This Land Is Their Land
The Wealthy Buy Up the West
I spent a couple of days this week wandering about the cranes – construction types, not winged ones – in Vail, which is undergoing a series of redevelopment projects that will total a couple of billion dollars when all finished. Among the projects going in is a mini-development of 13 chalets at the base of the mountain, each of which cost an average of $14 million – and all of which sold overnight, sight unseen.
Also coming soon to Vail, which already has a reputation as a playground for the super-rich, is a Ritz-Carlton styled after the grand residences of Europe. You and I won’t be able to stay in this Ritz – it’s all condos, each of which is priced in the multi-millions.
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Western Book Roundup
Policing Nonfiction, and Boulder Writer’s “Just Do It” takes Manhattan
Bryan Burrough recently reviewed Alexandra Fuller's The Legend of Colton H. Bryant for the New York Times Book Review. Burrough admired Fuller's poetic writing, but wasn't convinced that the book should be classified as nonfiction because so much of it consists of dialogue that she wasn't present for, and she admits in an author's note that she "juggled time" and took other "narrative liberties." Burrough writes:
"That’s not artistic license. It’s cheating. Not cheating in the sense that plagiarism is cheating. I don’t believe Fuller has committed a major literary felony here, but it’s clearly a misdemeanor, even if she comes out and admits it."
Also in the Roundup: A Denver Post reporter has sex with his wife 101 days in a row and recovers in time to write the tale.
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Mythical Energy World
Shale Oil Still a Mirage
Talk of a “new boom” in oil shale production has been heard for more than two years now – but it’s not happening soon.
While they are opposed on most energy issues, Republican Sen. Wayne Allard and Democratic Rep. Mark Udall, both of Colorado, are opposed to a new plan to mine potentially rich shale deposits on the Western Slope.
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Summer Skiing
Aspen Mtn. Opens for Weekend
It’s June, the sun is shining, and … it’s time to go skiing.
“Record winter snowfall has left the top of the mountain covered in snow as the traditional summer operating season begins,” reports the Aspen Skiing Company. “With an average depth of more than three feet on upper slopes, the mountain will open with seven runs and about 45 acres of mostly intermediate terrain, served by the Ajax Express chairlift.”
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WYOMING ELK FEEDLOTS THE REAL PROBLEM
Debunking Brucellosis Myths
Montana just lost its brucellosis-free status, just as Idaho and Wyoming have in recent years. Whenever this happens, stockgrowers and politicians rush to blame the bison and elk herds living in Yellowstone National Park and the government for not doing enough to eradicate the disease.
When they should be blaming themselves.
Ranchers, especially in Wyoming but not only in Wyoming, have done more than anybody, even the federal government, to keep the brucellosis threat alive. And you could even argue that they want to keep it alive.
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Western Book Roundup
Two Mystery Bookstores and Proulx’s “Tits-Up” In The New Yorker
Alicia Wallace of the Daily Camera reported this week that a mix-your-own wine store, The Blending Cellar, will move into the space on Boulder's Pearl Street recently vacated by High Crimes Mystery Bookstore, which converted to an online-only operation in February. But another regional mystery bookshop is thriving: Jeff Baker of The Oregonian reported that Portland's Murder By The Book Mystery Bookstore is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary (via Shelf Awarness).
The AP reported that the New York City Opera will adapt Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain" into an opera that will debut in 2013. In other Proulx news, the June 9 New Yorker summer fiction issue features a new story called "Tits-Up in A Ditch," which, judging from the title alone, sounds as though it'd make a fine opera, too.
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GOP Counts on Pro-Life Vote
Obama Looks to Solidify West
Will Amendment 48, the pro-life ballot measure that will be voted on in the November election, cost Barack Obama Colorado?
That’s one possibility raised in recent days by local politicos eyeing the fall presidential race. , At the same time we are witnessing what the Grand Junction Sentinel calls “a fundamental realignment of the formerly reliably Republican Rocky Mountain West.”
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The Region's Precious resource
What’ll You Pay for Western Water?
Despite being lectured frequently about water constraints and the preciousness of the resource, I have always been a closet agnostic on the topic. Doubtless, this is because I don’t know enough. But in my thirty-plus years of living on the spine of the continent, I’ve yet to hear of a single project that’s been delayed or canceled because of a water issue. We were once promised that rain would follow the plow. That turned out to be wrong. Water, it seems, actually follows the real estate developer.
I’m an agnostic but not an atheist on western water because lots of smart people keep telling me how valuable it is. They were doing it again on Friday at the University of Colorado Natural Resources Law Center’s Annual Summer Conference. Bart Miller of Western Resources Advocates said, for instance, “Water in the West is too precious to use for intermediate crops – crops that are given to animals.”
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Finding a Radioactive Dump
If Not Yucca Mtn., Where?
After 30 years of often acrimonious argument between the federal government and the state of Nevada, the Department of Energy this week submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to store radioactive waste at the underground facility at Yucca Mountain.
Unfortunately, the state’s case against storing containers nuclear material underneath the barren plateau gained some credence this week when Holtec International, a big manufacturer of nuclear waste storage systems, released a report sharply criticizing the Yucca Mountain plan.
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Western Writers
An Interview with David Wroblewski
Westminster writer David Wroblewski's engaging, dramatic debut novel is poised to become one of the breakout books of the summer, with advance praise from Stephen King and Richard Russo and an extensive national tour. (My review for the Rocky Mountain News is here.) The Story of Edgar Sawtelle follows the life of a boy named Edgar, born mute (but not deaf) and raised on his parents' dog breeding farm in Wisconsin. The family breed, known as "Sawtelle dogs," is distinguished by its exemplary behavior. Trouble brews when a main character dies and another comes to usurp his place in the family. Until recently, Wroblewski worked as a software developer for Boulder's Collective Intellect ("Making software," he says, is "intensely creative, just a different kind of clay—and I intend to continue all my life.") But for now he's concentrating on promoting the novel, which he worked on for over a decade. I recently interviewed Wroblewski via email about his writing process, how living in Colorado helps him to write about Wisconsin, and Stephen King's "generosity." Wroblewski will read and discuss his book at the Tattered Cover (Colfax) on June 10 (7:30 p.m.) and at the Boulder Book Store on June 12 (7:30 p.m.).
New West: How long have you lived in Colorado, and what brought you here?
David Wroblewski: I visited Boulder for the first time in 1990. On my first evening in town, I watched the moon rise over the plains from the NCAR parking lot. I resolved to move to Colorado that very night, and I’ve lived in or around Boulder since 1991.
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