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Around Telluride

[click "Play" to hear Erika Gordon on Halloween at the Palm]

100 This weekend in Telluride, "boo" does not signify displeasure. It is an exclamation tied to a holiday that is a very big deal in town. Because Telluride has a dirty little secret: denizens love any excuse to dress to kill. And that goes for the gnarliest of jocks to the littlest of kids. We are basically all pagans at heart.

Dress rehearsal for the weekend's derring-do – you won't want to miss KOTO's Halloween bash at the historic Sheridan Opera House – is Telluride Film Festival's Sunday at the Palm Halloween Celebration. The event takes place on October 25, 4 p.m., and features a phantasmagorical line-up of of children's short films based on the theme of Halloween and Autumn, when kids and kids-at-heart get to test drive their costumes. Here's a taste of the backstory.

24 October, 2009 /

Telluride showed up en masse for its portrait during Mountainfilm in May, 2009, when Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org was in town for the festival. Telluride is again helping the organization bring worldwide attention to the requirement to bring our carbon level back down...

24 October, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Walter Wright speaking about the 350.org celebration in Telluride]

350eblast Environmentalist/writer Bill McKibben came to Telluride in May for Telluride Mountainfilm, hair on fire about the number 350. That's the maximum CO2 parts per million the Earth's atmosphere can handle without a catastrophic meltdown. And we are already above that safe zone at 390 ppm and rising by about 2 parts per million annually. The number is higher than any time in recorded history of our planet and we are already witnessing the consequences: glaciers, the source of drinking water for hundreds of millions, are melting and disappearing; drought is becoming more common; sea levels are rising; mosquitoes, which like the warming, are spreading disease like malaria.

Bill McKibben's first book, "The End of Nature, published in 1989 by Random House, was one of the first, if not the first to explain climate change to a wide audience. ("The End of Nature" was published in 20 languages and reprinted as recently as 2006.) McKibben's 350.org turns his words into deeds.

21 October, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Laren Metzger talk about "Spooktacular]

Spook_poster The trick: Carving out the time on one of the busiest days of Fall for family fun.
The treat: A Spooktacular day at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts.
The event takes place October 24, in conjunction with the 350.org celebrations.

Halloween, the annual holiday celebrated one week later on October 31, has its roots in the Celtic pagan festival of Samhain, marking the end of the summer season and harvest, and the Christian holy day of All Saints, honoring all those who have attained the beatific vision in heaven.

In anticipation of Halloween, Ah Haa opens its doors from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. for parents and kids work together to create creepy crafts and temptations to decorate the ultimate spooky home.

21 October, 2009 /
[click "Play" to listen to Roz Savage speaking with Susan]

Roz_Savage_Enhanced Many of them are regulars and veterans of Telluride Mountainfilm: climbers Conrad Anker, David Breashears, Lynn Hill, and Jim Whittaker, as well as ocean rower Roz Savage. They are among the elite and professional athletes, 350.org.Athletes team, who have pledged their support through actions, words, and general celebrity to back the global initiative spearheaded by author/environmentalist Bill McKibben.

Bill McKibben is a man with a plan: Move the world back to 350 ppm –  the maximum carbon dioxide parts per million Planet Earth can handle without coming unhinged. Experts have clocked us in at 390 parts per million now and climbing, an unhappy fact of life triggering a meltdown in Mother Nature.

20 October, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear what's happening at Ah Haa this Fall]

Ahhaa_hp_middle Fall in Telluride is a colorful time of year as aspens turn gold and local institutions  such as the Ah Haa School for the Arts announce their kaleidoscopic Fall/Winter season.

Abstract paintings and drawings pulsing with the energy of the Telluride region by artist Meredith Nemirov are on display throughout the month of October in Ah Haa's newly renovated Daniel Tucker Gallery. In November, the exhibition space will feature the work of the winner's of Ah Haa's Youth Arts Awards. (Submissions from 7 – 12 graders due by October 26.)

07 October, 2009 /

DSC06610 Telluride's historic Sheridan Opera House, constructed in 1913  by W. A. Segerberg, was a combination vaudeville and movie theatre. Floors connected to the luxe New Sheridan Hotel, facilitating the passage of prominent entertainers of the period, including Sarah Bernhardt, Lillian Gish, and speakers such as Socialist Presidential Candidate Eugene Debs, directly from the stage to their rooms, with little fear of paparazzi dogging them.

However, beauty fades with neglect and this jewel box of a theatre fell into a serious state of neglect that only a major facelift could repair. Enter the Sheridan Arts Foundation.

03 October, 2009 /

Just gotta sing? Check out the KOTO karaoke jam tonight, Friday, October 2, 2009. The poster says it all. ...

02 October, 2009 /

[double click to view in larger format]Telluride Regional Airport has been closed for construction since April, but is on schedule to reopen on November 4, 2009.It was a major project, including removing most of the famous dip in the middle of the runway, installing new...

01 October, 2009 /