Telluride Magazine Summer/Fall 2022

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52 • FEATURE StokeTHE KING OF Craig Wasserman teaches skateboarding and life skills to Telluride youth By Sarah Lavender Smith W HEN CRAIG WASSERMAN MOVED TO TELLURIDE STRAIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE IN 1997, HE’D HEAD TO TOWN PARK TO SKATE A FEW HOMEMADE WOODEN RAMPS. “IT WAS COOL,” HE SAID OF SKATEBOARDING HERE IN THOSE DAYS, BUT YOU COULD HARDLY CALL IT A SCENE OR AN INCUBATOR FOR TOP-LEVEL SKATEBOARDERS AND SNOWBOARDERS. Twenty-five years later, Telluride the town and its youth. “This new is a legit skateboarding destination, skatepark is going to help elevate thanks to the 2006 skatepark expan- the skate scene in Telluride, which sion, the thriving summer Skate- for the last fifteen years has grown board Camp now in its fifteenth incredibly,” said Wasserman, gestur- year, The Drop retail shop, and a ing with his hands enthusiastically handful of world-class athletes who as he described the park’s rails, developed skills and grit when they ledges, and flow. were kids at the skate camp. And this summer, the skatepark will be The new facility in Town Park upgraded and extended by 10,000 extends from the existing concrete square feet. skate bowl that Wasserman and local kids lobbied the town to build It’s a safe bet that the skate- in 2006. Wasserman said the clas- boarding scene in Telluride would sic bowl is well-loved but “pretty not have developed without Wasser- gnarly,” designed for intermediate man, who transitioned from teach- to advanced skaters. The elements ing art to dedicating himself to the of the new park, by contrast, are skate camp and The Drop, the shop less intimidating and accommodate he opened five years ago. “Craig is a variety of skill levels. “It’s specifi- the king of stoke,” said twelve-year- cally designed for progression,” he old Ollie Graves, a skateboarding explained, “part of a new movement phenom who competes nationally in skateparks that combines all the and dreams of making the Olympics. disciplines of skateboarding into Graves, who lives in Ridgway, got his one big park where you utilize all start skating at age three at Was- the features together. It’s not like, serman’s skate camp. “He brings so ‘here’s the street section, here’s much energy to skateboarding and the bowl section’—everything is wants everyone to spread the love of intertwined and promotes progres- it. It’s contagious.” sion because there are easy things you can do, and you can also learn One spring afternoon, while advanced skills.” getting ready for a bunch of girls to show up for a weekly afterschool all- Evergreen Skateparks of Port- girls skate camp held at The Drop’s land, Oregon, designed the expan- indoor wooden half-pipe, Wasserman sion, funded with $750,000 from paused to talk about the evolution of the Town of Telluride. The town skateboarding in Telluride and how approved the skatepark remodel the expanded skatepark will benefit and expansion in mid-2021 after TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

determining that the Youthlink skatepark, comprised of a few street-style skate features next to the Voodoo art studios (across from the Post Office), would be developed for hous- ing. The Youthlink skatepark acted as a sort of satellite park when the Town Park facility was closed for the numerous summer festivals. The good news? The new skatepark will remain open during the festivals. Olympic snowboarder Lucas Foster began skateboarding in Telluride as a young kid and coached at Wasserman’s skate camp for several summers, as did Telluride’s other Olympic snow- boarder, Hagen Kearney. Foster applauds the town’s investment in the skatepark. “The expansion is so great, because skateboarding has been growing really fast in Tel- luride, and this gives kids an even better place to explore what skateboarding has to offer. I’ve seen a lot of kids go from being very shy and unsure of themselves, to finding identity and strength in skateboarding, and I think it’s changed a lot of lives and saved some kids in our community from going down a rough path.” Before Telluride had a concrete skatepark, Wasserman used to drive local kids after school to the then-new Montrose skatepark to skate. “Some of those kids now have families of their own and say, ‘Thank you so much for getting me into that.’ A lot of them were really talented snowboarders and were like, ‘We don’t want to hurt ourselves for the snowboard season.’ And I said, ‘You guys are skaters.’ So they started skating, and I think it expanded their horizons a lot.” Foster, 22, said skateboarding undoubtedly made him a better snowboarder—and Wasser- man made him a better person. “Skateboarding has given me a better ability to break certain boundaries that the snow industry sets on us,” he said. “In skateboarding, we skate everything whether it’s the bowl or in the streets. In Olym- pic snowboarding, it’s a lot more formal and structured, which makes it less exciting and fun. Skateboarding showed me there’s no real limits on what you can or should do. Now, I can come back to Telluride and snowboard anything on our mountain, and then go to a halfpipe and ride with some of the best in the world, and it’s because I don’t look at snowboarding as this one-track thing, which is really due to skateboarding.” Skateboarding may seem like an edgy or rebellious sport, but the culture here is inclusive and nurturing. Foster credits Wasserman and the skate camp with role-modeling friendliness and good behavior. “He showed me at age twelve that being nice goes a long way, and how much of an impact you can have on kids at the skatepark just by being a person who lends a hand, even if it’s just saying hi to a little kid who might be timid. That helped me with my snowboarding career because I learned what giving back can do for you and your community.”

Wasserman said he and his skate camp coaches work to create a supportive environ- ment in the skatepark. “We say to be stoked for each other and encourage each other. No one has to act tough at the skatepark because you are tough because you skateboard.” Wasserman taught art and outdoor edu- cation for nearly twenty years, first at Tel- luride Middle/High School and then at the Mountain School. At The Drop, he offers art classes in screen printing, stenciling, and videography and photography, and he designs and screen prints the shop’s logo wear. He said he felt OK about leaving a career as an educator to devote himself to The Drop and the skate camp because skateboarding devel- ops life skills and character. His own son and daughter, who are ten and seven, are skate- boarders. “Because it’s so innately difficult, skateboarding teaches things like persever- ance, focus, dedication, respect, grit, and patience—all the things we know, as parents and teachers, are so important to instill in our kids,” he said. One of the best aspects of his job, he said, is watching little kids—such as “a five-year- old girl in a sparkly tutu and unicorn shirt”— stand on a skateboard at the edge of the bowl and decide to tilt and drop into it. “We’re spot- ting them, but they have to face their fear and do it. It’s 100 percent commitment, and that’s when skateboarding works and why I named the shop The Drop. And if you teach a kid to drop in when they’re only five or eight, then by the time they’re twelve, they’ll be crushing it like Ollie Graves.” Graves, sounding mature beyond his twelve years, said skateboarding “teaches so many les- sons because you have to be focused on a trick, and it doesn’t always come easy. It takes slams, cuts, and scrapes, but if you want it bad enough and put in the work, landing a new trick is the best feeling in the world.” \\

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58 • ESSAY My Mistah Maples AND THE DRUMS OF HOME The healing power of music By Maple Andrew Taylor Illustrations by Tim Johnson People-watching during one Newman in The Sting. Several Indi- His drum was worn; the staves of da-da, pow da-da, pow da. Bonk of the many festivals in Tel- ana Jones’s on both sexes. Cowboy the barrel were nicked in places, and da-da, pow da-da, pow da. luride: The show is never hats, and parodies of them. On my in places had lost their varnish, expos- sold out, there’s always side of the street, a conical, tightly ing bare wood. The tight skin of the Whey they brothas, he said, after front-row seating, the encores go woven sombrero; a Tibetan wool drumhead was both light and dark. finishing each short stanza. Bonk on and on—and, check this—the beanie with braids like dreadlocks; Light where the hands rarely go, and da-da, pow da-da, pow da. Whey? tickets are free. It was during a Jazz and a well-worn Chicago White Sox the color of tea and then coffee where Theys? At? Festival. I was sitting on a bench baseball cap. And I swear to you by the fingers and palms touch and strike. on a warm summer evening, not far all that is holy, earlier in the day, a The light and dark splotches melded From up the street, a single low from the Sheridan. Town was packed fellow came out of the crowded door- fuzzily into one another. drumbeat came in answer. Then two with people; thousands of them. way of the Last Dollar Saloon up the other bonks from a different drum, An earthier, less tightly wound sort street there wearing a beanie with a He placed the drum beside the this one higher in tone. My bench- than you would find during the ski propeller on top…spinning. bench. I was guarded, wary. I threw a mate picked up the pace and hit his season, where slickly dressed and question back at him after we intro- djembe with a firmer hand and from exceedingly well-heeled folks make A Black fellow walked toward duced ourselves at his behest, with across the street came another Black their way from point A to point B in me, hatless. He had a huge and rag- a perfunctory slap of hands. He was fellow, taking a big bite of food pro- a haste that seems the antithesis of ged head of hair incompatible with from “D’troy,” which, after a moment, truding from a wrinkled wad of foil, a mountain getaway. I had already any type of head covering. Patchy I understood to be Detroit. I run river his djembe hanging over his back by gotten my money’s worth with the beard and lean countenance and trips down the Black Canyon of the a strap. My bench-mate introduced parade of hats; and there’s no place a sun-bleached, olive-drab army Gunnison and do some guiding at a me as My Mistah Maples as he con- I know where people wear them in fatigue jacket. Toting a small drum, a local ranch just right outside of town, tinued to play. Then again as another such unabashed ubiquity, even if they djembe, he shuffled up to me and my I told him. He said that sounds wyle, djembe drummer appeared and don’t fit head or attire or weather. A bench, wiped his brow with the back meaning, of course, wild. That voice stopped on my side of the bench, his donkey driver’s hat across the street of his sleeve. Asked if he can sits. again. Spilling over into a long silence. drum partially blocking my legs. The straight out of The Treasure of Sierra I was already way over to one side More people passed by, more hats. beat as he joined in became louder, Madre—on an attractive lady wear- but scooched against the armrest. more complex, and people stopped ing an evening gown. A fedora on a Tey’u’rye, he said, his voice deep, res- Gatha they brothas, he said. That and bobbed their heads and wove leather-jacketed fellow befitting Paul onant, as he looked up to the immense voice...deep. Burnished. Traveled. He their bodies and the last drummer skyline to the south. Tey’u’rye. lifted his djembe around between his materialized, strategically placing a legs, started a slow simple beat. Bonk small wooden bucket that looked like TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

half of an old bongo set and dropped Thirty minutes before I had been As the beat intensified and the val. At this band’s level of craft, the a couple of dollar bills into it for the lord and commander of my being, rhythm found itself, it became a drummer does not play his djembe, seed money. More and more people my day, my destiny. Thirty minutes full-on street concert, and if I got up but plays himself, or to put it another appeared, forming a semi-circle of before I was young and muscled and to leave, it would have been an exit way, the djembe plays the drummer, souls swaying to the beat, a semi-cir- clever. Thirty minutes before I had that would trample my ego to ashes, plays every place he’s ever played and cle that grew so quickly I was sud- the world in the palm of my hands. an awkward retreat that would only everyone he’s ever played with, includ- denly trapped, suddenly held hostage And then, at that moment, I was so multiply my humiliation. There ing the very first time he ka-bonked by these djembes and their drum- abjectly self-consciousness, I didn’t comes a point when retreat is no lon- the tightened skin of the head of the mers and this ever-forming, solid wall even know what to do with my hands. ger a viable option. djembe, feeling perhaps something at of people. Like a rabbit caught in the I had no idea where to even look as once brand new and deeply familiar, headlights I couldn’t move. (A white all these folks wondered just who the The djembe drummers wrapped as if the hands somehow remember a one! And oh, what would I have given hell I was and what on earth I was the gorgeous mountain evening and future not yet manifest. to take a bite out of Alice’s mushroom doing there in this band of Black all the listening, dancing souls into and shrink myself down into the drummers with no instrument, no something almost unbearably fine Multiply this by five drummers nearest rabbit hole.) voice, and no discernible function. and sweet. Like cotton candy spun and put My Mistah Maples, this twen- on the long paper cone at the carni- ty-something, dumbass white boy in the middle of all that and you see what it’s like to be different and have people sitting there staring at you like you’re a bug in a jar. The way a Black person might feel walking into a bodega at midnight wearing a hoody, or trying to strike up a conversation on a street-side bench in an upscale, predominantly white ski town. In a slow-motion, stop-action Matrix moment there are other djembes, other drums from another time. Out my bedroom window as a boy growing up in a small oil town in southeastern New Mexico, the unmuffled internal combustion engines on the oilwell pumping units, the pumpjacks. The motor struggles on the upstroke, a sharp and reverberating PHOMP PHOMP PHOMP as the horse’s head pulls the sucker rods up through the tubing where a column of oil is hauled to the surface to pulse through a pipe- line and splash down into a battery of tanks. As the horse’s head loafs its way back down, the great weight now released, the motor, for a few seconds, has less strain and there is a muted chicka-chicka phump, chic- ka-chicka phump, chicka-chicka phump. Each pumping unit has its own tone, its own rhythm, its unique and singular touch to carry the beat. Many factors here: Type of motor. Depth of well. The size and shape of the counter-balancing weight of the great hind legs that go round and up and around—the unfailing keepers of the beat. Some of the wells so near to our house on the edge of town that one can even hear the low growl of gears and the squeak of iron on iron. Some drum from so far, one only hears the PHOMP PHOMP PHOMP, the, gentle, flat palmed chic- ka-chickas lost in the cool night air of a desert landscape that was only a few hours earlier so hot as to be prac- tically uninhabitable. Through the open window, a drum solo out there: an industrial “In A Gadda Da Vida.” Iron horses, Iron Butterfly. I worked in that oilfield as a roustabout (a jack-of-all-trades, bot- tom-rung laborer) for an entire year when I was eighteen and not quite SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 59

60 • TELLURIDE FACES of people up Colorado Avenue. I was corners of those shadows hide so very not ready to give up that bench. Like much of what is also true, that as the descending a mountain summit after trusting, vulnerable, alabaster souls a long and difficult and scrabbly of our youth we are all indoctrinated climb, I did not want to lose the eleva- into this world with the stain of learn- tion I had just worked so hard to gain. ing and beliefs that lack any reason, Did not want to give up that view from rationality, or, sometimes, even any such rarified air. I had earned that sense of morality. We are taught that summit. That bench. This story. there is a we and a they. We learn to mistrust, be suspicious of, and even Is there a standard for nobility? hate those who are different from us, Are there metrics for it? Or is there and we learn the most absurd forms always a gap between who we are of religiosity, affiliation, and conspir- and someone better? A gap that can atorial belief from the very people we become smaller but never actually owe our lives to. The very people we close? That evening I was caught look up to and love. between the drums of my small home and the drums of something much The drumming of the oilwells bigger, perhaps even the rhythms out the window of my boyhood that celebrate and chronicle our very home draw me back there like the humanity. The tone and the under- smell-memory of a salmon return- lying and unwavering metronome of ing from the ocean to the tiny trib- the drums and sound and pulse of the utary where it had hatched years rhythm of what we call home, radiates before. Those drums also haunt me away from its center, as it must, and and I am ashamed to say that their that’s where we should let it take us, underlying beat followed me for way out where the concentric rings of the too long. Rhythm depends on those drumming overlap with other drums, dry, unchanging strokes. Between like the rings from thrown stones on the beat on which the rhythm rides, the surface of a pond. there are gaps, like shadows through drawn window blinds, where the Our homes are so small. Our light shines through the slats. At world is so big. even the gentlest placing of the fingers on the djembe, the lightest Home is where the heart is. Home vibration on the drum, those shad- sweet home. There’s no place like ows flicker—flicker with the only home. However, it is this ideal of light there is. \\ home that casts the longest and dark- est shadows, I think. In the deepest ready for college or anything else. We my street. When my boss got back worked from a single-cab truck, four from his vacation one of the older of us in a bench seat that comfortably hands told him that he saw Charlie held three. One of the four had to sit sitting with me in his gang-truck the well forward, head and face up over other morning. For this I got a royal the metal dash and only inches away butt-chewing and was reminded of from the windshield. After I’d been my unconscionable transgression for working there for several months, days. My boss had never had a Black my boss, our gang-pusher, left me in person sit in any vehicle he’d ever charge of the truck and crew while he driven and it was like his truck would went on his yearly weeklong vacation. somehow never be the same. One morning a Black kid I had gone to high school and played baseball with Just when it seemed like this and who had a summer job during beautiful, unbearable little djembe college break—our community took street jam would never end, it did. good care of its marquee athletes, and Loud and solid, the applause rau- to a point, even those of color—came cous and sincere, the little upturned up to the truck and jumped in while drum-bucket full of money and then I was waiting on my crew to arrive. money spilling out of it as the crowd We horsed around briefly, talked dispersed as quickly as it had formed. about baseball, then he hopped out and joined his own crew. Our little My Mistah Maples, my bench- town was segregated, and Blacks and mate said, offering his open hand for whites simply did not mix, unless they me to shake. We shook, he turning his were forced to, such as at school or hand so that our hands clasped, plac- playing sports. It’s hard to believe ing his other hand over mine, pulling now, looking back, but even though me closer to his chest, trapping me Charlie and I had played sports with once more, shaking his head no-no and against each other and had gone back and forth, as if he wasn’t quite to school together and lived in the sure, but maybe sensed there might same little town pretty much all our be some hope for me, somehow, some- lives, I couldn’t tell you where his day. Again, that voice. In his last three house was and I’m sure he not only words so many people, so many places, couldn’t have told you where I lived, so many drums. My Mistah Maples. but that he had never once been on Even though I was then free to go, I continued to sit, continued to sits, as he disappeared into the river TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

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62 • TELLURIDE FACES ON AIR KOTO DJs play the soundtrack of life in Telluride By Emily Shoff Photos by Matt Kroll TELLURIDE’S BELOVED LOCAL STATION IS THE RAREST OF THINGS: COMMERCIAL-FREE, NON-UNDERWRITTEN COMMUNITY RADIO, SUPPORTED FINANCIALLY BY ITS LISTENERS, WITH A DEVOTED CADRE OF VOLUNTEER DJS. FROM HELPING TO REUNITE LOST DOGS WITH THEIR HUMAN COMPANIONS, TO READING THE COMMUNITY CALENDAR, TO PROVIDING THE SOUNDTRACK FOR LIFE IN TELLURIDE, THESE DJS CONSIDER IT AN HONOR AND A PRIVILEGE TO BE ON THE AIR. MEET THREE OF THE STATION’S MOST BELOVED LOCAL DJS: DEB GESMUNDO, JAY RAIBLE, AND NORMAN SQUIER. TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

Deb Gesmundo RADIO ADDICTION DJ Deb Gesmundo’s whole life in Telluride After dropping the TV in Telluride and her thing was laid out by hand: the columns of text, is anchored by her KOTO show, “Radio friend in San Francisco, Gesmundo headed north the photographs, the headlines. But shortly after Addiction.” “I feel like KOTO is the deep- up the coast. Her thoughts, though, kept return- starting, things changed again. The photography est, strongest root that I have to this community. ing to Telluride. She was almost out of money and editor offered to hire her in his department and Whenever I have inklings about going somewhere needed a place to stay. Because she’d lugged Sar- teach her everything he knew so that he could take else—the Florida Keys, for instance—they just ah’s TV across the country, she figured she could a vacation in Tahoe. “I couldn’t believe it. What I stop when I contemplate my radio show. I would crash with her for a few weeks. “I stopped at the said I was going to do—drive out West and find lose KOTO if I left.” REI in Salt Lake City to buy some basic winter someone to pay me to learn photography on the gear. For all my belief that I was done with winter, job—happened. I had manifested my dream.” Gesmundo started her show, which is a fun mix I was heading right back into the heart of it.” of world music, reggae, pop hits, and rap, as well Gesmundo has faith that what you put out into as any requests, the same year she moved to Tellu- Back in Telluride, Gesmundo followed Sarah to the universe is what you get back. And nowhere is ride: 1992. “I was thrilled when I learned I could her work at the Times Journal and found she liked the this more evident than in the buoyant atmosphere be a DJ after just a half day in the studio. It was place. Eventually, the editor there and longtime local in the studio during her “Radio Addiction” show, the perfect fit: creative and community-minded.” Marta Tarbell called her on it: “Deb, you’re here more sending good energy out over the airwaves. “My pri- than my employees are, so how would you like a job?” mary message is one of love and positive vibes,” Ges- Gesmundo had long wanted creativity to be a mundo says. “Three hours of music therapy for the larger part of her life. “As a child, I was always very The first job was tedious. With the exception of mind, body, and soul…for me and the community.” analytical, very math and science-focused. Photog- the writing, which was done on a computer, every- raphy and radio worked the other side of my brain.” Gesmundo was working at a bar in Michigan and saving up money to get a graduate degree in photography when Telluride first floated across her radar. Her friend at the bar, Sarah Humiston, was moving there, and couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful it was. “It came to me that I didn’t need to go into debt to study art; I needed to find a way to get paid while learning photography.” Having never traveled west of the Mississippi, she canceled graduate school and instead made plans to take a road trip with a friend from New York, who was moving to San Francisco. California sounded good to Gesmundo too; she’d never been a fan of winter. “In my mind, I was pretty sure that I was heading to a place where I could bury my toes in the sand and watch whales on the horizon. And that I would never see snow again.” They planned to drive along the Canadian bor- der, but when the Telluride friend learned of their journey, she asked if they’d mind bringing out her TV from Michigan. “It was one of those ancient wooden things the size of a cabinet. Every day, we had to repack our clothes around it. We had no idea how far of a detour Telluride was going to be until we pulled out the maps,” she says, clearly joyful that the uni- verse conspired to bring her to this place—her place. SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 63

64 • TELLURIDE FACES Norman Squier NOMAN’S LAND KOTO DJ Norman Squier (a.k.a. “NoMan”) “One night he allowed me, my sister, and a friend keeping track of what worked and what didn’t. has KOTO to thank for bringing him to Tellu- to come to the studio. It got me interested in One of his favorites was Betsy Broadman who ride. In March of 1979, Squier came to town broadcasting.” played a rock-and-roll station on WIBA and who on a family ski trip. On the last night of the trip, he currently runs a podcast in Boston. “I thought ended up listening to live music at the Moon Gypsy, Soon after that encounter, Squier got to try she was a musical genius.” now O’Bannon’s at Fly Me to the Moon. There, he his own hand at running a radio station while bumped into an old friend from Milwaukee who at school in Madison. “I was terrible,” Squier Having piloted his “NoMan’s Land” show con- convinced him—along with the musicians, one says, laughing at the memory. “I would say dumb tinually since 1980, Squier has one of the longest of whom was Jimmy Ibbotson of the Nitty Gritty things like ‘I hope you’re listening,’ and ‘if you’re running DJ gigs at KOTO. But he never tires of it. Dirt Band—to go up to the KOTO Station and do a listening, please call.’” But even though his “I am so fortunate to have been in the studio all radio show. “It was after the bars closed, like two own show wasn’t the smoothest, he never lost these years. It helps me focus on the glory that has in the morning,” Squier recalls. “We kicked out the interest in it. He diligently followed other DJs, been—and continues to be—Telluride.” DJ who was there and started jamming.” Squier got up after only three hours of sleep to fly out of Montrose. But he hardly felt the effects of the short night; he’d found his new home. “I gave Mark Hurd Aerial Surveys, where I was working in Minneapolis, four months’ notice, packed my stuff, and headed out to Telluride.” Like many when they first move to town, Squier worked a handful of odd jobs, mainly in construction. “I started out by holding the dumb end of the tape. Then I graduated to the smart end of the tape. But I was always screwing things up, either by mismeasuring or trying to speed up the process. Whenever my boss discovered my mis- takes, he would slap his forehead and exclaim, ‘No, man!!!,’ hence the DJ name.” Eventually, Squier stumbled into his career in law enforcement. “I never thought I’d have that job,” he says, amazed. “I was working as a KOTO news reporter but felt that it wasn’t the right fit. On the day I gave my notice, I happened to walk by the Town Hall. Hank Smith was sitting on the front stoop. He asked me if I was looking for work; his marshal had just retired. That night I talked it over with my then girlfriend, who’s now my wife. I decided I’d try it for a year.” Squier ended up working in the Marshal’s Department for nine- teen years in various positions and in the Sheriff’s Department for another fifteen. He retired in 2018. Squier’s approach to life is much like his show on KOTO: He goes with the flow. “I never have a playlist,” he says of his Saturday morning session. “Often I wake up with a song in my head and that’s the one I start playing. And then it just goes from there.” Squier’s philosophy is that he’ll play any- thing ranging from Classical to Rock. “But,” he says, the mirth evident in his voice, “I’m the one who gets to decide what’s good. I’m not going to take just any request.” Lately, he’s been opening the show with Mozart, citing its proven connection to healing. “Who couldn’t use a little healing right now?” Looking back on it, Squier’s early enchant- ment with KOTO wasn’t a surprise. As a kid, he’d always enjoyed listening to the radio stations around Milwaukee, especially the noncommercial ones. “My favorite was the jazz show that came on at midnight and played until seven the following morning. I couldn’t always stay up that late, but when I could, I loved it,” he says. To him, that show was magical. The DJ Ron Cuzner had an enormous presence and an incredible musical knowledge. TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

Jay Raible THE JAY RAIBLE EXPERIENCE Authenticity. That’s the word that comes to train down to New York City. “In just ninety min- Reflecting on his long-lasting relationship with mind when Jay Raible thinks about his show utes, you could be down at Madison Square Gar- KOTO, Raible says that the show is a seminal part of at KOTO (“The Jay Raible Experience”), his den, hearing great music.” his week. “Once it gets in your blood, you find your- affection for live music, and his relationship with Tel- self, days out, thinking of the songs you’re going to luride. More than anything, he wants people walking Like most in Telluride, Raible’s discovery of play. It’s a real mental exercise, figuring out how to away from his Friday afternoon program feeling like the town was just random good luck. “I had never keep it fresh.” Indeed, one of the things he loves best they’ve experienced something real. “I never plan out heard of the place. I just finished at St. Michael’s about his weekly slot is figuring out how to recreate a playlist. For me, picking songs as I go along is part College in Vermont and a buddy was headed there. the magic. “You can’t repeat yourself; you can’t even of the magic. Often, I don’t even know what my first I hopped in my Chrysler LeBaron and drove out repeat the same formula. You’ve got to do it differently song is going to be until I reach the top of the KOTO West. Thirty years later, here we are.” every time. I never want people to come to me and tell stairs. Luckily, it’s a long way up, so I have time to me I’m playing the same songs over and over again.” think about it,” he says, laughing. Upon arriving in town, Raible moved into the yellow house on West Pacific with some newfound Raible relishes the way his radio show makes That raw, uncut quality to broadcasting is friends and started working at the Swede Finn. him closer to the community, both here and farther also what appeals to him about live music, which “It was Dave Wolf at the Swede Finn who first got afield. “I get calls for requests from people who hav- he features on his show, playing everything from me connected with KOTO. I covered a couple of en’t called Telluride home in a long time but still upcoming bands at the Sheridan Opera House, to his shifts at the station in ’95 and was hooked.” listen to KOTO. I love that.” One of Raible’s favorite musicians attending Telluride Bluegrass Festival, After the Swede Finn, Raible co-owned several things about Telluride is the way in which people to budding new artists he’s discovered at the New successful bars around town, including the former support local radio. “It ties in with KOTO’s very mis- Orleans Jazz Festival. “I love the latitude and flex- West End Tavern and the world-famous Last Dollar sion of keeping connection alive. Telluride’s a place ibility of a live recording. That’s when you hear the Saloon (known locally as The Buck). He sold his that believes in the value of those things, in foster- true nature of music, the banter between the band portion of the latter just recently. “I’m leaving the ing connections we might not have otherwise.” \\ members, the mistakes. That kind of stuff makes bar game to the kids,” he says. for interesting radio. Songs recorded in a studio are too polished,” Raible says. Raible gets a thrill in unearthing songs that no one would ever find in a Sirius radio algorithm. “When you listen to live music, you’re listening to a piece of the old world that’s been preserved. I love that, in Telluride, we value that kind of innovation. That even in today’s tech-forward world, there’s still space for live music both on KOTO and at events around town. One of the amazing efforts KOTO puts forth is the live simulcast of the Bluegrass and Blues & Brews festivals, allowing live music lovers and Telluride ex-pats an opportunity to tune into the world-class music coming from the park.” It’s no surprise that Raible holds such an affinity for live music. Growing up in Rhinebeck, New York, there was a small hotel on the Hud- son, the Rhinecliff hotel, that would allow young people in to listen to music. “The place was kind of decrepit, but the bands they got were incred- ible.” On weekends when he had a little more time, Raible and his friends would also take the SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 65

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68 • INNOVATION BATTLING CANCER Promising new developments in cellular therapy for cancer treatment Dr. Katy Rezvani uses metaphors about By By D. Dion erate more than a hundred doses of CAR NK cells, war and combat when she explains Treating cancer is trickier; tumor cells are so it’s significantly cheaper to produce, and can be some of the groundbreaking strategies “camouflaged,” so lymphocytes need to be engi- administered on an outpatient basis, which makes her team is employing to treat cancer neered to express a CAR (chimeric antigen it even less expensive. Using CAR NK cells proved patients. She is the Professor of Medicine at MD receptor) molecule to perceive and target cancer very effective in treating lymphoid cancer and Anderson, the top cancer center in the country, cells. “We have to give our immune cells better Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in human trials. leading innovative new work in the field of stem weapons so that they can recognize and kill can- cell transplantation and cellular therapy, and she cer cells,” said Rezvani. Some cancerous tumors, such as Glioblas- recently spoke at a webinar hosted by Telluride The problem with CAR T cells is that they have toma, the primary form of brain cancer, are harder Science Research Center. to come from the patient and be genetically modi- to treat, said Rezvani, because they “fight back” fied and grown before being infused back into the by releasing toxins to disarm and weaken the Immunotherapy, now considered to be one of same patient. It works, but it can take months and immune system. Glioblastoma and other types of the five pillars of cancer care, uses the body’s own costs hundreds of thousands of dollars—because cancer cells release a TGF-beta molecule to sup- immune cells—in this case, lymphocytes, a type it’s exclusively from the patient and for the patient. press NK cells. So Rezvani’s team used CRISPR of white blood cell that Rezvani calls “soldiers.” T cells also carry toxicity, so the patients need to be gene editing to make their NK cells resistant to Essentially, she says, they increase the number of hospitalized, which adds to the expense. the toxin, in essence giving them a “shield.” The these cells, train them, edit them, and shield them MD Anderson sought a new strategy: They technique was effective in mice, and they expect so that they can fight the enemy—cancer. decided to use NK (“natural killer”) cells, another to have clinical trials this summer. type of lymphocyte, instead of T cells. They use Increasing the number of immune cells by NK cells from the donated cord blood of placenta/ Next up in the battle is the CD70 protein using donor T cells, growing them in a lab, and umbilical cords—these cells are safer and less expressed in multiple types of cancers and tumors, training them to recognize specific viruses has toxic and can also be modified to express the CAR and Rezvani and her team hope to use their CAR proven successful in treating the JC virus and molecule. And just one unit of cord blood can gen- NK cells, edited to target CD70, in upcoming trials. COVID-19 virus. They have already submitted protocols to the FDA. TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

TELLURIDE | COLORADO Key to all these innovations is MD Anderson’s Moon Shots voulez-vous?FRENCH HAUTE CUISINE Program, funded through philanthropy and designed to support out-of-the-box ideas and strategies like Rezvani’s, which is fur- +1 970 728 7020 thering the field of cellular therapy. Rezvani also credits the col- laborative environment that enables scientists and clinicians to PetiteMaisonTelluride.com work together, and her patients for their trust. 5:00–9:30PM Of course, none of it would be possible without the cord blood bank. Some of these cord blood samples are more powerful than SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 69 others. There are “super NK cells” that come from people with a genetically very strong immune system, said Rezvani. They are trying to curate and screen for the most potent NK cells. “Using the analogy of the army,” said Rezvani, “we’re trying to find the Marines amongst all these soldiers.” These new cellular therapies are being developed rap- idly—CAR NK cells went from conception in 2013 to the first patient being treated in 2017, just four years. The CAR NK cells targeting CD70 were first conceived in April of 2019, and are expected to be approved for clinical trials this summer. Rez- vani’s whole lab, sixty people, is moving its focus from blood cancers to solid tumors. “We are in this amazing time in sci- ence and medicine where we have the tools to understand the immune system; we have the tools to understand cancer at the single-cell level. That understanding can be taken back to the lab where we can do basic science and translate those approaches and take it to the clinic.” Seemingly everyone has been affected by cancer, whether directly or indirectly, so it’s some comfort to know that prog- ress is being made in the battle against the disease. And that scientists like Rezvani are fighting for us, using the best of our immune cells and the best of our technology, to make a differ- ence. “It really is a war. It’s a war of us against cancer… a war of the immune cells against cancer. \\

70 • NATURE NOTES BRING BACK THE BEAVER Nature’s engineers can help mitigate effects of drought in the West By Deanna Drew AS COLORADO AND THE REST OF THE SOUTHWEST GRAPPLE WITH THE EFFECTS Western conservation groups are working with OF AN ONGOING, TWENTY-TWO-YEAR DROUGHT, SCIENTISTS ARE TURNING TO public lands managers and private landowners to BEAVERS FOR HELP RESTORING MOISTURE TO THE LAND. increase beaver populations in Western rivers with the hope their busy work can help recharge ground- The American beaver used to be prolific But by the mid-1900s beaver were nearly water systems and restore water to the land. “Now across the Western landscape. Historically in the trapped to extinction for the fur hat trade. Bea- we’re in drought times and need nature-based San Juan Mountains, beaver populations were so ver populations never bounced back: only about solutions. We’re looking at climate-related issues plentiful that most mountain streams became bea- ten percent of the historic population currently and environmental issues asking: What in nature ver wetlands, and broad glacial valleys were filled inhabit the beaver’s range. is not there anymore?” wall to wall with intricate systems of beaver dams, lodges, and canals. Their complex wood workings Now, southwestern Colorado is experiencing Some beaver are still present in all stretches of temporarily flooded the native lands, resulting the longest stretch of drought in more than a thou- the San Miguel River, from the alpine headwaters in an abundance of seasonally wet meadows and sand years, and the effects of water’s absence is above Telluride to the river’s confluence with the lush floodplains, which in turn created rich, wet being felt throughout the land. Rivers are shrink- Dolores River, some eighty miles below and 7,000 habitat that supported a large variety of aquatic ing and reservoirs are reaching record lows, and feet lower in elevation. The river travels through plant and animal life and a healthy, functioning the dwindling water supply for agriculture is ranching and farming communities in Norwood ecosystem. “If you had visited Telluride a thousand reducing farmers’ crops to a fraction of the normal and Naturita before it reaches the red rock desert years ago, it would have been an insane wetland yield. “Before, we had beaver dams,” says Bergere. near the Utah border. “Given half a chance they with wildlife and birds everywhere, because of the “But we decided to remove the beavers and tried will repopulate areas where they used to exist.” beaver,” says Adrian Bergere, Executive Director to replace their work with a system of man-made of the San Miguel Watershed Coalition. dams, and it’s not working the same.” Because beaver are still widespread in the watershed, Bergere and other scientists believe The San Miguel Watershed Coalition and other there is an opportunity for successful watershed restoration work in the San Miguel. “Let’s bring them back and give them a helping hand.” TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

FASHION WEEK MARCH 3-5 | 2023 FIGHT FUND EDUCATE T H E 30TH S H O W A I D S B E N E F I T.O RG SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 71

72 • NATURE NOTES BACK TO ANALOG Bergere says it’s best to install not just one LIVING WITH BEAVER beaver dam analog by itself, but to plan for several When it comes to living with beaver, there are two Beaver dams are an imperfect weave of ripari- in an area that would be suitable habitat for bea- tools in the toolbox. While dam analogs promote an-dwelling tree species including aspen, willow, ver to reinstate a colony in that tributary or sec- beaver on the landscape to increase water storage, and cottonwood, the beaver’s primary food source. tion of stream. “Beavers will adopt the structures the other is a mitigation or adaptive management Their dams allow complete stream connectivity and start building their own, so if yours get blown technique to coexist with the animals in a mutu- and do not prevent aquatic species from getting out, it does not really matter because the beavers ally beneficial manner. where they want to go, while creating habitat have now gotten a foothold to reestablish them- Beaver dams can reach a point when they for juvenile species. Beavers will take a cobbled, selves, and will do the restoration work for you.” are negatively impacting human infrastruc- fast-moving, steep stream and slow it down to ture, or impairing drinking water allow water to spread out and create sources. Often in these cases, land- wet meadows and ponds for increased owners find themselves continually water storage. dismantling the dam to discourage beaver from making a permanent According to Bergere, it’s the residence, or trapping and relocat- imperfect nature of beaver dams that ing or killing the beaver. makes them work so well in the environ- A flow device system allows water ment. “They recharge groundwater, trap to pass through a beaver dam, so you sediment, and create ephemeral ponds don’t have flooding issues, you don’t that eventually fill in. Then the beaver have to spend your days picking sticks move to the next spot, find a good site and twigs off the dam, and you don’t for a lodge or dam and start the cycle have to trap the beaver, which is very over again, creating a healthy landscape time intensive. “For a relatively low for storing water.” cost, you can install a flow device and save a beaver.” Without beaver dams, the snowpack Sometimes called a “beaver rages out faster, and rainwater rushes deceiver,” a flow device uses a pipe down streams and riverbeds with no installed through the dam to dictate impediments to collect and distribute the level of water in a beaver pond it across the landscape for farming. and prevent flooding. A hydrologist The rushing water gouges out stream- will insert a pipe through the dam, beds, and the incised streams become with the outlet set at the elevation disconnected from the floodplain with appropriate to avoid flood impacts, no associated riparian corridor or wet- and the inlet set below the surface lands. “Sometimes you think of rivers of the water. This controls the water and wetlands as separate things, but level, because the water is pass- they’re really not.” ing thorough the dam at two points removed from the dam. The beaver’s The fast-moving water cre- auditory instinct isn’t triggered by ates banks so steep that the beaver the rushing water because the pipe can’t get into them, and the streams is under the surface; they can’t find become so overcharged that their it and don’t know where to plug the work gets blown away. “It’s bad for leak. “Flow devices are a biological sediment, bad for water quality, and hack,” Bergere admits. “But this way, bad for the aquatic, terrestrial and the beaver can still do what they’re bird species that we love.” doing, and will keep returning and returning.” Beaver dam analogs are log and This year, San Miguel Water Coali- wood structures that scientists install tion is joining forces with the national to bring back the beaver’s benefits to non-profit American Rivers to expand water users, by slowing water down their beaver restoration work further and creating stores of water that into the San Miguel watershed. The help recharge groundwater by forc- groups are looking for landowners ing it into the ground and delaying to partner with who are interested its release until later in the season. PHOTOS BY MICHAEL MOWERY in working together with beaver to “What we can do is step in and install low-tech, process-based restoration Beaver dams benefit tree species, too. When restore environmental, ecological, and aesthetic work to give the landscape a bit of a beaver cut trees like willow down, it’s just like values to the river and land. “Ranchers across the helping hand.” propagating a house plant in your home: some cut- west have adopted these nature-based restoration tings stay and regrow and some go downstream, techniques and are seeing water supplies last up In areas with existing beaver pop- and recreate more healthy willow populations. to six weeks longer into the dry season.” ulations, but where there’s too high a gradient for “We’re replicating what beavers do. With any luck So far, the Coalition has identified eleven beaver to get back in or a lack of woody debris, the natural processes will take it from there.” sites for beaver dam analogs in the San Miguel scientists drive posts into the river bed, then add In an area where there are no beaver dams or Watershed, and Bergere says the list is growing. mud, willow cuttings, alder, and cottonwood to beaver populations are low due to human conflict, “Fish, birds, elk, deer...it’s really remarkable mimic what the beaver would be using and attract you can still gain the benefits of dams without bea- what happens when you spread water across the them back to the area. The analogs replicate a vers by installing beaver dam analogs. “There’s no floodplain. If you want a natural wetland complex beaver dam, slow down the flow and recreate nat- guarantee beaver will come back to your property. with ponds on your landscape, this is the most urally what the landscape looked like historically, But if you are out in the desert or ranchland, you cost-effective way to do it. Restore a natural giving beaver a chance to reestablish itself in that can still do this mimicry or analog work to gain grade, the beaver adopts the structure, and takes tributary or section of stream. “Ours will never be their benefits and create wetlands on the land.” it from there.” \\ as good as what a beaver would build, but it does create positive effects of groundwater recharge and sediment aggregation, ultimately leading to the river’s reconnection to the floodplain which is absolutely crucial to a healthy river.” TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

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76 • HISTORY COLORADO AVENUE, 2012. PHOTO BY INGRID LUNDAHL The Telluride Film Festival During its 4th Decade (2004 – 2013) [PART IV IN A SERIES] By Paul O’Rourke Photos by Phil and Gerry Borgeson and Ingrid Lundahl hey start showing up the first of August, until we lost Malcolm to AIDS in 1988.” Dearly Kinski and Abel Gance, and the screening of that drawn back to Telluride “as much for missed and never forgotten, Malcolm is toasted at great French Director’s restored epic film, Napoleon. the movies as seeing the people you’ve each festival on a Sunday around noon in front of worked with for years,” said Jacob Wascalus, one the Opera House. In 1992, “Phantom: Marcello Ves- “You have to do the crappiest jobs for six of the several dozen members of the Telluride Film pucci” was added to the recognition given mem- weeks,” said Kate Rennebohm, a Ph.D. film stud- Festival (TFF) production crew. “And, also for the bers of the production crew in festival yearbooks, ies student when she spoke with the Daily Planet, tradition,” emphasized co-worker, Avery Thatcher, the same year another TFF family tradition bear- “and if you stick with it, are good at it, and want to when speaking to the Telluride Daily Planet. “If ing a similar and colorful nickname was launched. come back, you are part of the crew. Being a dog is we didn’t come back, we’d really feel like we were like a Telluride fraternity.” missing out on something.” “OK. She’s a dog.” And that something—a combination of cama- The dogs, along with several dozen members raderie and love for film—has been a hallmark of —Bill Murray in Ghostbusters (1984) of the production crew (many former dogs among the TFF from the beginning, thanks in no small them), under the direction of Production Manager part to the precedents set in motion by Director Vespucci Dogs, a term of endearment annually Garber, are charged with the extraordinary task of of Operations, Jim (BF Deal) Bedford, Production conferred upon ten to twelve TFF production appren- repurposing Telluride into a film festival that hosts Manager, Brandt Garber, and Malcolm Goldie, tices as a tribute to Malcolm, is also an homage to well over 3,000 movie lovers for four frenetic days aka “Phantom” (of the Opera House), all of whom an obscure but much venerated (at least by TFF during the Labor Day holiday weekend. worked at TFF #1 in 1974. production crew members) film about a NYC-based “Brandt, Malcolm and I,” said BFD in a Daily production studio with the fictional name, Vespucci By its 40th year in 2013, the TFF had grown Planet interview, “and a team of stalwarts worked Pictures. The eighteen-minute film, King of the Zs, to ten venues, of which just three—the Sheridan side by side hauling chairs and setting up venues made in 1979, was shown at the TFF that year, but Opera House, the Nugget, and the Palm—were was overshadowed perhaps by tributes to Klaus actual theaters year-round. The others needed special lighting, movie screens, state-of-the-art sound and visual equipment, acoustic upgrades, TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

seating, risers for the seating, concessions and everything, aesthetic as well as physical, required to put on the best SHOW imaginable. This remarkable undertaking—like a colossal carnival coming to town—reminded festival chron- icler, Peter Shelton, of the fictional Scottish hamlet featured in the 1947 Broadway musical and 1954 movie, Brigadoon, that, per the script, material- ized from the highlands’ mist every hundred years. Cookie Boy—the caped, masked, and bicycle pedaling purveyor of glad tidings and chocolate chip cookies (baked by Cookie Mom) for the pro- duction crews—had to make an additional stop on his rounds in 2003. Brigadoon, an intricately and painstakingly designed and elaborately decorated tent, had first appeared at the south end of Oak Street that year, wherein the festival’s hospitality, memorabilia, and box office operations had been strategically re-located. “The Telluride Film Festival is an CKHEREPISITNOGPTHHEERPRREOYJNEAC,TJOORNSBRUUSNCNHINAGNDINR2O0S0S9.KMRAENMTBZE.RPSHOOFTTOHBEYCIANRGLRBIDRELNUKNEDRATHSLOCIETY (FROM LEFT): exquisite act of faith, a gathering of true believers dedicated not to commerce and correctly, the perceptive might have guessed that his vintage Chrysler Imperial and the festival’s one of the film’s young stars, Charlotte Rampling, big projectors running. There were educational celebrity, but to art.” would be spotted at the TFF in the days ahead when programs, special screenings from up-and-coming she would receive her much-deserved tribute. And filmmakers, a pre-festival party, an after-the-fes- —Ken Burns a Thursday free screening of The Last Picture Show tival-festival, an opening night feed, a Labor at the Chuck Jones might have intimated that Peter Day picnic, state-of-the-art sound and visuals, Jeffrey Ruoff, in his Telluride in the Film Bogdanovich and his “Sacred Monsters” program— all expertly choreographed in a congenial atmo- Festival Galaxy (2016), maintains that the TFF an intelligent mix of film clips, stories, and well-ren- sphere where the well-known mingle happily with was unique in the world’s growing number of film dered impressions of several movie greats—would several thousand film lovers while viewing silent festivals for a variety of reasons, not the least of visit Telluride for the second time in as many years. era, contemporary, documentary, revival, art which was that its program was not made public house, domestic and foreign, independent, short until just before the festival opened. What resulted Festivalgoers could count on many things and feature-length, unknown and soon-to-be-cel- has always been a bit of suspense for festivalgoers, when they attended the TFF. From one year to the ebrated films, along with the much-anticipated considering that in 2004 a festival pass cost $650 next there were tributes to notable careers in cin- To-Be-Announced (TBA) surprises, both cine- (it jumped to $780 by 2010) and obtaining one did ema, noon seminars moderated by the inimitable matic and otherwise. The Telluride Film Festival not guarantee admission to every screening. In Annette Insdorf, and the annual welcome given delights in delivering the unexpected. addition, a degree of flexibility was afforded the to Chief Technician Ross Krantz, who always kept directors, allowing them to insert a film or two into the program at the last minute. The “hush-hush” program notwithstanding, there were usually a few hints—the directors are a crafty crew, after all—at what might be in store during any given year by way of pre-festival screenings that were, much to the delight of those in attendance, free of charge. In 2005, Vanishing Point (1971) was shown on a pre-festival Wednesday night at the Abel Gance Outdoor Cinema in Elks Park. Had they intuited LEFT TO RIGHT, LAURA LINNEY RECEIVING HER SILVER MEDALLION AT TFF #31 IN 2004. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHIL BORGESON; BRIGADOON. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHIL BORGESON; KEN BURNS AND FILM FAN, DAUGHTER OLIVA AT TFF #34 IN 2007. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHIL BORGESON SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 77

78 • HISTORY minute preview of There Will be Blood was a good start for #34 in 2007. Adding the Backlot at the Wilkinson Library, a venue dedicated to screening documentaries illuminating the art of filmmak- ing, proved perceptive. Selecting Edith Kramer (Pacific Film Archive) as Guest Director, whose program, in honoring William K. Everson (TFF Co-Director from 1977–1987) was a gracious tip of the hat to the silent era and to the festival’s history and its colorful personalities. Awarding a Special Medallion to writer, historian, and film reviewer Leonard Maltin was fitting, as Special Medallions always are. Programming Todd McCarthy’s docu- mentary about longtime festival advisor and resi- dent curator, Pierre Rissient, a year after the man who McCarthy called the “least known, most mas- sively influential person in international cinema,” was honored by renaming the Minnie Theater “Le Pierre” illustrated the festival’s enduring respect for and loving acknowledgement of its family. And let’s not forget, Juno was “snuck” into the pro- gram. All in all, it was a very good year for the newly aligned directorship. SIGN ANNOUNCING THE OPENING OF THE BACKLOT AT TFF #34 IN 2007. PHOTO BY INGRID LUNDAHL “Just as fame at a prestigious festival confers value on a film, the subsequent “WE’RE TOAST.” With Co-Director Tom Luddy at their side, success of the movie itself further raises the The name Bill and Stella Pence gave their newly named Co-Director Gary Meyer and Man- impromptu Q&A after announcing their aging Director Julie Huntsinger—no strangers to profile of the festival.” the art of filmmaking, the movie business, or to retirement at TFF #33 in 2006 Telluride—fell right in step, albeit to the beat of —Jeffrey Ruoff That Lonesome (1928) was in the festival their own drummers, with TFF #34. program for #33 and that the Alloy Orchestra While numerous filmmakers—directors, would accompany the classic silent era film Meyer attended his first festival in 1975 (#2), screenwriters, actors—had been recognized should have been a clue. The film had been the same year he and two partners founded Land- by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sci- shown at Telluride to rave reviews in 1994, but mark Theatres, a chain of cinemas dedicated ences on Oscar night over the years (Ang Lee, it was perhaps its July 1973 community screen- to programming the sort of films—and experi- Daniel Day-Lewis, Forest Whitaker, Neil Jordan, ing at the Sheridan Opera House that left an ences—that might have found their way to Tel- Reese Witherspoon, Jane Campion, and Pedro indelible imprint on the hearts of Bill and Stella luride. Huntsinger joined Francis Ford Coppola’s Almodovar, to name a few) Slumdog Million- Pence and their dear friend, film preservation- American Zoetrope in 1993, the year she, by vir- aire (2008) was the first Telluride world pre- ist and collector James Card. From that one per- tue of her position as Tom Luddy’s assistant, was miere to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Without formance, the three film lovers were convinced introduced to Telluride. “If I do my job right,” exactly planning for such recognition, Telluride that Telluride and the opera house would be the Huntsinger said in 2007, “the festival will come off became, from that point forward, a significant ideal setting at which to stage a film festival. without a hitch and I will remain faceless.” voice in the Oscar conversation. And the rest, as we know, is history. And if his- tory teaches us anything, it’s that good things do Staging a Friday night tribute to Daniel Day- That the TFF occurred over Labor Day week- indeed come to an end. Lewis at the opera house followed by a twenty- end—coincident with the beginning of awards season speculation—enhanced the festival’s attrac- tiveness for Oscar-hopeful filmmakers. Telluride’s secret program, with its sneak preview possibili- ties, afforded filmmakers like Slumdog’s Director “There are two rules: never pay more than “WE’RE TOAST,” BILL AND STELLA PENCE ANNOUNCING THEIR RETIREMENT AT TFF #33 IN 2006. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHIL BORGESON $35 a week for a second feature, and always have a man on a horse.” —Gary Meyer, on programming drive-in double features for United Artists in rural California during the early 1970s Filling the shoes of icons is never possible. There’s no such thing as a perfect, or even a near fit. As it was, no one was looking for an exact replica of Bill or another Stella after their unex- pected retirement in 2006. First off, such people did not exist, save for the originals. Secondly, and perhaps more to the point, thanks to the Pences and the directors, staff, volunteers, and advisors who’d contributed to it, after thirty-three years of programming and production, the TFF had estab- lished its collaborative virtuosity and collective curatorial excellence. As it’s often said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

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80 • HISTORY CLAUDIA CARDINALE WITH ESCORTS THIERRY FREMAUX (LEFT) AND WERNER HERZOG AT TFF #37 IN 2010. PHOTO BY INGRID LUNDAHL his festival earlier that spring. Claudia was cast by Herzog to star in Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film Wer- Danny Boyle the ability to gauge audience response look forward to at the TFF was an opportunity to ner premiered at Telluride. Serendipity is as much without pre-festival publicity and the attendant— be among the first audiences to view the “fresh- a part of the TFF as is its marvelous program. and unwanted—scrutiny. As we know, Telluride’s out-of-the-can” film or see the actor or director on-their-feet-wildly-cheering reception for Slum- that might win an Academy Award. At the same “You know,” said Bill Pence in that 1979 radio dog gave the film a much-needed boost. But per- time, the festival’s directors remained steadfast— interview, “Jack Nicholson and Werner Herzog haps one of the more important factors in landing just as they’d always been—in their commitment met here in 1975 (both were honored that year) that Oscar-winning film was the foresight shown by to screen the best films available, but to also show- and they’re going to do a movie together.” As it so the festival’s directors a decade earlier when work- case silent era movies with remarkable musical happened, that movie was Fitzcarraldo. Werner ing with the community and the school district to accompaniment as part of Paolo Cherci-Usai’s had given Jack the script and Nicholson wanted honor Michael D. Palm—a successful businessman, Pordenone Presents programs, restored classics, to play the lead role. That part ultimately went to philanthropist, and committed gay rights activ- archival screenings, riveting documentaries, and Klaus Kinski, of course. Nicholson’s standard $5 ist—with a state-of-the-art performing arts center. tributes to noteworthy careers in cinema. million fee was turned down by the film’s produc- Dedicated in 2005, the 650-seat Palm Theatre was ers. And Jason Robards, the first cast Fitzcarraldo equipped with Meyer Surround Sound, wide screen “There are so many subtle connections and Cardinale’s co-star in Once Upon a Time in cinema, dual 35mm and large format digital pro- that come together here.” the West, became very ill on set and left. But jectors. Slumdog Millionaire was one of the first another TFF connection, documentary filmmaker, films shot in an all-digital format, and without the —Bill Pence in an October 1979 KOTO radio Les Blank, was on hand in South America to film Palm’s state-of-the-art projecting equipment, what interview with Jerry Greene his Burden of Dreams, a cinematic chronicle of became a seminal event in the history of the TFF Fitzcarraldo’s wild ride. might never have happened here. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) was screened on a pre-festival Thursday night in 2010 Back to Saturday night in 2010. Arm in arm, “It’s not about stars, it’s about cinema.” in Elks Park. Many in attendance were left guess- Claudia, Werner, and Thierry made their way out of ing if one of this great Spaghetti Western’s cast of the Sheridan. As the three turned the corner onto —Ken Burns characters might be honored at the festival. If so, it Oak Street, the throng of festivalgoers all at once would have been by way of a process of elimination. became quiet, as though awestruck in the presence Slumdog Millionaire was joined by Oscar win- Several of the movie’s best-known personalities— of film royalty, and magically parted on either side ners, The King’s Speech (2010), The Artist (2011), Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, and of the trio as they passed by, just as piano music— (2012), and Twelve Years a Slave (2013), all first Director Sergio Leone—were no longer alive. That from the Sheridan’s rooftop—serenaded Claudia time North American screenings at the TFF. And left conductor Ennio Morricone—certainly deserv- as she made her grand entrance. It was perhaps the this remarkable streak of perceptive programming ing—and the film’s female star Claudia Cardinale. closest thing to a “red carpet” scene the TFF had elevated Telluride’s celebrity status in the film world, ever experienced, before or since. but also led some to suggest the TFF had shifted its A crowd of excited passholders lined up out- focus to new releases with Oscar potential and away side the Sheridan Opera House on Saturday night “We want to celebrate the art of film from the from the classic, silent era, revival, and retrospective in 2010, anxious to celebrate with Cardinale, while beginning of cinema and make the Telluride programs that had formed the backbone of earlier the gregarious leading lady chatted with her two festivals. While true to a certain extent, such would escorts in the lobby of the Sheridan Hotel. experience a little bit of film school, too.” overlook (or ignore) the realities of the film festival universe in the 2010s, if not undervalue the quality of Werner Herzog, a perennial attendee and advi- —TFF Co-Founder and Co-Director, Tom Luddy the films being produced at the time. sor to the TFF, was the logical choice to present Claudia with her Silver Medallion. Joining Werner Kate Sibley was pretty much the go-to TFF There’s a longstanding tenet at the Telluride as Claudia’s escort was Thierry Fremaux, the Direc- multi-tasker during the 1980s. From selling tickets Film Festival: the “Passholder is King.” And what a tor of the Cannes Film Festival, who’d programmed at the Nugget, coordinating development efforts, growing number of passholders appeared to most the recently restored 1963 Palme d’Or winner and acting as office manager, proofing the program perhaps Cardinale’s finest film, The Leopard, at guide, overseeing the festival poster signing ses- sions, Kate accumulated a series of affectionately bestowed nicknames like Word Parser and Poster Bitch. But the sobriquet that perhaps best suited her in 1988 was FACTOTUM, “the person who does all kinds of work.” Kate’s festival chores narrowed a bit in 1989, when she was appointed Dean of Stu- dent Programs, TFF’s new education initiative. Begun as a response to what the TFF saw as a waning appetite for classic films, the program blossomed in subsequent years well beyond the hopes and expectations of Kate and faculty mem- bers Howie Movshovitz and Linda Williams. By 2013 and after twenty-five years, some 1,250 college stu- dents from around the world had been immersed in the Telluride experience and exposed to films and filmmakers in such an engaged manner that, in the words of one symposium attendee, “My entire understanding of film has been illuminated.” The success of the Student Symposium led to the creation of City Lights in 2000, a program for high school students. City Lights participant Meaghan Spencer said of her experience: “From the first time all of the members of City Lights met up until the very end of the festival, we lived, breathed, and existed for film.” Kate Sibley was quick to point out to Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedy in 2008, “We aren’t about making filmmakers; we’re out to make future TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

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82 • HISTORY audiences.” Kate conceded, with rytellers of old, returning from far noticeable satisfaction, that the lands with spellbinding tales.” Of inspiration experienced by way of the TFF, Ebert said, “Telluride is like TFF’s education initiatives helped Cannes died and went to heaven,” a produce a fair number of well-re- journey, sadly, Roger took earlier garded filmmakers. Apparently, Stu- in 2013. The TFF dedicated #40 to dent Programs also caught the eye Roger Ebert and to three dearly of the Academy of Motion Picture departed members of the festival Arts and Sciences. family: Les Blank, Donald Ritchie In 2005, thanks to Develop- (the first Guest Director in 1988), ment Director Kimberly Roush, and philanthropist George Gund. the TFF was awarded a three-year $150,000 grant from the Academy “Everybody’s a dreamer to support its Educational Pro- and everybody’s a star/And grams, including its Filmmakers everybody’s in movies, it doesn’t of Tomorrow program, launched in matter who you are.” 1993 and featuring the debut works —Celluloid Heroes, The Kinks from aspiring filmmakers. The con- nection between Telluride and LA Moviegoers filed away from the would only grow in the years ahead. Abel Gance Outdoor Cinema just James Card and William K. after 10:30 p.m. on Monday night, Everson, film preservationists and September 2, 2013. They’d just past directors of the TFF, would viewed Inside Llewyn Davis, Joel have been smiling in cinematic and Ethan Coen’s sometimes dark, heaven at the selection of the sometimes hilarious, and always UCLA Film and Television Archive intelligent film about a 60s era as the Special Medallion recipient Greenwich Village singer-songwriter. in 2010. Everson, as Leonard Maltin The audience at this final screening wrote in the TFF yearbook, “main- of TFF #40 probably didn’t hear the tained that finding and saving rare crackling of two-way radios, ema- movies was only worthwhile if one nating as they did from the festival’s also shared them with audiences.” communications command post, The TFF featured the Archive’s from Mother (Greg Carttar) and restoration of Chicago (1927) with ROGER EBERT TAKES A FRONT ROW SEAT ON BILL PENCE’S LAP. STELLA PENCE AND ANNETTE INSDORF Mother Superior (Char Harner), live accompaniment by the Mont (RIGHT) ARE AMUSED. PHOTO BY INGRID LUNDAHL informing production crew members Alto Orchestra at TFF #37 in 2010. that the festival had wrapped. UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television “It is hard to imagine that forty years ago The people who did the hardest jobs before and (TFT)—of which the Archive, said TFT’s Dean anyone could have predicted that this labor of during the festival and who, for a reason that went Teri Schwartz, “is its crown jewel”—partnered love would achieve all that it has…Thank you beyond a love for film, stuck around to pack and with the TFF in establishing the UCLA Film Lab for your part in forty years of extraordinary.” clean up afterwards were, affectionately, named Fellowship Program in 2011. Famed producer, TFF —Co-Director Julie Huntsinger to staff and volunteers in the the Vespucci Rats, the not-so-distant cousins of the friend and advisor, Frank Marshall, had graduated Dogs, of course. Thus, at some point not long after 2013 VESPUCCI TFF handbook from UCLA’s TFT in 1968 and was the founding the projectors were turned off and the screens went sponsor of Telluride’s UCLA Film Lab program. An extra day—Thursday—was added to #40 in dark, the rats were on the loose, so to speak. Frank, with wife and collaborator Kathleen Ken- 2013. The festival could have considered a sixth, In the several days that followed, the Galaxy was nedy, also a producer, TFF advisor, and the Presi- such was the extent and quality of its jam-packed re-purposed into the elementary school’s gym, the dent of Lucasfilm (since 2012), had supported the program. As it was, festivities commenced on Herzog into the Town Park pavilion and ice-skating Student Symposium financially from 1994 to 2003. Tuesday with a celebration of the Sheridan Opera rink, the Backlot to a meeting room at the Wilkin- That inaugural Film Lab program in 2011 was sig- House’s 100th birthday and a program of silent era son Library, the Chuck Jones as the Mountain Vil- nificant for several reasons and very memorable classics from 1913, including a D.W. Griffith drama lage Conference Center, and Brigadoon to a patch for two members of the UCLA TFT family. starring Lillian Gish, whose performances on the of grass and concrete at the bottom of Oak Street. Julio Ramos was excited to learn his film, opera house screen were viewed by many Telluride The TFF had slipped back into the Scottish Una Carrerita, Doctor (A Doctor’s Job), had been filmgoers during the 1920s, not to mention Ms. mist and the town was once again returned to its selected as one of seven shorts to be included in Gish attended TFF #9 in 1982. former self. The Rats and those of the production the Student Prints program at TFF #38 in 2011. In addition to seven revivals, six Guest Direc- crew, staff and volunteers still in town, hugged and That he’d been chosen as one of ten UCLA TFT tors screened a single program—free of charge— promised to be back next year. Chances were good grad students to be part of the Film Lab program at various venues throughout the weekend. Four that a reunion of festival family members like Jacob may have been icing on the cake, until that is, he sneak previews, including eventual Oscar winner and Avery—and Werner—would happen come spotted Director Alexander Payne (1990 UCLA 12 Years a Slave, were added to a program of August 2014, when they’d do it all over again. The MFA and TFT graduate and TFF Guest Director eagerly anticipated new releases such as Alfonso Telluride Film Festival was in 2013, as it has always in 2009) in the audience for his film’s screening Cuaron’s 3D masterwork Gravity and Alexander been, about family and tradition and about a cele- on Sunday afternoon at the Nugget. It just so Payne’s Nebraska, along with two silent era clas- bration of the art of cinema. Because it’s all about happened Payne was in Telluride with his film, sics from Pordenone Presents. the SHOW, the festival for folks who love film. \\ Descendants, starring that year’s Silver Medal- Silver Medallions were given to Robert Redford, lion recipient, George Clooney, and was an active Director Mohammad Rasoulof, T Bone Burnett and Grazie Vespucci contributor to Student Programs. The inaugural the Coen brothers at #40, but perhaps the more Many thanks to Jim Bedford, Phil and Gerry Borgeson, Vince year of the TFT/TFF partnership in 2011 was “very notable tributes were paid to Werner Herzog by way Egan, Bärbel Hacke, Ingrid Lundahl, Shannon Mitchell, Bill and exciting,” said Dean Schwartz. “We’re the only of debuting a new theatre named for him, and to Stella Pence, Peter Shelton, Leslie Sherlock, and Kate Sibley school that has anything like this with any festival film critic Roger Ebert, who wrote of Herzog: “You for assisting in the production of this piece and, more impor- in the world.” are the most curious of men…You are like the sto- tantly, for their many years of making Telluride the finest film festival on Earth. TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

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86 • FICTION

HERE LIES Sister Mary By Nina de Gramont Illustrations by Stephanie Morgan Rogers Perhaps you’re finding it difficult to feel kindly toward a home-wrecker such as me. But I don’t require your affection. I only ask you to see me on a wintery day in Ireland, riding in a borrowed milk wagon. I was nineteen years old. A sorrowful Irishman—old by my stan- wore held a faint spattering of blood from deliver me to a place meant for criminals, so dards at the time—held the reins of two Finbarr’s coughing. he’d have to let me stay with his family. As it shaggy horses who pulled the cart. My coat was, I’d spent my last penny on the journey to wasn’t warm enough for the damp chill. If Fin- “You sound like an Irish girl. Not a bad idea his door. I suppose I went along with him vol- barr had driven me instead of his father, I could to keep that up. The English aren’t so popular untarily, but that doesn’t seem the right word have cuddled beside him for extra warmth. But these days, round here.” when you’ve nowhere else to go. Finbarr never would have driven me where we were headed. Mr. Mahoney, though, was not I nodded, but I only understand his words Finally we arrived at the convent in Sunday’s entirely without kindness. Every now and then in retrospect. If he had said Sinn Féin aloud, Corner. Mr. Mahoney jumped from the wagon and he would let one hand go of the reins and pat it would have meant nothing to me. I wouldn’t offered a broad, calloused hand to help me down. my shoulder. It may have have been able to say what IRA stood for. My The building was beautiful. With red bricks and made him feel better, but it Ireland was the ocean, the shorebirds, the did nothing for me. Empty sheep. Green hills and Finbarr. Nothing to do turrets, it loomed and ram- milk bottles clanged as we with any government, its or my own. bled, looking like a cross rode over rutted dirt roads. between a university and a If the bottles had been full, “You’re a lucky girl,” Mr. Mahoney said. castle, both places I never I expect the milk would “Not so long ago the only place for you would expected to see inside. On have frozen by the time we have been the workhouse. But these nuns look the grass out front stood a reached the convent. It was out for mothers and babies.” statue of a winged angel, a long road to Sunday’s Cor- hands clenched at her side ner from Ballycotton. I thought it would be better if the work- rather than raised in prayer. house were the only place for me. Surely Mr. Over the convent’s door, “I won’t be here long,” Mahoney would never have had the heart to in a vaulted nook where a I said, allowing my father’s window should have been, brogue into the rhythm of my stood another statue, made words, as if anything could of plaster—a nun wearing endear me to Mr. Mahoney. a blue-and-white habit, her “Finbarr will come for me as palms at her side face out, soon as he recovers.” as if offering sanctuary to all who entered. “If he recovers.” Mr. Mahoney’s eyes were grim My parents had never and looking anywhere but been religious. “Sunday’s for at me. Which would be resting,” my father used to worse? I wondered. His say, explaining why he didn’t only son dying? Or recov- go to Mass. My mother was ering and claiming me and Protestant. I’d mostly only the shame I’d brought? As been to church with my aunt far as Mr. Mahoney was concerned, the best Rosie and uncle Jack. outcome would be Finbarr’s get- ting well, “That must be the Virgin Mary,” I murmured. then forgetting he’d ever laid eyes on me. For Mr. Mahoney let out a joyless chuff of a now what Mr. Mahoney wanted was me safely laugh, a sound that derided how little I knew locked and stored away so he could get home about everything in the world. I’d come to Ire- and see his son alive at least one more time. land hoping to live in his modest, dirt-floored house. Mr. Mahoney had deep circles under his “He will recover,” I said, fierce with faded eyes, but I could tell they’d once been believing the impossible as only the very just like Finbarr’s. I looked at him, willing him young can be. Beneath my coat the dress I to see me and change his mind. SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 87

88 • FICTION “The sisters will take good care of you.” He onto the street as more bombs fell. For the rest sent me to spend a summer at my aunt Rosie may have believed this was true. His voice was of his life my father would say the world lost its and uncle Jack’s farm. gentle, almost regretful. Perhaps he’d go a little innocence during the Great War. ways down the road, then turn around to come “Nan likes to run,” my father said, for- back for me before I could even unpack. “We’ll The first task I was given at the convent— mulating the plan. “She wasn’t meant for the send word to you about Finbarr. I promise that.” my hair shorn, my own clothes taken away— city, was she.” He worked as a clerk at the was tending the nuns’ graveyard. With two other Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company and often He lurched my suitcase from the back of the girls, both of them heavily pregnant, I went out said these same words—not meant for the wagon—my mother’s suitcase; I’d stolen it from to sweep and rake and clean the headstones of city—about himself. It pained him to stoop her before I left. She would have given it to me if lichen. The cold air might have tasted like free- long hours over a desk for little money. I always I’d asked. Better yet, she would have begged me dom if not for the iron bars extending around suspected Da would have regretted leaving Ire- to stay or run away with me herself. “How could the perimeter, as far as I could see. To the right land if that wouldn’t have meant regretting us. you ever have thought otherwise?” she would ask was a high stone wall. Thin sounds carried over His wife was English and that meant his family me, too late. “I would have done anything, fought it, which I didn’t realize were the voices of small was, too. Except, apparently, for me. anyone, including your father, to keep from losing children, brought out for a breath of air before another daughter.” their supper. Visible through the iron bars lay My sisters Megs (elder) and Louisa the road that led away from the convent, no sign (younger) were proper If I’d known in that of Mr. Mahoney returning for me with a change girlie girls, interested in moment what I do now, I of heart. Neither of the other girls spoke to me. clothes and hair and cook- would have trudged off on We weren’t supposed to speak at all or even ing. Or at least that’s what my own two feet, away from know one another’s names. they pretended to be inter- the convent. I would have ested in. My sister Colleen walked down its long drive, The nuns’ headstones were thick crosses, (eldest) only cared about over the hills, and swam each one etched with the words here lies sis- books and school. I liked across the freezing Irish ter mary. As if only one woman had died books, too, but I also liked Sea back to England. but she somehow needed fifty graves. I ran my kicking a football with the coarse cloth over the stones, dipping my fingers neighborhood boys. Some- Inside, the nuns into the carved gray words. And I knew in that times after dark my father traded my clothes for a moment. The world had never been innocent. would come find me with drab, shapeless dress that them, sweaty and filthy in wouldn’t need replacing But I had been innocent. an empty lot. no matter how big my belly Let’s go back a little further. Before the “If she were a boy, she could grew, and a pair of ill-fitting War, this time. See me at thirteen—skinny and be a champion,” he boasted. clogs. A young, sweet-faced nimble as a cricket—the first time my parents “She’s too old for that nun took my suitcase. She now,” my mother complained, smiled warmly and prom- but my father took pity. ised,“We’ll take good care “Those other three are of this for you.” I never saw yours,” he said to Mum, “but it again. An older nun sat this one’s my Irish girl.” me down and cut my hair My father had grown so that it barely covered up on a farm just outside my ears. I’d only ever worn the fishing village of Bal- it long and worried what lycotton. Since I’d been Finbarr would think when born, he’d gone back to he came to get me. visit a time or two when his brother paid the way. But I didn’t follow Mr. there’d never been enough Mahoney’s advice and money for us all to travel speak with an Irish there. The thought of my brogue. Once the nuns had going at all, let alone for a explained the rules of my whole summer, was thrill- new home, I barely spoke ing. I knew it was a modest at all, not for weeks. house but much roomier A young person can’t than our London flat, which only had two bed- know her life, what it will rooms, one for my parents and one for us four be or how it will unfold. When you grow older, girls. Uncle Jack had done well with the farm. you gain a sense that hardships occupy par- His wife, Rosie, had inherited a small amount of ticular moments in time, which by and by will money when her father died, and they’d added pass. But when you’re young, a single moment solid wood floors and lined the walls of the sit- seems like the whole world. It feels permanent. ting room with bookshelves. They kept the grass Years hence I would go on to live a bigger life. I near the house cut short for lawn tennis. (“Ten- would travel all over the world. But that winter nis,” my father scoffed, when he told us. “Now I was scarcely more than a child. I knew exactly that’s an idea above his station.”) two places: London and County Cork, and only tiny pockets of both. I knew I was young but I The landscape existed in my mind, the most didn’t understand how young, or that youth vivid green. Rolling hills and low stone walls— was a fleeting condition. I knew the War had uninterrupted miles for me to kick a football ended but I didn’t yet believe it. The Great War through the meadows with my little cousin Sea- had seemed not so much an event as a place, mus. I clasped my hands together and fell to my unmovable as England but nowhere near as knees beside my mother, imploring her to let me destructible. In London my father’s favorite pub go, only partly joking about the fervor. had been blown to rubble, kegs of ale rolling out TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

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90 • FICTION My mother laughed. “It’s just I’ll miss you.” easy. He hoisted the puppy under his chin and said, and after all, what was I? Finbarr was a I jumped to my feet and threw my arms handed over the bucket, knowing he’d have to few years older than me. When he rode by, around her. She had a dear, freckly face and pay his father back for the fish. he’d pretend to tip the hat he wasn’t wear- wide green eyes. Sometimes I regret losing my ing. I have never liked people who constantly East End accent because it’s meant losing the “The man was about to throw the puppy smile, as if they think everything’s funny. But sound of her. away,” Finbarr’s father scolded. “Do you really Finbarr smiled differently, not out of amuse- “I’ll miss you, too,” I admitted. think he expected to be paid for it?” ment, but happiness. As if he liked the world “It won’t be a holiday,” my father warned.“- and enjoyed being in it. Jack’ll pay your passage, but you’ll be doing Finbarr named the dog Alby, first bot- plenty of chores to pay him back.” tle-feeding then training him. Uncle Jack was “It seems a wonderful thing,” I said to Most of the chores would be outdoors, with glad to hire Finbarr to bicycle over to the farm my aunt Rosie that evening, while we did the horses and sheep, a joy to me. I was grateful my on his days off the boat, to help move sheep washing up, “to always be happy.” uncle would hire a girl to do them. from one pasture to the other. Jack said Alby And so we come to the Irish boy. Finbarr was the best herding dog in County Cork. Right away she knew whom I meant. Mahoney was a fisherman’s son. Two years “He’s been like that his whole life, ” Aunt before we met, he came upon a wizened farmer “It’s because of the boy,” Aunt Rosie said. Rosie said with deep fondness. “Sunny. at the village docks, about to drop a puppy— “He’s got a way with creatures, hasn’t he. He Proves rich or poor doesn’t matter, if you the runt of a litter of border collies—into the could turn a goat into a champion herder. You ask me. Some people are just born happy. freezing sea. can’t tell me another handler would have the I think that’s the luckiest thing. If you’re “Here.” Finbarr hoisted a bucket of mack- same results with that dog.” sunny inside, you never have to worry about erel. “I’ll trade you.” Nobody would have known the weather.” there was anything urgent in the transaction. My uncle’s collie was a passable herder Finbarr had the lightest, smiling air about him. but nothing to Alby. I thought that dog—small, One evening after supper Finbarr bicy- As if everything— even life and death—were slight, and graceful—was the most beautiful cled over to the house when Seamus and I thing I’d ever seen. I thought Finbarr—hair were playing tennis. I’d learned to play my black and silky, gleaming nearly blue in the first week and now won every game. “I don’t summer sun—was the second most beautiful. know where you get the energy after a full He had a way with creatures, as Aunt Rosie had day of work,” Uncle Jack had said to us, shak- ing his head in fond admiration. “Where’s Alby?” Seamus called to Fin- barr. He was ten then and dazzled by the dog as I was. “I left him home. I thought you’d be play- ing tennis. He’ll chase the balls and spoil the game.” My uncle’s collie, Brutus, lay under the porch, tired after a day of herding, uninter- ested in playing. “You can play with Nan,” Seamus said, handing over his racket. “Win one for me, will you?” His red curls drooped from the failed attempt to best me. I bounced the ball on my racket, recogniz- ing it as showing off but not able to help myself. Finbarr smiled as usual, blue eyes turned gray by fading evening sunlight. “Ready then?” I hit the ball over the net before he could answer. We goofed like that a bit, sending the ball back and forth to each other. Then we played in ear- nest. I won two games before Alby came crash- ing over the hills. Running straight for Finbarr, then changing course, leaping to snatch the ball from the air. We threw our rackets down and chased him. There were other balls but it seemed the natural thing to do. Laughter filling the sky. Uncle Jack and Aunt Rosie came out to the porch to laugh along with us. Finally Finbarr stopped running, stood stock-still, and yelled, “Alby, stop.” The dog halted so immediately, so pre- cisely, it was clear Finbarr had had this power all along. “Out,” Finbarr commanded, and Alby spat the ball onto the grass. Finbarr approached him with measured steps, scooped the ball up, and held it in the air. “Nan. Make a wish.” “I wish I could stay in Ireland forever.” He threw the ball, a long arc, and Alby went rushing for it, catching it midair, paws miles above the ground. TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

“Granted,” Finbarr said, and turned to me. “I think I’d like to be a writer,” I said. It was away from it. At that age, when I thought of Magical enough to make it so. was nothing I’d ever thought of before. I liked Finbarr, it was as another part of the landscape. to read but had never tried my hand at stories A few days later he came by the house after or poems. “I’ll only send you back if you promise helping Uncle Jack. I had finished mucking out never to stay,” my mother said. “I don’t want the stables and lay on the hill in a pocket of “You’d be a grand writer,” Finbarr said. any of my girls living off far from home. Not clover, still reeking of manure, reading A Room “You’d be grand at anything.” even you, Colleen.” with a View. Brutus lay beside me resting his head on my stomach. He put a strand of grass between his teeth Those last words were spoken with a lov- and turned his eyes back to the sky. Legs ing tone, but Colleen didn’t answer. She sat “Your uncle will need a new dog before crossed at the ankles. Alby tugged at his pant sprawled at the kitchen table, her green eyes long,” Finbarr said. Alby stood at his side, ears legs, dissatisfied with a full day of running, or fixed on the pages of a book by Filson Young perked. “You can tell they’re getting old when else eager to get home for the evening meal. about the Titanic. Her wild blond hair spilled they’re tired at the end of the day.” “Nan O’Dea,” my aunt called from the onto the table, curtaining house. “You get up this minute please, and her face. The rest of us had “Doesn’t Alby get tired wash up for supper.” brown hair and brown eyes sometimes?” I shaded my like our father. eyes to see him. “Never.” I knew the sternness in her voice was over Finbarr said it with a con- me and Finbarr, lying down together, not my Mum laughed and fidence so firm it had to be need to wash. We jumped to our feet, both of shook her head. “The roof wishful. “Well, Brutus will us with mussed hair, sun from a day working could fall in around that one never get old,” I said, also outdoors rosying our cheeks. and she wouldn’t notice.” wishful, patting the dog’s narrow tawny head. From “Stay for supper, Finbarr?” Aunt Rosie Louisa, the most practi- somewhere nearby a sky- called, forgiving him, as no one could ever help cal of us all, pushed her hand lark chirruped, continuous but do. against Colleen’s shoulder. and complaining. Of course Colleen sat up, blinking as there were birds in London “I’d love to, Mrs. O’Dea.” if just woken. “She’s already but I’d never noticed them With as much energy as the younger of the living off far from home,” much. Since coming to Ire- two dogs, we raced each other to the house. Louisa said, tapping the land, I’d learned the sky Finbarr won. He jumped on the porch with pages of the book. was its own separate uni- both feet, raising his arms up in the air. Victory. verse, just above our heads, Sometimes you fall in love with a place, Oh, let me pause for a teeming with its own brand dramatic and urgent as falling in love with any moment here. Colleen, sev- of singing life. person. I started begging to return to Ireland enteen years old, with her almost the moment I arrived back in London. life ahead of her. All of us “I brought you some- My sisters belonged to my mother and England together and hopeful for the thing.” Finbarr held out a but Ireland was where I belonged. I had an future, in the tiny, run-down four-leaf clover. ancestral memory of those green hills. The kitchen that was the heart place lived in my bones, so they ached when I of our home. Our mother I reached for it without still able to believe her four sitting up, and straightaway girls would transition seam- the fourth leaf fluttered lessly from pro- viding her a away. He’d been holding it house full of children to one there with his finger. “Fake full of grandchildren. luck.” I flicked it away with a laugh, still delighted. My father stamped in, breaking the merriment as Finbarr flopped down he sometimes did, carry- beside me. He never minded being contradicted, ing his heavy day with him. just as he never minded my winning game after “That Jones boy was hanging about outside wait- game of tennis. He never minded anything. ing for you,” he said to Colleen. She put her book aside and lifted her heavy “I hope I don’t smell like fish,” he said. hair to knot it on top of her head. Years later I thought about lying and saying no. I’d read a poem by William Butler Yeats and Instead I said, “Well, I smell of sheep and horse chafe at the lines “Only God, my dear, / Could shite, so we’re a good match.” love you for yourself alone / And not your yel- “I smell of those things, too.” He wove his low hair.” It brought my sister to mind, and how fingers together, arched his arms over behind boys who didn’t know a thing about her loved his head, and made a pillow of his hands. “You her in an instant. My mother worked a few days like to read, do you?” a week at a haberdasher, Buttons and Bits. One “Yes.” time Colleen covered a shift for her, and the “I could read that book when you’re done.” owner forbade her from ever working there He stared straight up at the sky, not at my again because she drew too many boys, leaning book. “Then we can talk about it.” on the counter with no interest in buying any- “Do you like to read?” “No. But I could start.” thing. Colleen’s hair was like a siren, scream- “This one’s mostly about a girl.” “I don’t ing out to the city streets, drawing attention, mind reading about girls.” and not from God. I hated that poem. I turned my head and stared at him, and Every night when we sisters settled into he tilted his head toward me. Long black our beds in the room we shared, Colleen would eyelashes framed eyes of layered blue. Soon tell us stories, sometimes recounting the book Uncle Jack would come up over the hill, and he she was reading and sometimes making up her wouldn’t like to see us, lying side by side, even own. Some mornings all four of us woke with a though we were a good two feet apart. stoop in our back, our stomachs aching, from SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 91

92 • FICTION having laughed so hard the night before. I nearest, and it always soothed her to touch one he’s the best herding dog he’s ever seen.” This would have loved Colleen if she had no hair at of her children. Perhaps she was thinking what would mean he’d be the best my father ever all. So would Megs and Louisa. And my mother. she must already have known. Sometimes living saw. “And Finbarr taught him to catch a foot- in the same world with them was all it took. ball and balance it on his nose. He taught him “That Jones boy can wait all he likes,” Col- to jump on a horse’s back and sit pretty.” leen said. “I never said I’d see him.” The next summer Finbarr came to the farm for tennis almost every night. He trained “You make it sound as if Finbarr’s the “There must be something you do,” my Alby to lie absolutely still no matter what hap- clever one,” said Megs. “I’d say it’s the dog.” father said, shaking off his coat. “To lead those pened. I think Alby would have expended less blokes on.” energy running ten miles than it took to fight “They’re both clever.” But I knew Fin- his every instinct and stay frozen in the face barr could do the same with any dog. He had Colleen let out a quick, outraged laugh. of that bouncing tennis ball. But stay frozen a gift. Just yesterday Derek Jones and two other he did, never jumping to his feet until Finbarr boys had dogged Colleen and me on our way gave him the command. “Perhaps I’ll go next summer, too,” Megs said. to the White- chapel Library. “You’re spoiling “Give your sister some competition for this our walk,” she’d finally told them, sharp and “Ready. Ball,” Finbarr would say, and clever Mahoney boy,” my father said. firm, and they drifted off with longing glances finally the dog could catapult into the air. My sisters and I had a particular look we over their shoulders. Colleen wore a knit wool exchanged when my father said something hat and pulled it down over her ears. Much In autumn, back home at my family’s din- ridiculous. We would never fight among our- as she liked to disappear into books, when ner table in London, I listed the tricks Alby selves over a boy. she returned to the world, she was direct and could do. Mum ended the conversation by saying no-nonsense. “Lucky me with such admirers, what she always did, speaking to me but look- eh, Nan?” she’d said. “Hush with that,” Mum “Finbarr tells him to sidestep one way and ing at Colleen. “Don’t you go marrying that said to our father. “She does nothing but live then another. He tells him to stand still until Ballycotton boy. I don’t want to have grand- in the same world with them. Do you want me he gets the command to move.” children I only see but once a year.” shaving her head? Leave the girl be.” “Why do you always look at me first?” Col- “Not so impressive for that breed,” my leen objected. “I’d be the last one to ever leave Colleen snapped up her book and disap- father said, from the looks of him remember- you, Mum.” She stood up and collected our peared into our room while the rest of us worked ing the dogs of his youth. plates, stopping to give Mum a kiss on the cheek. on dinner. Mum patted my back because I was “I’m not done. Alby can do all the usual tricks—sit, sit pretty, cover. Uncle Jack says TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

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94 • FICTION That night in our room Colleen said, “What fondly, but from the way Colleen bit her lip I Mahoney’s out front. He’s wanting you to ride if I go with you next summer? Get out of the could tell she knew he was only half joking. with him.” city. Do you think I’d like it?” The exchange occurred so fast I only real- “May I go?” Colleen and I slept in one bed, by the ize in the telling of it the debt I owed my sister. “Sure you may.” As much as my mother window, Louisa and Megs in another, pressed Traveling back to Ireland on my own. I must hated the idea of my one day moving to Ireland, against the wall. have had my share of doubts and forebodings, her sister-in-law loved it. “Jack’s got errands in during this time in my life, as we do in all town so there’s no work with him today. You I sat up. “Oh, you’d love it.” I started to times of our lives, even childhood. But what can ride Angela. Let Finbarr take Jack’s horse. spill into my usual paeans for Ireland. I remember is a beautiful ignorance of every- Be home in time to help me with supper. And thing the future held. Ignorance of the looming take Seamus with you.” Colleen clapped a hand over my mouth. war, and how it would permeate all our days The three of us rode half a mile down the “Yes, I know. It’s sheer heaven. But even heav- to come. Reality wasn’t the newspaper mak- road, toward the shore. Alby trotted beside us. en’s not for everyone.” ing my uncle’s face crease with worry. Reality Finbarr drew his horse to a stop and pulled was the way the ocean carried through the air tup- pence from his pocket. He sailed the coin “Heaven may not be. But Ireland is.” I breathed. Reality was clean white sheets we over to Seamus. It was a good toss but Seamus The following summer I was fifteen, Uncle hung on the clothesline to dry in the sun, so missed it. He had to struggle down from his Jack’s farm was going strong, but not strong that by the time they got to our beds a hint of horse to collect it off the road. enough to pay passage for two of us. brine stayed with them, filling our dreams with “There’s a good lad,” Finbarr said. “Go off “I wonder if Colleen should have a turn,” waves, rocks, and seals. Reality was the black- on your own, will you? We’ll meet you here in Mum said, when Da got Jack’s letter. She was haired, blue-eyed boy and his dog, traveling a few hours.” tying a bow at her collar, trying to look smart over green hills to see me. Seamus tossed the coin back to Finbarr. Sea- on her way to work at Buttons and Bits. mus was only twelve but knew he’d been sent “Oh, I’d never take Ireland away from “Nan,” Aunt Rosie called. It was morning. along as my chaperone. “I think I’ll be staying,” Nan,” Colleen said quickly, before I even had a I had just come downstairs and was tying my my cousin said, and climbed back on his horse. chance to turn pale with loss. apron on to help her with the boxty. “Finbarr “Just as well,” Da said. “I want this one here where I can see her.” He tapped her chin TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

Finbarr laughed. He clucked and his horse “I hope so, too.” imagine what it’ll be like.” The world around took off, galloping toward Ballywilling Beach. I August came and with it the War. Finbarr us stood green and untroubled. “Do you know understood I was meant to follow, the two of us appeared at our farm. That’s how I’d come to what I can imagine? After it all. The War won’t outrunning my cousin, but Seamus was a stal- think of it. Not just Jack, Rosie, and Seamus’s take long. Six months tops and it’ll all be over. wart sort and saw through this plan. He had also farm. Mine, too. And you’ll come to Ireland to stay, and we’ll practically been born in the saddle and was a From the window in the kitchen I could have a farm of our own, and I’ll train dogs, and much better rider than Finbarr, who’d never see Finbarr walking over the hill, Alby at you’ll write books.” had his own horse, or me, who’d only learned his heels. The boy and dog with matching to ride two years before. So as Aunt Rosie envi- strides, at once purposeful and carefree. My face broke open into a smile that nearly sioned, it was the three of us, riding in a group, There was no conscription, Finbarr joined cracked my body in two. He hadn’t said the word sandpipers and plovers rising into the sky to the British forces with his parents’ blessing married, I was too young for that, but every- get out of our way. Clouds because in those days that’s what patriotism thing else he’d said spelled it out, didn’t it? I overhead moved aside to let meant, to a certain kind of person. Britons sun through. I would have never, never, never shall be slaves and Come could marry Finbarr. I could betrayed my mother in an and do your bit. My uncle Jack would join, marry Ireland. My future instant, taking myself and too, once the efforts were under way. But was sealed, just one quick future children away from we didn’t know that yet. For now war was a war to get out of the way. London, across the sea, to young man’s business. live on these shores forever. “Go on out,” Aunt Rosie said, when she “Will you pray for me?” caught me watching through the window. This Finbarr asked. “The tide’s out,” Finbarr time she didn’t send Seamus with me. She said, as my horse came to knew what Finbarr had come to say. We make My father had left his walk abreast of his. “We can special dispensations for soldiers, even when religion when he left Ire- pick across the tide pools it comes to girls. land. I had never prayed from one beach to the next.” “I’m sorry to leave.” Finbarr’s voice was in my life, not even when I somber, but the lightness hadn’t left him. went to church with Rosie Horse hooves clipped None of this was real. War was nothing but a and Jack, but I promised I over tiny pebbles and ruined summer. “This wasn’t how I imagined would. dipped into the salty water. things would go.” Alby splashed through the Tears clouded my eyes. At first this embar- “May I have a picture of waves, porpoising through rassed me, but Finbarr reached out and took you?” he said, another sol- the deeper shallows. We my hand. dierly request. climbed off the horses and “Are you frightened?” I asked. Finbarr showed me some “Sure, I think I am. Though I don’t quite “I don’t have one here.” whistles he’d been working know what to be frightened of. I can’t hardly My parents had exactly on as commands. Seamus one picture of me, with my stayed on his horse, a polite three sisters, taken and distance, eyes on us. framed years ago. “But I’ll get one made. I’ll send it to “Here,” Finbarr said, you. I promise.” trying to teach me to whis- tle. He cupped his hand Finbarr gathered me around my chin, pushing in his arms and held me a my lips into a pucker. long while. He didn’t rock or sway or move. He just I tried to release the stood, his arms tight, our same sharp-noted whistle bodies together. I wished that had made Alby run for- we could stay inside that ward, then backtrack in a wide circle. But the stillness. No moving for- saddest little bit of breath came out. ward into the future, nor ever leaving that precise “Try with your fingers.” Finbarr put both spot. Finbarr’s lips rested in the curve of my forefingers into his mouth and let out a noise neck. I could feel Aunt Rosie watching from so loud it made me jump. Alby raced forward the window, but I didn’t care, not even when and came to a sitting stop at our feet. Finbarr Finbarr finally pulled away and kissed me a took a small rubber ball from his pocket and long time, until Rosie knocked on the window cocked his arm to throw it. loud enough for us to hear and pull apart. “You’re my girl.” He held me by the shoul- “Make a wish,” he said. ders. “Isn’t that the truth, Nan?” “I wish this day would never end.” The ball “Yes. It is.” and the dog flew. He pulled a claddagh from his pocket and “Granted,” Finbarr said when Alby caught it. slipped it onto my right ring finger, crown Alby trotted back to us and spat the ball at pointing toward me. I was taken. In the crown our feet. I knelt to embrace him. “Thank you, was a tiny emerald, no bigger than a crumb Alby. You’re beautiful. You’re perfect.” from a slice of soda bread. Terrible to admit, “Just like you.” Finbarr knelt beside me the main emotion I felt was joy, crackling and pushed my hair behind my ears. through my body. How many girls that summer “None of that,” Seamus called. His voice felt the same callow happiness, a boy admit- hadn’t changed yet. ting his love and bestowing a ring before walk- “Thank you for joining me, Nan,” Finbarr ing off to war? We didn’t know what it meant. said, when we’d returned the horses to the None of us did. \\ barn. “There’s always work to be done, but From The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont. I hope we can go for another ride together Copyright © 2022 by the author and reprinted before the summer’s end.” by permission of St. Martin’s Press. SUMMER/FALL 2022 TellurideMagazine.com 95

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98 • TELLURIDE TURNS Headlines & Highlights from the Local News SUSPCPTHOHOREOTILNG Community rallies behind curriculum By D. Dion It was easily the most well-attended be spent running our schools, while won a majority of seats in a conten- The notice felt very threatening school board meeting in the his- instead they are dealing with threats. tious race; conservatives also flipped against much of what we stand for,” tory of the Telluride R-1 district. We as a community are welcoming and boards in Colorado Springs, Greeley, said John Pandolfo. He was grateful More than five hundred members of will not for an instant stand by and let and Mesa County, running with plat- for the turnout at the meeting and the community showed up in person these things happen in our district. We forms that opposed social-emotional the strong message it sent. “The over- or online to the session on March 22 to open our arms to the LGBTQ+ kids learning, mask mandates, and critical whelming support from students, defend the school board, the adminis- and families; we open our arms to all race theory. parents, and the community was so tration, and the curriculum. students. As a response to the increase powerfully affirming of the beliefs of in mental health concerns through The notice of intent sent to our board of education, our staff, our The school superintendent and COVID, I am proud of our district’s Telluride’s superintendent and administration, our schools, and our board members had received a threat- ability to provide more counselors, school board read like a template community. Beyond that, and per- ening letter from a resident: an intent more social-emotional learning, more of the ultra-conservative platform, sonally, it made me proud and happy to file against the school’s insurance opportunities to support the mental demanding that they “halt” all mask to be a part of this great school dis- policy as an attack on the school’s health needs of our students. Banning and future health mandates, COVID- trict and community.” social-emotional programs, LGBTQ books in our schools? Not an option.” 19 “propaganda,” vaccine clinics on support systems, mask mandates, and school grounds, critical race theory, Parents and community mem- books. It was a marathon meeting— The challenge to the Telluride R-1 social-emotional learning, gay-trans- bers at the meeting said they will three and a half hours—and every school district is not unique. Across gender clubs, LGBTQ “agenda,” and remain vigilant and continue to speaker (including some students) the state and the country, conserva- San Miguel Resource Center mental protect the district and ensure that denounced the attack and was vocal tive voices and blocs have targeted health and sexual education pro- students have access to all the pro- about their support of the school’s cur- other school districts using similar grams; it also demanded the removal grams that promote learning and riculum, policies, and programs. The tactics—legal threats and electing of “obscene books and material” contribute to their physical, emo- meeting was emotional, with cheering alt-right members to school boards. from the school. The accompanying tional, and mental well-being. “As and weeping and clapping. “The num- The number of candidates running letter threatened the school board we have tonight,” said Hampton, bers in this room are proof that the for school boards in Colorado doubled members individually, stating that “we will continue to come together roots of our valley are alive and well,” in 2020; some of the campaigns were they would be financially liable for to make sure that our future school said Wendy Jacobs Hampton, a parent well funded by so-called “dark money the insurance deductible and could board will be filled with members of and longtime resident. “Our school interests.” There are no funding lim- face prison. “As the Superintendent the local community who support the was just ranked second in the state. I its for such races and few require- of the Telluride School District, I can current curriculum, and the shared am proud of that … but currently I am ments for financial disclosure. The speak for myself and our administra- values of inclusivity, kindness, and outraged that our administration has biggest board turnover was in Doug- tion in saying that we will always do empathy that have always been a had to waste valuable time that should las County, where a conservative slate what we think is best for children. hallmark of this town.” \\ TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022

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100 • TELLURIDE TURNS Headlines & Highlights from the Local News FOR YOUR EYES ONLY Stabilization work continues at the rare and historic Lewis Mill By Deanna Drew The East End of Telluride valley But for the heartiest and most RYAN BONNEAU is arguably one of the most pic- adventuresome of souls, turesque places on earth. Sur- lies far beyond the crowded trailhead rounded by a range of snow-capped what is perhaps the East End’s best parking lot, about three and a half thirteener peaks and sheer cliff kept secret lies far beyond the crowded miles deeper and 3,500 feet higher walls, the misty Bridal Veil Falls and into the heart of Bridal Veil Basin. new singletrack trail to the top draw trailhead parking lot. thousands of visitors each year to this A scree-covered glacial cirque alluring headwall of the box canyon. Throw in a few more epic attrac- as the most popular recreation desti- with turquoise-blue lakes and mossy tions like the Via Ferrata, Black Bear nation in the forest. seeps and springs, Bridal Veil Basin Pass, Blue Lake, and a cliff-hanging is dotted with rusty remnants of the hydropower plant, and it is no sur- But for the heartiest and most region’s rich mining history. Here at prise this area was recently dubbed adventuresome of souls, what is per- haps the East End’s best kept secret TellurideMagazine.com SUMMER/FALL 2022