By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (ed. note: Happy Mother's Day to you, Telluride and beyond. In these five beautiful poems, Rosemerry speaks of being a daughter and of being a mother. ) The Daughter’s New Clothes Dark blue velvet, the dress you stitched for me, with a white...
kicker: "Blues on the Rails" launches June 4
The name "Steve Gumble" rhymes with innovation.
Gumble's first party trick was to parlay the ownership of a liquor store into a world class festival: now in its 18th year, Telluride Blues & Brews is more robust than ever. Acts this year range from Willie Nelson (yes, the iconic country star also has a blues history), to The Flaming Lips, Big Head Todd and the Monster, Dweezil Zappa, Mavis Staples, Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band, and more.
Can you top that? Yes, Gumble has managed to pull another rabbit out of his hat – a big steel rabbit: The Telluride Blues & Brews Festival and The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad have joined forces to present the brand new Durango Blues Train. The inaugural ride for "Blues on the Rails" takes place June 4, 2011.
by Jon Lovekin
(Editor's note: One of the pleasures in publishing Telluride Inside... and Out is getting to know new [to us] writers. Susan and I independently ran across Jon Lovekin on Twitter. She took the next step, checked out his writing, liked what she saw and asked if he would be interested in contributing to TIO. Herewith, another article from Jon.)
Clouds built over the plains as they always do each day this time of year. The wind blew soft and hot keeping the gnats at bay. Mud was deep around the building we were working on after the record setting 6 inch rain over the weekend. The sun burned deep into the skin and I thought of that boy working on that ranch 29 years ago and only 30 miles away. I had thought of the Rancher now that I worked in La Junta again and looked up his name in the phone book.
I didn’t recognize him at first when I pulled up to the address in Fowler where the phone book said he lived. There was an old man in a jump suit sitting in a porch swing connected to an oxygen tank who was staring at me as I looked again at the house number. I got out, strode around the truck and said, “Hello, does Ken live here?”
“He used to” replied the man who I knew instantly was him.
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
(ed. note: After a devastating April around the country and the world, May is a welcome change. Rosemerry has sent three poems to welcome Spring in Telluride and Western Colorado. May 1 is also Kjerstin Klein's birthday. Happy Birthday, kid.)
Preparing the Garden for Spring
We pull up the old iron slabs I had used
as stepping stones for my garden. By we,
I mean I pull them up. My son takes
to raking the shriveled brown cords of melons,
pumpkins and squash. His interest wanes
soon enough and he leaves me with my hands
in familiar gray dirt. In my lungs, dust rises
like long-forgotten prayers. And I am alone,
though not alone. There are several of me here.
One woman who dreams of kissing in rain. One woman
who plots where new seeds will go. One woman
plants herself in this bed. One woman kneels
in the morning’s gold shrine. And one woman lifts
old iron slabs. She blossoms one now at a time.
The day that ended with a bang with Duo Jalal's gig at Drom, began with meeting yet another Telluride friend, Diana Conovitz, and a Wednesday matinee. Bottom line: Run, don't walk to see the play, "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. (Unless strong language offends.)
Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis's newest play, his seventh, with the bleeping wonderful name is a no-holds-barred knock out: script, direction, performances, sets, lighting, the whole enchilada, terrific. Exhilarating. The story about life, love, despair, longing, a vague scent of hope and, well, a hat, is raw, in-your-face, intensely poignant and caustically funny.
"Motherf**ker" marks the Broadway debut of comedian Chris Rock as the health-juice-drinking, yoga-posing nihilist Ralph D. in what has to be one of the finest, five-person ensembles ever assembled by a director, in this case, the talented Anna D. Shapiro. Shapiro won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Direction for "August: Osage County" and might well dust off her shelves for a second statuette for this comedy-drama.
Telluride may be a toy town, but it casts a long shadow. Turn around too quickly and you will bump into Telluride no matter where in the world you are. Like yesterday. All day. The point takes on an all-caps clarity if I begin at the end.
Part-time Telluride locals Anne and Vincent Mai are co-producers of the Telluride Musicfest (with documentary filmmaker and part-time local Josh Aronson). Among the regular guests and returning for the 9th annual musical event, (June 22 – July 3) is classically trained violist Kathryn Lockwood.
In her ethnic persona, Australian born Kathryn performs with her husband, Lebanese-born Yousif Sheronick as Duo Jalal. On April 27 the couple happened to have a gig at a club in the alphabet soup of Manhattan's lower East Side.
kicker: shows 6 p.m. nightly April 29 – May 1 Eddie, Betty, and Rosco are a bunch of boring, unimaginative Telluride kids. They text each other. They play video games. They even watch the microwave. But all of that changes the day they're visited by...
by Tracy Shaffer
Curious Theatre Company’s Denver Stories is an open book. Now in its sixth edition, this annual fundraiser unites local legends with a playwright, director and a troupe of Curious actors to tell their life stories on stage in 15 minutes or less. A big part of the magic is in the mix of selected luminaries: a cultural icon, a politician, a culinary wiz, a do-gooder, and the like. Part tribute, part roast and always a celebration, the house is packed with friends, fans and nail-biting “celebrities” waiting for the artistic interpretation of their lives to unfold before their very eyes… and those of everyone they know. The singular quality in the Denver Story is a sense of community, and as we learn about those who’ve shaped our fair city and how they came to their passions, we feel closer to them and to the institutions they’ve helped to create.
This year’s honorees are Living Blues Reader’s “Best Blues Entertainer”, Otis Taylor; nationally recognized restaurateur, Paul Attardi (Fruition, Aubergine, Mizuna); Denver’s original “Shear Genius” and master coiffeur, Charles Price; and real estate developer/preservationist/”Queen of Lodo”, Dana Crawford.
By Jon Lovekin
(Editor's note: One of the pleasures in publishing Telluride Inside... and Out is getting to know new [to us] writers. Susan and I independently ran across Jon Lovekin on Twitter. She took the next step, checked out his writing, liked what she saw and asked if he would be interested in contributing to TIO. Herewith, another article from Jon.)
The Powder River Basin is one of America's sacrificial lands for our energy needs. Oil derricks, oil and gas pipelines, industrial roads that seem to go nowhere, and the largest open-pit coal mine in the United States. This vast region occupies an area approximately 120 by 200 miles or 24,000 square miles of open prairie, desert, high mountains, isolated buttes and deep rivers. This was home to the Ab-Sa-Ra-Ka or the Crow Indians and remains remote and unknown to much of America. Camping on Casper Mountain near the North Platte the view north remains crisp of the Big Horn Mountains near Montana hundreds of miles away.
[click "Play" to hear Steve Gumble's conversation with Susan]
He's on the road again – and headed our way. Turns out Steve Gumble has booked the iconic Willie Nelson, who first appeared at Telluride Bluegrass in 1982 – as the headliner for his 18th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, September 16 – September 18, 2011. Joining Willie on the Main Stage are The Flaming Lips, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Dweezil Zappa, Mavis Staples, Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band, to name of the few of the acts, which make a lot more sense in context.
Steve, now owner and CEO of SBG Productions Inc. opened Telluride Blues & Blues for business in 1994. Like Telluride Film Festival, Mountainfilm in Telluride, and Telluride Bluegrass, Steve's festival evolved into an event with a global reputation, helping to brand Telluride as a cultural mecca.
