Telluride Inside... and Out

TNCC: Slow Money gaining momentum

by Kris Holstrom

(editor's note: Kris Holstrom of Telluride's The New Community Coalition was privileged to attend an Inaugural meeting of the Slow Money group in Santa Fe recently. What in the world is Slow Money? Holstrom defines the idea in her own words.)

Slow Money? Think Slow Food for local economies. Slow Food asks us to slow down, appreciate local food and farmers, savor and enjoy the communal experience of sharing food. Slow Money is a new nonprofit. The driving principal behind the international movement is to bring money back down to earth. At the meeting, we talked about how to  slow the velocity of our money,  and create the means to invest money  locally as ”nurture capital," a notion that appealed to a sustainability type like me who has often asked how we as a community can invest in ourselves in new and creative ways. For direction, I return to the mission of Slow Money: build local and national networks, and develop new financial products and services, dedicated to investing in small food enterprises and local food systems; connecting investors to their local economies; and, building the nurture capital industry.

Your Ah Haa Moment: New work by Meredith Nemirov

[click "Play" to hear Meredith speak about her art]

[double click to view in larger format]

A show of new work by artist Meredith Nemirov opens October 1 at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts.

"Leaps and Turns" is a departure for the artist, known for her impressionistic, representational paintings drawn from nature. These works on paper, completed over the last two years, are abstractions. But earlier paintings explain later ones.
The model for the relationship between the new and the old work is jazz: improvisation off a melody line.

Telluride to Albuquerque: Hastings Mesa

"If Ever I Would Leave You." The song from the musical "Camelot" about how no time is a good time... sums up our feelings whenever we have to head out of Telluride. Hastings Mesa, with pristine vistas that go on forever, is breathtakingly beautiful any time of year, but in Fall, the gilded spectacle stops us dead in our tracks – literally. The boy can't help it: Clint and Gina stop en route to Crawford, Colorado, to take in the Fall colors against the canvas of the mountains.

Telluride: "Captain Jack" Carey run dedicated

[double click to view in larger format]

When Telluride lost Jack Carey this past summer, we lost a friend, a cultural icon, a good man. On Friday. September 25, the Telluride Ski and Golf Company dedicated and re-named the familiar "Locals' Glade" the "Captain Jack" run.

About 60 people, Telski employees and interested locals, worked glading the run. At the end of the day there was a company-hosted beer party and barbeque in the Mountain Village at the Hop Garden. I caught up with a happy but thirsty crew at the party and over the noise of the exuberant workers did some video interviews.

I had been indoors at a very interesting conference on water hosted by The New Community Coalition, among others. So it was good to hear how the day on the mountain had gone. The consensus: Great, Jack had to be pleased.

Telluride environment: forest health

[click "Play" to hear Clint's interview with Kevin Gurney]

Telluride's The New Community Coalition, The Telluride Institute and the Wilkinson Public Library joined forces to present a workshop, keynoted by Dr. Kevin Gurney. The subject: "Forest Health and the Community Carbon Connection." The event takes place Wednesday, September 30, 6 p.m., at the Library.

The context in digestible sound bytes: Marcel Theroux's new book "Hot Ice," is a  novel about what happens to the world post collapse. (Hint: Civilization is largely reduced to preindustrial levels and cities have gone the way of "The Road.") If the Arctic is the proverbial canary in the coal mine in terms of global warming, many scientists agree the bird has already chirped its last. Ever since Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  shared The Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, climate change and the constellation of horrors surrounding the real possibility – inevitability? – of a total meltdown is the new normal, and carbon dioxide emissions, the new Darth Vader.  It will take lots more than good will, driving a Prius, riding a bike, turning down thermostats, replacing light bulbs, and solar panels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It will take a village, and then some.

WOW!: Telluride designers triumph in New Zealand

In Telluride, around the globe, who doesn't like a feel-good story about the triumph of the underdog, especially in times like these, when underdogs are really under the weather – and almost everybody is an underdog. That's why movies like "Breaking Away," "Rocky" and "Strictly Ballroom" get standing ovations even from the most jaundiced audience.

So Telluride, let's hear it for the girls: a local fiber artist and a local sculptor are winners at the World of Wearable Art Awards Show in New Zealand. But we will let Amy Jean Boebel and Sue Hobby tell it in their own words. See next page.

Note: Their garments were flashed on the screen at the International Media Breakfast.

Academy Awards and the Telluride Film Festival

Jason Reitman

There is a lot of conversation about how much effect the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival have on the Oscar nominating procedure. I don't pretend to have inside information on this subject, but TIO had the opportunity not only to view some great films at Telluride, but to witness audience reaction in the theaters and to converse with film buffs in the lines outside. Our take on the Oscar season? For an in depth look at what TIO said right after the festival see Susan's review from September 14.

We called out Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air", starring George Clooney, as a contender in several categories.

Telluride Gallery of Fine Art: good bye to Bernie Fuchs

Last June, the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art gave painter/illustrator Bernie Fuchs a 50-year retrospective exhibition to honor a great artist who owner Will Thompson felt was "sorely undervalued and overlooked." But when Bernie Fuchs passed away last Thursday, September 17, of cancer, both The New York Times and The Washington Post paid homage to the man whose work was familiar to nearly everyone in America through reproduction alone.

Over the years, Fuchs worked regularly and steadily for all the major automobile companies, publications from Sports Illustrated (25 years) to The New Yorker, McCall’s, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, and TV Guide, as well for advertising agencies and large corporations from Rolex to Citigroup. He also illustrated dozens of children’s books. Fuchs' illustrious clients have included political titans – JFK, Queen Elizabeth, Lyndon Johnson, the Reagans – and celebrities, among them: Frank Sinatra, Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery, and Pablo Cassals.

Alacazem 2009.09.24

September 24 to October 1, 2009

Visible Planets: Morning: Venus, Mars and Mercury   Evening: Jupiter

Autumn and Telluride's Magical, Metaphysically Magnetic Mountains

The first full week of Autumn delivers the characteristic Colorado weather we know and love this time of year. Cool, cool evenings and brisk mornings awaken us to the season of changing colors, morphing landscapes and freezing temperatures. Frost is on the pumpkin and fruit is on the vine. Fires are kindled and quilts once again find their place on laps and couches.  Coats come out of closets and hats are put on to brave the chill. Water is on for tea.

Last week, the late summer Telluride Blues & Brews Festival delivered pouring rain, inches of mud and, eventually, crystalline blue, cerulean skies. It was Telluride in all its pain and glory. Suffering in an on and off deluge of rain, sleet and hail, my husband, Richard, and I stuck it out every single evening to see and hear Joe Cocker - the very best of show! - Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal. We saw a lot of other fantastic acts as well and plenty of good old friends and allies. Then on Sunday we were blessed with one of those blue ribbon Colorado days - the magnificence of autumn in the Telluride valley was stunning. I was once again - after over 30 years of living here - struck by the awesome beauty of these magical, metaphysically magnetic mountains and their undeniable power. Wow! I am humbled and blessed.

Happy Autumn blessings for All.

Telluride Film Festival Cinematique at Library September 28

[click "Play" to hear Seth Cagin speak about film noir]

Telluride Film Festival Cinematique, a collaboration between the Wilkinson Public Library and the Telluride Film Festival, is a film club catering to local cineastes, who want After-the-Festival to last year 'round. Each of the four-film series develops a theme. Last season's hot button was the French New Wave of Varda, Truffaut, Godard, and Chabrol. This season, the subject is film noir.

What is this thing called film noir? We all understand the word "film." Film is, according to Orson Welles, nothing more than "a ribbon of dreams." The word "noir" is French for "black." The defining characteristic of these "dark films" is fatalism and alienation, shady motives, and bleak prospects: one false move and you're out. Predatory "femmes fatales" populate this bleak landscape, sirens who lure hapless heroes into the world of illicit desires.