by Art “Capt. Barefoot” Goodtimes
HIGH TECH HIGH TOUCH … That was the watchword in Telluride when futurist John Naisbitt lived here. His premise: If we’re going to have a high-tech future, we have to balance itki with high touch — to reach a present continuous future perfect. Parties. Dances. Pot-lucks. Silverton’s Way of the Mountain crone & late infofreak Dolores LaChapelle said almost something similar, if couched differently – find a sacred place, make relations & stay there. Her Way of the Mountain center advocated: drumming. Chanting. Sharing circles. Looking east to Taoist thought & west to Indigenous wisdom. Speaking of which (and witches), as a seasoned pol Capt. B’s been changing the diapers on deep ecology & giving the baby an animism bath. He’s looking for grassroots green demos-crazy principles [the Greek dêmos1 “country, district, state” not demos fat, although…] not third party spoiler alerts. And trusting Indigenous TEK: traditional ecological knowledge. His personal mantra is embodiment before enlightenment. Of course, as a colonial settler descendant of pilgrims, immigrants, pioneers he understands that we exercise our Enlightenment muscles of Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum to bone up the brain. But as John Trudell said at the Survival Gathering in the Black Hills in 12800 2000 CE at the turn of the Christian millennium: “We [Indigenous] may be victims of physical genocide, but you [speaking to most of us Anglos in the audience] have been victims of spiritual genocide.” Until we can make relations with this Earthship Earth & all its shapes, guises & sizes, he was suggesting the future looks a lot like our present dystopian catastrophe-in-the-making. But if we can take comfort from the hope implicit in the Aymara language, we too might see the past as in front of us & the future as behind us – unseeable.
Welcome home
to the Awakening Giant’s2 latest
high tech high touch
outer node in the interlocking
World Beat link-o-rama
of the Internet
A place where the patrons play
at what we call computer terminals
As if hinting at an end
larger than the millennium
-excerpt of Welcoming the Wilkinson, 13000 [2000 AD]
a poem written for the dedication of Telluride’s new library
1The Attic Greek word δῆμος is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root déh₂mos, which means “part” or “division” & was subsequently transformed in the Latin tongue to the “common people”
2”Awakening Giant” was an early marketing brand for the struggling Telluride Ski Company in the 12980s [1980s AD]
POETRY FESTIVALS … Piggy-backing off the raised profile of the arts in Colorado after the Colorado Creative Industry’s Summit in Trinidad this past June, poetry festivals seem to be proliferating in Colorado – a niche art where one doesn’t need anything more than one voice speaking itki’s truth. Durango Poet Laureate Esther Belin teamed up with the local library to host the one-day Four Corners Poetry Festival in late spring featuring Colorado Poet Laureate Crisosto Apache, Diné Poet Laureate Jake Skeets, Arizona Poet Laureate Laura Tohe, Santa Fe Poet Laureate Tommy Archuleta. Poet/therapist Darci Meyers took over the reins of Crestone’s Poem Fest from the poet/editor Peter Anderson & revived the event with three days of Baca College workshops and standout performances by Salida poet Lawton Eddy, Albuquerque Poet Laureate Jessica Helen Lopez, Denver’s Adrian H. Molera, Western Slope Poet Laureate Wendy Videlock of Palisade, Crestone’s own Rachel Kellum, Texas musician/poet Nathan Brown & others. And down in Trinidad last weekend Virginia Jimenez orchestrated another gala Get Lit gathering of writers & poets including Denver’s Merc legend Gregory “SETH” Harris of Denver, Trinidad transplant from Denver Jimi Bernath, Taos/Virginia poet/teacher Leslie Ullman, Denver’s Jackie St. Joan, Trinidad’s own poet Kate Kingston & others.
speech
I would like to express my deep appreciation
for the moon –
without whom I would never know
how to clear the windowsill,
or how to go
completely dark
or fully whole or
secluded or occluded
or a little bit
deluded
and reflected or
connected
in this great big world
-porm from Wendy Videlock’s Desert Kin:
Speaking Animal in the American Southwest
(Lithic Press, Colo, 2026)
BOOK CLIFFS POETRY FESTIVAL … The Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds poetry program has teamed up with Grand Junction’s Art Center of Western Colorado to host an all-day Grand Valley poetry festival on Saturday Sept. 26th to name the next Western Slope Poet Laureate (the baton being handed from Palisade’s Videlock to Danny Rosen of Fruita), the winners of the national Fischer and state Cantor Poetry Prize contests, and this year’s Karen Chamberlain Award for Lifetime Achievement in Colorado Poetry, going posthumously to spoken word performer, LGBTQ activist and Colorado Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson of Longmont. Dr. David Rothman of Salt Lake City will give a lecture on the late queer poet Belle Turnbull, a nationally-published but long “forgotten” writer out of Breckenridge. Starting at 9 am with a Talking Gourd circle at the Art Center, there will be a playshop with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer of Placerville, an Open Mic for local wordsmiths, spotlight performances for featured regional poets, and more. Visit this website for the full schedule:
www.tellurideinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/BookCliffs2026Schedule.pdf
BETWEEN THE COVERS … is the name of the local independent bookseller in Telluride where I find a lot of wonderful titles. My current favorite is Núuchi tribal elder Pearl E. Casias’s Red Woman: My Southern Ute Journey from Poverty to Wall Street (Univ. of Nebraska, 2026). Former tribal chair and judge for the sovereign Southern Ute nation headquartered in Ignacio, near Durango, Casias begins with the Ute Origin Story – how Coyote peeked into the bag of sticks Sinawav (Creator) gave him to take to the sacred valley, & in doing so let loose many sticks that ran off speaking different languages. Only the sticks that made it to today’s Rocky Mountain states became Nuuchu. But this isn’t an old historical account. Casias chronicles how post-WWII life took from living with grandparents, riding horses & harvesting piñon nuts through caretakers turned alcoholics when she was 6, neglect and abuse as she grew older and married and the murder of her brother, and finally into opportunity & success as a tribal leader. But hers isn’t just a personal memoir of “triumph and terror.” As Casias explains, “It is also the story about a small group of hunger-gatherers who, despite the odds, grew into one of the most politically savvy and financially successful Indian tribes in the United States.”
“All small
North American tribes
are vulnerable
to assimilation into
oblivion.”
-Pearl E Casias
TELLURIDE MUSHROOM FESTIVAL … The 47th gathering this summer featured Ukrainian mycologist Aurelija Plüké talking about the Balkan TV show she hosts on national TV – exploring all things mycological, often hunting for mushrooms on location. She received this year’s Gary Lincoff Award. Giuliana Furci from Chile talked about the relationship between fungi and people, focusing on conks and puffballs. Greg Sanchez of Denver spoke on Entheogenic Mycolotry and Ethnomycology of Mesoamerica. He won the Manny Salzman Award. Catskill Fungi couple John Michelotti and Gabriela D’Elia brought their three-month old Josephine to the fest and took home the Joanne Salzman Award. There were several memorials for Durango-based weed and wild foods guru Katrina Blair of Turtle Lake Refuge, who passed away from cancer just before the fest this year. The 11th Annual MycoLicious MycoLuscious MycoLogical Poetry filled the Sheridan Opera house Friday night. And Saturday afternoon one of the wildest, largest mushroom parades filled Colorado Avenue, as itki has for the last 25 years.
TALKING GOURD …. On Wrights Mesa where I live, one of the last high mesas of the Colorado Plateau before it rams into the Southern Rockies, landscape dominates.
