Mollie Fast in free concert at Christ Church in Telluride Sunday night These song birds seem to pop up our of nowhere, then their talent hits you like a fresh blast of gale force wind and bowls you over. Joey Lindly (the madam in "Best...
[click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Sally Strand]
The First Thursday Art Walk, produced by the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, has become a highlight of the town’s high seasons of winter and summer. Galleries, studios and shops stay open late until eight to showcase the goods. Check out the scene at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, where Sally Strand has a one-woman show. (in 2007, Strand was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Pastel Society of America.)
Stalwart green apples keep company with a green plant, perched like sentries on a windowsill, while gleaming white cups cavort with a gang of tangerines. An unmade bed welcomes the morning light. A door opens into a private world we can only imagine. We follow the light.
Elsewhere people go about their daily routines. A woman sits lost in a book while another, much younger, buffs up the floors of a café to prepare for lunchtime traffic. A gaggle of chefs, elbow to elbow, hussle dinner.
At Lustre, 171 South Pine:
At this Thursday's Art Walk, Telluride’s Lustre Gallery is hosting a trunk show of Gurhan’s bling blockbusters. The designer's claim to fame is pioneering the revival of 24-karat gold, transforming the ancient metal into fine, contemporary jewelry.
“Gurhan is unique in his use of 24-karat gold, which is often considered too soft a metal to manipulate. After spending 18 months closeted in a small workshop in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, Gurhan rediscovered ancient metalsmithing techniques, some over 7000 years old, and improved upon them: pure gold is hand-worked, aged through a heating process, and given a stable form, resulting in a beautiful work of art,” said Christine Reich, co-owner of Lustre.
The Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theatre presents "Grease" this weekend at Telluride's Sheridan Opera House. The show runs Feb 6-8 (Fri-Sun) at 6:00 pm.
"Grease" is a jumping, jitterbugging and leaping, rocking and rolling spoof of 1950s teen innocence chockablock with songs you can whistle, tunes that recall the Buddy Holly hiccups, the Little Richard yodels, and the Elvis bumps and grinds that made the sounds of the era such a gas.
The enduring musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey is essentially a series of lively vignettes about black leather and shiny cars, satin pink and pajama parties, drive-ins, ear-piercing, smoking, wine-chugging, and dating. Home base, Rydell High is Never Never Land with classrooms, where classes are breaks between dances and hanging around in the hall.
Police Inspector: “What can a slumdog possibly know?”
Jamal: [quietly] “The answers.
Nominated for 10 Academy Awards – film, director, cinematography, editing, original score, sound editing, sound mixing, adapted screenplay, and two for original song – "Slum Dog Millionaire" opens at Telluride's Nugget Theatre on Friday, February 6 and 8:30 p.m. nightly through Thursday, February 12, just before the Valentine Day weekend.
"Slum Dig Millionaire" is a valentine to the underdogs of the world who have not lost heart or hope – and that describes a lot of us who still choose to see the glass half full in challenging times.
"Slum Dog" is "Rocky," "Breaking Away," and "Cinderella" rolled up into one Dickensian fantasy about the American Dream outsourced to India.
Since 1977, the San Juan Mountains have been the site of an annual cultural event produced by the Telluride Society for Jazz. The Telluride Jazz Celebration combines performances on outdoor stages in during the day with theater and club shows at night: the best of both worlds. With its new dates in June, which coincides with the 26th annual Telluride Balloon Rally, the weekend event becomes even more colorful.
"Jazz means a certain kind of spontaneous interaction on stage and off. Because of how small we are, any impact on our home, Telluride, is positive," said Paul Machado, impresario, the Telluride Jazz Celebration. "At its improvisational center, jazz in town is so good it makes your ears smile.
"Featured artists typically represent a tangle of styles and rhythms that add up to one unforgettable experience in sound.
The Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theatre stages "Grease" at Telluride's Sheridan Opera House, Feb 6-8
Hindsight is not always 20/20. Sometimes it needs glasses.
When Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey penned "Grease" in 1971, Americans were nostalgic for the white picket fence days of the 1950s. But the innocence of that era was largely fiction: the headlines of the Eisenhower years included Communist witch hunts, polio, the hydrogen bomb, the Korean War, and racial segregation.
Pop culture was all about Mitch Miller, Elvis, James Dean and "Rebel Without a Cause," doo-wop and Doris Day – but also Jack Kerouac, who wrote "On the Road" in 1957. To the road warrior and his legions of fans, America of the 1950s seemed to be many flavors of strange under a white-washed veneer of pristine sameness.
The authors of "Grease" chose to sanitize those realities and dress them up in poodle skirts and leather jackets. The world of "Grease" never existed and always existed.
Hear Todd Snider sing (5274.8K)
[click to listen to Todd Snider interview]
Beaverton, Oregon's proud son Todd Snider is his generation's Will Rogers, an amiable, plainspoken, wise-cracking story teller and champion of the common man – just add a guitar and a pickup truck.
Todd is appearing in concert at the historic Sheridan Opera House, January 31, 8 p.m., with his friend and mentor Keith Sykes, whose most recent album the younger man produced.
You may not know Keith, but you know his music. He wrote songs made popular by Jimmy Buffet ("Volcano," "The Last Line" and "Coast of Marseilles"), John Prine ("You Got Gold," "A Long Monday," and "Everybody Wants To Be Like You"), Guy Clark ("She Loves To Ride Horses," "Shut Up And Talk To Me"), Jerry Jeff Walker ("Very Short Time"), and Rosanne Cash ("Rainin' On My Soul").
Milk
Opens at Telluride's Nugget Theatre on Friday, Jan 30
Cast: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna, Kelvin Yu, Lucas Grabeel, Alison Pill, Victor Garber, Denis O'Hare
Director: Gus Van Sant
Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black
Length: 2:08
Rated: R for profanity, sexual situations and violence
Subtitles: none
Eight Academy Award Noms: Best Film, Director (Gus Van Sant), Actor (Sean Penn), Supporting Actor (Josh Brolin), Original Screenplay, Costume Design, Editing and Music Score.
VALKYRIE
Opens at Telluride's Nugget Theatre on Monday, Feb 2
Cast: Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice Van Houten, Eddie Izzard, Terence Stamp, Stephen Fry
Director: Bryan Singer
Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander
Length: 2:00
Rated: PG13 for violence and brief strong language
Subtitles: none
