If there’s a soundtrack to the world of action sports – and let’s face it, there is – it’s coming from Aspen’s own DJ Naka G. From Olympic venues in Pyeongchang, Rio, Sochi and Vancouver to virtually every X Games iteration, Naka G, Aspen High School class of 1995, is the guy spinning the tu…
Through equal parts happenstance and planning, Zuckerman will be overseeing a collection of five artists she’s been familiar with for a number of years.
Between loft and fill and some other terms no one ever knows the difference between, puffy technology has gone through the roof.
In the early days of electronic music – what I like to call “roots electronic" – electronic musicians may have sampled live instrumentation, but live instrumentation was rarely incorporated into their own repertoire live. Many believed that the two just wouldn’t work together or that, given …
Narrator Thomas McNulty, a teenage crack shot, has fled the Great Famine of Ireland and been swiftly conscripted into the U.S. Army, shuttled off to the great plains of Wyoming to fight in a blue uniform against the Sioux and the Yurok.
The tasting was unbelievable. Open-air tents, perfect temperatures, blue skies, tall redwoods framing the lawn in front of the grand lodge.
The community garden, which sits on the Marolt Open Space to the northwest of Aspen, was started by Larry Dunn in the '70s.
Paula Hayes Installation on Crown Commons opens Thursday, May 31, at 5:30 p.m and is On display June 1-Oct. 14.
"The honey," says Brook Levan, co-founder and executive director of Sustainable Settings, "is just a byproduct of what we're keeping the bees for. We're really after the ecosystem services they provide."
I think we can all agree that it feels good to do good, can’t we? That might help account for the scores of nonprofits that call the Roaring Fork Valley home and the robust spirit of volunteerism that defines the valley’s citizens. I mean, sure, it’s nice to know that what we’re doing is hel…
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how snoring has survived all these eons, in an evolutionary sense. You’d think that back in the day, when our earliest ancestors were trying to avoid predators, snorers would have given their positions away and made for easy snacking. Thus, natural sele…
This fun debut novel from Miller is also the first in a planned series called "The Philosopher's War," and I, for one, am looking forward to further installments. The tagline on the cover of the book is "Half science, half magic – entirely fantastic," and that sums it up pretty well.
Right now is a good time to be a creative young person in Basalt. Buoyed by the ascendance of The Art Base downtown and the birth of The Temporary last year in Willits, midvalley youth have seen their opportunities to display and perform their work multiply. This weekend in particular shows …
Every year, a couple of miles down Castle Creek Road from the Aspen roundabout, more than 600 students from over 40 states and 40 countries meet at the Aspen Music Festival and School to rigorously study, practice and eventually perform at one of the exquisite shows put on by the school. Whi…
That is the question: Whether 'tis nobler the grape that the masses produce, and we thinks it not be so.
Last Christmas, my wife and I received an interesting gift from my brother-in-law. It was an air fryer, a product I had, until then, never heard of. It’s a black, roughly egg-shaped small appliance that sits on the countertop and plugs right in to the wall. All you do is slide open a drawer,…
There's little doubt that the Roaring Fork Valley's musical heyday was back in the '70s, when John Denver and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band called Aspen home and musical monsters like Jimmy Buffett, Cher and the Eagles were routinely spotted around town. Out of this heady time came perhaps the …
While its very visible new home has been taking shape alongside Basalt’s Old Pond Park, the Roaring Fork Conservancy has been staying plenty busy in less obvious ways with an outreach program that has grown to the point of making about 6,000 educational contacts a year between school kids an…
It's that time of year, when the changeover of gear happens. The golf clubs come out, the tennis racquets, the bikes (all kinds), and decisions to upgrade gear happen. There’s browsing in mountaineering stores and eyeballs glued to websites searching for parts, pieces or new setups.
I have reviewed several of Thomas Perry’s books in these pages, notably selections from his “Jane Whitefield” and “Butcher’s Boy” lines. Both series feature brilliant lead characters, and Perry has written some great stories featuring them and their special talents. I highly recommend them both.
I arrived at the overlook above the ancient hill town of Barolo in the late afternoon, stopping to breathe in this spectacular panorama of vineyards stretching before the eye to the distant horizons. Tiny medieval hill towns pop up everywhere, easy to spot with their old bell towers rising a…
One of my dearest friend’s birthday is May 6. It’s always an optimal time of year to flee the high country, so we’ve spent many a celebration in the desert. Most of these trips have been escapes to Moab or Fruita for camping and mountain biking. They’ve also included pit stops at Eddie McSti…
Dave Shirley describes his one-man show ODDVILLE, A Love Story? as Blue Man Group meets the 40-Year-Old Virgin. “Mostly I get a weird look from people about how you put those two things together,” he says.
Colorado Springs is known for the Air Force Academy, Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods and religious fanatics, among other positive and negative aspects. The “Springs” may not be known for its hip-hop scene, but maybe it should. Since the late '90s, the city has produced rap musicians of varyin…
There's little debate that Aspen is the valley's hotspot when it comes to most high-brow happenings, from music to ballet to theater, but when it comes to the kind of homespun culture that truly inspires community building, Ute City has nothing on Carbondale. Whether it's easy access to the …
They call it the most exciting two minutes in sports, but that, unfortunately, means it can also be the most fleeting two minutes in sports. Let's say you pick the wrong time to go to the bathroom or refresh your drink. You could miss the whole thing. Even if you don't miss it, what happens?…
You learn a few things, not all of them nice, on a road trip around the great American Southwest. That is by no means a recommendation against making such a trip – I think everyone should do it at least once or twice – but consider it a forewarning that not everything will be as you've alway…
The goddess and enchantress Circe is a character of myth as old as stories themselves. She plays a role in a tale that has been told time and time again for nearly 3,000 years – that of Odysseus and his epic, tortured journey homeward to Ithaca and his beloved Penelope. Yet, in Madeline Mill…
Sometimes I forget the best gear investments are for your feet. Despite the fact that I have top performance ski boots and fishing boots, I don’t always consider the value in a pair of everyday shoes, opting for slip-ons and flip-flops as frequently as possible. The other hindrance to good f…
I left the quiet expanse of Collio and exited northeastern Italy via a one-night escapade in Venice. I breathed in salt air, culture and the vibe of seemingly all of Italy basking in the warm weekend’s sunny glow, officially breaking out of a long winter-spring.
I just thought of a joke.
Things have been a bit more quiet around the upper valley recently and have, of course, remained quiet downvalley. As many full-time and seasonal residents take this time to travel, the rest of us are either appreciating this brief moment of quiet in an otherwise wild mountain town or wonder…
This Friday night, some time shortly after the curtain rises at 6 p.m., a kid from Aspen Country Day School – possibly one who’s usually shy and reserved – is going to make his or her theatrical debut surrounded by equally nervous but determined classmates, coached on by loving teachers and …
It seems such a perfect pairing – an inventive forum for discussing architecture and design, held at the Aspen Art Museum – that you might be tempted to think PechaKucha Night was conceived here. I mean, throw a pebble in any direction in Aspen and you’re liable to hit an architect. And ther…
The first pair of hiking boots/shoes I ever loved were Merrells. I forget the make, but they were much better cushioned and cooler looking than similar footwear I'd had before, and right out of the box they were the most comfortable shoes I'd ever worn. So, despite straying to other brands f…
This last book of Shreve's was published not long before her death in March of this year. Like several of her other novels, it was inspired by historical events. In October of 1947 wildfires ravaged the drought-stricken state of Maine. Entire towns and a quarter-million acres of forest burne…
I arrived in Collio after a stunning drive through the Dolomites, including a side trip down a remote highway searching for a spot to grab a view and hunker down for a little picnic. I had a bottle of pinot grigio from Alto Adige and a bag of cheeses from a spectacular roadside cheese factor…
My parents moved to the valley a few years ago and settled in Carbondale. Though they have more limited yard space than at their old home in Washington, my dad was determined to set up a vegetable garden and plant fruit trees. Their new neighborhood is on a golf course, so he had to petition…
One of the things that distinguishes standup comedian Caitlin Gill is that she writes her routines on the fly. “I write on stage. I’ll have an idea that rings a bell, or I’ll see something that will ring in my brain, and I tuck it away,” she explains. “It’s a seed, and then I’ll find the rig…
Every off-season comes a little faster than the last, and if you like walking around deserted streets and going to free shows, the off-season couldn’t come soon enough. This week Belly Up graces us with three free shows: 40 oz to Freedom on Friday (free before 10 p.m.), South of France on Sa…
Once one discards the notion that the 5Point Adventure Film Festival is named for the similarly monikered Five Points neighborhood in Denver (it’s decidedly not), one is left with the question: What, exactly, are the five points to which the wildly popular festival’s name alludes?
Earth Day is coming up this Sunday, April 22, but if you didn't know better, around here you'd swear it's Earth Week. That's how much is going on. I suppose that's fitting for a place as connected to the outdoors as Aspen. We ought to celebrate Mother Earth, and the nice thing about Earth Da…
To say that moving from the humid midwest to the high Rockies requires some adjustment would be an understatement. There were myriad things that came into play as I gradually immersed myself into the mountain culture and lifestyle. From sticker shock and housing crises to knee surgeries and …
James Comey has written a thoroughly enjoyable and absolutely fascinating book about his life and his career as a federal law enforcement officer. Up until this point, most of the commenters and talking heads have focused on the parts of the book that chronicle Comey's interactions and disaf…
When Austrian Rudolf Steiner envisioned his biodynamic anthroposophy in the early 1900s, his focus was not on the actual art of farming or the fashion of the “garden arts” that so many modern-era, Birkenstock-clad home gardeners and farmers know it to be. The designer of many human systems, …
The biggest benefit to flying out of the Aspen airport is the ability to be running very late and still catch your flight. This benefit goes away when your mother is visiting and insists that you still get to the airport 90 minutes before takeoff. Luckily for me, the new configuration of the…
Any guesses who the speaker was for the biggest-ever Aspen Business Luncheon recently? Here’s a clue: He drew 120 guests to the Mountain Chalet and had Pyramid Bistro running loops to refill their colorful mostly vegan nutrient-rich buffet. He's so popular that six of his 10 books are New Yo…
Currently co-headlining a tour stemmed from mutual adoration, Shook Twins and Dustbowl Revival have long respected each other's musical talents and performances, yet only recently did the West Coast groups begin playing together. Their relationship started as many in this industry do: at a m…
Two down, two to go. Last weekend marked the annual closing-day sendoffs at Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk, and this weekend we'll kiss the shoddy 2017-18 season good-bye entirely when Aspen Mountain and Snowmass shut down their lifts as well. With snow in the forecast today and tomorrow, it…
For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of “The Emperor’s New Clothes," the story involves a pompous emperor who orders some new clothes from a tailor. The clothes don’t look right, but the emperor has surrounded himself with yes men who lack the courage to say anything, so he wears the cl…
I tend to ski with whichever pair of gloves I have that have the least amount of duct tape holding them together. Nevertheless, I'm pretty particular about what I like to see in a glove. For instance, I believe all ski gloves should have a tight cuff – velcro-adjustable or elastic – that can…
