for Mountain Village got underway.

Telluride was a-changin,' but into what was still blowing in the wind.

08 February, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to MD about his art]

Md_web The Telluride local known on the streets simply as "MD" is not what his handle suggests. Michael Patrick Doherty is an artist, this month the featured virtuoso at the Ah Haa School for the Arts. "Life on Telluride" officially opens tomorrow, February 4, for the First Thursday Art Walk., 5 - 8 p.m. in Ah Haa's Daniel Tucker Gallery.


03 February, 2010 /

Telluride local Ben Clark takes Telluride on the road every spring, doing what Telluriders often do: Get out there on the edge. This is the second post in a series linking to Ben's adventures in the Himalayas. View the website and check out the video...

02 February, 2010 /

With so much variety in Telluride, it's easy to forget how much there is to do within a few hours' drive in any direction. Saturday, January 23, Damon Demas and I took an overnight trip to Moab and Arches National Park to show...

27 January, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Colin Sullivan's description of Billings' workshop]

L1000363 Susie X. Billings is one of the fine artists in the muscular stable of the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. She is also a regular teacher at the Ah Haa School for the Arts, where she is offering an exclusive (only 8 participants/workshop) workshop in an exotic location: Billings' Zacatitos studio located in the coastal region northeast of San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, on the east cape of the southern Baja peninsula.


The two "Mixed Media Painting and Journal Workshops" takes place over six days and seven nights. The first runs from February 6  – 13 and the second, April 5 – 12. Home base is a beach home, but participants will be visiting nearby arroyos, gardens, and seascapes for inspiration.
27 January, 2010 /