Newspaper POACHERS SUCK
Instead of stealing our hard work or robbing your neighbors of the joy of reading the Telegraph every week, here are a few things other than a brand new stack of Telegraphs you can use to start your fire (courtesy Explore.com):
1. Egg cartons and dryer lint (we’re sure belly button and pocket lint would work just as well)
2. Cotton balls and petroleum jelly (think of the fun you could have!)
3. Hand sanitizer (not just for COVID anymore)
4. Waxed paper and dryer lint (twist both ends of the paper to look like a doobie, we know you know how to do that)
5. Chips (the greasier the better, think Hot & Spicy Pringles, Spicy Nacho Doritos and, of course, Flaming Hot Cheetos.)
6. Duct tape (yet another use for duct tape. We’re not sure if this sounds 100% safe, but hey, if in a pinch ...)
The lasting impact late president left on state’s renewable energy legacy by Allen Best / Big Pivots
Tru-tone
by Doug Gonzalez
Seven January musical gems to start the new year off right by Stephen Sellers
EDITORIALISTA: Missy Votel missy@durangotelegraph.com
ADVERTISING SALES: telegraph@durangotelegraph.com
STAFF REPORTER: Scoops McGee telegraph@durangotelegraph.com
The Durango Telegraph publishes every Thursday, come
high water, tacky singletrack or mon-
Passage of EXPLORE Act could mean big and small changes for outdoors by Caitlyn Kim / Colorado Public Radio
On the cover
Beautiful but deadly: hoarfrost blankets the mountain surface near Silverton recently. The feathers, which form when water vapor directly crystallizes into ice, are beautiful to look at but can wreak havoc with an already unstable snowpack./ Photo by Andy High
Ear to the ground:
“Shweady balls? I bring those everywhere.”
– What could either be good holiday party etiquette or a serious hygiene situation
Home run
There’s some good news on the horizon for discouraged would-be homeowners in Southwest Colorado. This week, the Homes Fund announced it was awarded $3.5 million for mortgage and down-payment loans to qualifying local residents.
The funds were appropriated through the passage of Proposition 123 on the statewide ballot in 2022. To refresh your memory in case you are still suffering from ballot fatigue, 123 approved allocation of one-tenth of 1% of existing federal income tax revenues in Colorado to affordable housing development, down payment assistance and other programs for low- and middle-income families.
The funds are available to households earning 120% or less of the area median income (AMI) across La Plata, Montezuma, Archuleta, San Juan and Dolores counties. In 2023 (the most recent years stats were available), the AMI for Durango was $79,545, bringing the 120% threshold to $99,431.
Of course, as we all know, local home prices far outpace incomes. According to the Durango Association or Realtors, the median price of a home in Durango Q3 2024 was $932,000 – up nearly 18% from the year prior.
The HomesFund estimates in the next two years, the funds will help about 42 households achieve homeownership in Southwest Colorado.
“This funding will help ensure that more families in our region can plant roots, build wealth and contribute to the fabric of our communities,” Pam Moore, Executive Director of HomesFund, said in a press release.
“We are thrilled to partner with the State of Colorado and local stakeholders to make homeownership accessible for those who need it most.”
Founded in 2008, HomesFund has worked to help potential homeowners through education and counseling, down payment assistance, loan assistance for difficult-to-finance manufactured and mobile homes, deed-restriction programs and other services.
“Homeownership is more than a financial investment; it’s an investment in our community,” Moore added. “With this support, we can help families put down roots and thrive.”
For more info., go to: www.homes fund.org.
LaVidaLocal
My Tru-Tone bulbs and me
I finally did it. After three years of (annoyingly) talking about it with friends, co-workers and family, I purchased an LED version of the multi-colored incandescent bulbs that were widely used in holiday seasons before the 2000s. Touted on their website as the “superior LED Christmas bulbs that look just like vintage incandescent,” I paid a comical amount of money for both a classic and mod-colored set of lights. Although price tag originally kept them in my mind’s shopping cart for years, it wasn’t until the end of 2024 that I gave myself permission to buy them. Now that I’m beginning to reflect on the last year more wholly and openly, I don’t believe it was simply the price tag that kept me from pur chasing them.
In 2024, I skipped routine health and wellness checks. I became sedentary and mostly inactive. I stopped scheduling my weekly therapy appoint ments. I stopped budgeting. I missed a college friend’s wedding party. But why? It would be easy to think that this drop in self-care or connection occurred because of the election. Or that it occurred after the increasing possibility of a nuclear threat from Russia. Or that it occurred after another year of worsening prospects for the climate. Instead, it was happening despite them. As much as these world-scale events instilled dread into my latenight thoughts, I knew that I shouldn’t “worry about them,” as I had no control over them. But it was this lack of control that made them so frightening. Like TV static underscor ing the background of my life, my sense of powerlessness felt like a constant, low hum. Every now and again, the sound became deafening. Be coming disinterested in myself became a means of tuning it out.
Despite a pessimistic and cynical view of the world, something unexpected also happened. I found myself leaning into joy. It started to manifest
Thumbin’It
LPEA received a federal grant to retrofit electrical poles to protect eagles and other wildlife from an ugly death. In addition to saving birds, it will help reduces power outages and wildfire risks. Win-win.
The official signing this week of the EXPLORE Act, which will help improve access, safety and enjoyment on federal lands, including new bike trails, larger parking lots and the use of permanent climbing anchors.
After a highly publicized strike over low wages that put a wrench in holiday operations and called out disparities at one of Utah’s ritziest resorts, ski patrollers at Park City have reached a deal with Vail Resorts, which owns the ski area.
when I began to decorate my office with seasonal decor for the first time ever. I started with spooky Halloween accoutrements and plug-in Jack-OLanterns, which then easily transitioned into winter with a few Santa hats and flameless candles. It reminded me of my grade school classrooms, which changed with the seasons by the hands of caring teachers. I planned to string the new Christmas lights I ordered along the edges of my office’s drop ceiling. However, once they arrived and I plugged them in, I felt disappointed. I perceived a slight coolness in their color that differed from the warm glow radiating from the ones in my childhood memories. What else was I searching for in them? Why were these lights not enough? I then realized that I had given them the impossible task of taking me back to a time when the world felt safe and calm – when it felt easy to dream.
I know the lights won’t bring back old moments of joy, but I can begin manifesting new ones now. When I brought them home to put on my tree, I mixed and matched the bulbs until they were a unique color combo. What initially felt lackluster in my office finally started to give off the glow of yesteryear. Over the holiday break, I laughed with child-like delight after making my first batch of stovetop popcorn. I saw “Wicked” so many times that I’m wondering if it’s become a problem – not that I care if it is. I cried more during the second episode of the new season of “Queer Eye” than I had in all previous eight
For this next year, I feel as if I’m preparing to drive through a snowstorm. If the tires lose traction on the road of my life’s journey, I want to be as alert and connected to myself as possible so that I can correct it if need be. Although I begin to scare myself if I start thinking about the flurry of snow that looks and sounds like TV static, I look forward to the new moments of joy – and the lingering glow from my new lights – that keep my
A necropsy shows that wolf 2309-OR, alpha of the captured Copper Creek pack, died of a gunshot wound, and wolf 2307, which was killed by another wolf, also had an old gunshot wound. In case you didn’t know, shooting a wolf in Colorado is illegal, and there is a $100K reward leading to the conviction of the perpetrator.
Sunny California is a burning inferno this week with Santa Ana winds fueling out-ofcontrol brush fires across the region. Tens of thousands of residents have been evacuated, including Dick Van Dyke and Cher. We hope some kind soul took them in.
An inauspicious start to the year, with the state’s first skier avi death of the season taking place Jan. 7 on Red Mountain Pass.
Mock Blocked
Sixteen red states enacted laws last year requiring porn sites to verify users’ ages, but doing so violates user privacy rights, according to Pornhub and its parent company, Aylo. So, on Jan. 1, the South awoke to sweeping blocks on every legal porn site, but you get what you vote for, amiright? Now southerners must upload photocopies of government-issued identification before viewing adult content, which means we’ll finally be able to prove that Ted Cruz is into BDSM the next time he logs in. And really, this is a blessing in disguise, because without porn, the south will not rise again.
Savoring darkness
Alaska’s endless nights offer cool respite from Earth’s encroaching heat
by Tim Lydon
In my part of Alaska, not far from Anchorage, winter solstice is always a dark day, but not because of the lack of light. Instead, I lament the impending loss of winter’s long nights, with all their calm and beauty.
This makes me a contrarian amid all the hoopla over returning light. Yet, as we freefall into a climatechanged world, it seems more people are giving darkness and its benefits a fresh look.
We begin feeling the loss of darkness only a few weeks after solstice. By February, the low-angle lighting that has graced our lives since November is gone, chased off by a sun that arcs higher each day. Some years, if the weather is clear, it ends even earlier.
I’m no curmudgeon, and I think sunshine has its place. In summer, I like to grow a few potatoes, and I appreciate birdsong and the general flowering of things. Still, the dark of winter just makes me happy.
I’m cheeriest on nights like tonight, when my walk home from work is brightened only by streetlamps and lighted windows reflecting on snow. Unseen flurries melt against my face as I pass our snow-quieted ballfields, where an owl gives a lone cheer from her bleacher seats high in a cottonwood. Sometimes I hear coyotes in the woods beyond. They remind me that lynx, hares, moose and others remain busily active in the dark.
On clear nights, my little eyes can see more than 2 million light-years to the Andromeda Galaxy, or even nearer neighbors like Betelgeuse, the Pleiades and our local bear, Ursa Major, overhead. Sometimes there’s the aurora, too, flowing and even lancing across the sky, backlighting snowy peaks and the ghoulish crowns of ancient hemlocks.
Even by day, the darkness seems comfortingly near, as my shadow attests. While in summer it cowers close, hiding from the sun, in winter it freely wanders the snowy hills with me, stretching far ahead like a comically slender space alien as we cross fields of diamonds. Beyond, low-angle light tints the mountains pink and purple.
My town is full of walkers. In the dark, we don headlamps and reflective vests, while our dogs sport lighted collars. We look festive, like our homes at this time of year. And while I’m all for safety, I cut my light when there are no cars. My pupils swell to drink in the night’s ambient light. Snow illuminates the world and trees become silhouettes among the stars.
The beauty of all this captivates me, but darkness offers more than aesthetics. With sleep hygiene back in fashion, we know dark nights promote healthy sleep,
the deep kind that recharges our bodies and reboots our minds.
In these hot times, the coolness of the dark is also gaining value. In the north, winter’s long nights help protect our snow, which insulates glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Each is an essential component of our local landscapes, but they are globally important, too, for maintaining sea levels, storing carbon and moderating weather.
It’s true in the temperate zones, too, where winter’s reprieve from the sun helps the Colorado and Columbia rivers and all their tributaries maintain the cool temperatures that native fish need throughout the year.
In summer, every minute of darkness helps preserve that coolness, slowing the evapotranspiration that increasingly taxes lakes, rivers and wetlands. It even helps desert soils and plants like the saguaro, which wisely opts to flower and transpire only at night. Wildland fires often abate in darkness, too.
Darkness also increasingly shelters workers from heat, the top weather-related killer of Americans. Especially in agriculture, the extreme heat now plaguing the Southwest and Pacific Northwest increasingly forces agricultural workers to clock in before dawn or during evenings.
But in an insidious twist, climate change is warming nights faster than days, contributing to longer autumns, shorter winters and less relief from heat for people, plants and animals. In a recent example in Arizona, once-sturdy saguaros dropped limbs or toppled over after experiencing record-high nighttime temperatures.
All this points to a rising need for the cool and calm of night and the many benefits brought by darkness, dormancy and cold.
Tim Lydon is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He lives in Girdwood, Alaska. ■
There is value in the long winter nights, especially in places like Alaska where the absence of sun helps protect glaciers, permafrost and sea ice./Photo by Tim Lydon
SoapBox D-Tooned/
9-R pressured by MAGA
The MAGA cultists of the faded GOP are at it again. This time, following the Crusader’s cross of Colorado GOP Vice Chairman Hope Sheppelman, they are attempting to extort Durango School District 9-R into abandoning publicly proposed policies that recognize the longstanding marginalization of some of the most vulnerable students.
Sheppelman was elected vice chairman having observed that the GOP desperately needs to attract “Republicans, independents, moderates, conservatives, older and younger voters.” As an independent voter, I applauded this clear-eyed, seemingly principled assessment. Of course, I expected such words to be honored as much in their breach as in deed – we’re talking the GOP here, after all. Now, it seems, Sheppelman has abandoned her own words of record and become a full priestess of the MAGAteer cult.
A letter co-penned by Sheppelman to the State GOP vows that the party will ape their dear leader’s historic practice of scorched earth “lawfare” to suppress and vanquish all whom they perceive to be heretically at odds with MAGA neo-
orthodoxy. Indulging in the warped, disgusting and self-revealing fantasies of their MAGA theocrats, they have defamed and libeled dedicated educators and threatened destruction of the educational opportunities of their neighbors’ children – including those within the GOP political orientation – if the district won’t genuflect to their bullying.
Having sold her soul, Sheppelman makes it clear that the MAGA cult has nothing to offer actual “Republicans, independents, moderates, conservatives, older and younger voters.”
I wish I were shocked.
–
Paul Garrett, Bayfield
The deep state
We’ve heard a lot from Trump about the “deep state.” It turns out the deep state consists of bureaucrats who send you your Social Security check, maintain our highways, supply veterans with health care and protect us from terrorists. Trump hopes to replace the experienced employees in the government with people whose only qualification is loyalty to him. All his cabinet picks are incompetent and corrupt. Trump’s aim
by Rob Pudim
is to transform our democracy into a kleptocracy to further enrich himself and his billionaire buddies, and to let him remain in power indefinitely like his heroes Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban. If Trump is allowed to do what he plans, we will all suffer. How do we resist?
The ways to push back against Trump and retain our democracy will change
over time. We must be resilient and persistent.
First, we encourage our senators to vote against Trump’s most dangerous nominees, including: FBI Director Kash Patel, who published an “enemies list” of Trump’s political opponents he will prosecute; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who Moscow’s state run media has called “a Russian
agent;” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who secretly paid a financial settlement to a woman who accused him of rape; and Secretary of Health and Human Services RFK Jr., who will limit our access to vaccines.
Call Sens. Michael Bennett (202-2245852) and John Hickenlooper (202-2245941) and encourage them to do everything in their power to stand up to Trump’s assault on our rights and to vote against these nominees.
– Philip Riffe, Hesperus
Grateful for this state
This recent election has taught me that in “America the Violent,” crime pays, especially for oligarchs. There was no landslide. There is no mandate. Our country is two fault planes grinding against each other, rupturing, fracturing and smearing our nation. The Fox News bimbos have taught America precisely what Rupert Murdoch, the oligarch’s oligarch, wants America to believe.
I am so grateful to live in one state in the nation that did not fall on the sword to fashion America into a machismo toilet filled with forever turds. I understand most U.S. youth flaked out on voting, but not in Colorado where youth stood up. I am full of gratitude.
– Stephanie Johnson, Hesperus
Let’s talk about God
I should be going to bed, but my head is full of dancing memories from this evening’s (Dec. 3) panel discussion of four FLC professors debating the question: “Is belief in God rational?” Excellent stories were told and arguments offered. Claims were made and responded to with counterclaims and more questions, as words upon words cascaded over each other.
Not for the first time. I found myself wondering, if philosophy’s goal is to help us understand, why the love for adding layers upon layers of creative complexity and hairsplitting that often obscures the fundamentals? After all, isn’t it the simple fundamentals that make a coherent understanding possible?
Please understand I come at this God question from a different and somewhat unique Earth-centrist, science-respecting, bottom-up, evolutionary perspective. Is belief in God rational?
To me, that framing feels like a trick question of sorts. God is a belief in itself. God is not a thing.
Regarding people’s faith in a God, I ask, how does an assumption of God get transmuted into a thing? Is a belief in a belief rational? (Is faith rational?)
I’d say sure, from an evolutionary and
pragmatic perspective, there are a host of reasons faith in meta-physical beliefs could and does bring benefits to believers. Regarding what God is, that needs to start with resolving the ageless question, “Who am I?”
Fact is, I, we, are evolved biological animals, the product of half a billion unbroken years of Earth’s processes. From the beginning, all creatures have required a degree of awareness, processing and action abilities, each according to their individual biology. Ours is simply the most advanced mind, thanks to our incredibly evolved body and experiences.
Still, our thoughts are the interior reflection of our body communicating with itself as it processes incoming information. (See: Drs. Solms, Damasio, Sapolski, etc. for details.) It is our body and brain interacting with physical reality that produces our mind, sense of self, thoughts –collectively our mindscape.
The inevitable conclusion from the scope of sciences is that consciousness is not a thing, it is an interaction. Our consciousness is produced in the living moment by our living body.
As with the dynamo that stops producing electricity when it stops spinning, so, too, when our body stops
LPEA OFFERS SCHOLARSHIPS
living, our mind/consciousness ceases to be produced. After that, we become memories within those we leave behind.
It seems to me self-evident from the above that God must be a product of our thoughts, which in turn, are driven by personal biological imperatives, needs, ego, bias, etc.
The hard problem is figuring out why such a straightforward observation –that our body/brain interacting with the world produces our mind – is so assiduously avoided.
Our Gods are very real, still we should be very clear, our Gods belong to the meta-physical realm.
Gods are not part of the physical reality that makes up the biology of our bodies, nor the substance of this miracle planet Earth that created us to begin with.
Key concepts are the physical reality–human mind divide: appreciating that our living body produces our thoughts, and that our Gods are born from within our own ego-centric thoughts.
The other question discussed was: “Does morality require God?” How can it, if we create our own Gods?
For me, that realization puts the responsibility right back upon us humans, collectively and individually.
– Peter Miesler, Durango
Carter’s Colorado connection
Late president’s lasting impacts on renewable energy relevant to this day
by Allen Best
Jimmy Carter had an underappreciated role in Colorado’s story. It started in May 1978 when he announced that the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) in Golden would get $100 million in federal funding.
“Nobody can embargo sunlight,” Carter said. “No cartel controls the sun. Its energy will not run out. It will not pollute the air; it will not poison our waters. It’s free from stench and smog. The sun’s power needs only to be collected, stored and used.”
It was a rare umbrella day in Golden. Carter’s timing for his proclaimed “Sun Day” was off. But he was on the mark about solar energy in ways that we have yet to fully appreciate.
Carter had advanced schooling in nuclear energy, but by 1975, he was thinking about renewables. He invited Ron Larson, an electrical engineering professor from Georgia Tech, to share lunch and talk about renewable energy.
“At that time, there wasn’t much to photovoltaics,” says Larson. “It was over $100 a watt. Now, it’s less than $1 a watt.”
Larson moved to Colorado in 1977 to work as SERI’s first principal scientist and stayed in multiple roles in helping pivot our energy use. Since then, thousands have followed.
One component of SERI’s mission was outreach to 300 builders and architects in Colorado to help them learn how to build houses with less reliance on fossil fuels.
John Avenson, an engineer with AT&T/Bell Labs, was among the beneficiaries. The house in Westminster that he built in 1981 faces south and has large windows coupled with effective shades.
On Facebook the day after Carter’s death, Avenson rued the widespread failure to acknowledge Carter’s early thinking. “Every house built since then should have been this good or better, but the program was cancelled by (President Ronald) Reagan,” he wrote.
Avenson’s house near Standley Lake Reservoir was built with a natural gas furnace. He rarely used it, his gas bills never surpassing $180 a year. After tweaking and new technology, he was finally satisfied the house would do fine at 20 below without the furnace. In 2016, he had Xcel Energy stub the gas line.
When I visited him on New Year’s Eve, he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. “I’m an Arizona kind of person,” he said. He keeps the house at 72 to 78 degrees. It will be featured on a Jan. 25 broadcast on PBS.
I asked Avenson about Carter’s death. “Oh, so sad,” he replied. “He influenced my life and didn’t know it.”
Steve Andrews was also influenced by Carter. A veteran of the Vietnam War, he had used the GI Bill to take college classes in basic engineering. That led to an internship and then a job at SERI. He wrote the guide-
book for the 1981 Denver Homebuilders annual Parade of Homes featuring a dozen passive-solar homes.
Then, Andrews got laid off. As president, Reagan had no real use for renewable energy. He famously removed the 32 solar panels that Carter had placed atop the White House. He also halved SERI’s budget. Andrews, a recent hire, was among the first to go. The mission of SERI was also narrowed, pushing outreach to the back burner. The director, Denis Hayes, was fired after accusing his bosses at the U.S. Department of Energy of being “dull gray men in dull gray suits thinking dull gray thoughts.”
Later, under former oilman President George H.W. Bush, SERI was resurrected as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL has now expanded to a staff of 3,675 employees and broadened its influence.
Can it be mere coincidence that Colorado, in 2004, had the nation’s first voter-initiated renewable energy portfolio standard? Or that Colorado in recent years has
adopted a dozen or more first-in-nation policies and regulations designed to curb greenhouse emissions? We might be guilty of parochial pride, but there can be no doubt that Colorado belongs in any national conversation about the pivot, to a new-energy economy.
Ironically, passive-house building has gotten little traction, even though the economics are unassailable and the technology not that difficult. It does take basic site-planning. Andrews, in his post-SERI career, once calculated that 85% of houses in metro Denver face east or west. That results in unwanted summer heat, but little in winter, when it is wanted. Housing should face north and south.
Colorado has decades of work ahead in decarbonizing its buildings. We need to remember what Jimmy Carter understood nearly 50 years ago.
Allen Best publishes BigPivots.com, an online journal that tracks Colorado’s transitions in energy and water provoked by climate change. ■
President Jimmy Carter visits the Solar Energy Research Institute (now known as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory) in Golden in 1978. Carter gave SERI $100 million in federal funds, which were later cut by President Reagan./ Courtesy photo
Reaching new heights
Newly signed EXPLORE Act to increase recreation opportunities on public lands
by Caitlyn Kim
Colorado Public Radio
The great outdoors are about to become a lot more accessible and user-friendly. On Sat., Jan. 4, President Joe Biden signed a massive bipartisan outdoor recreation bill into law. The new bill will enact a host of initiatives on federal lands, from allowing fixed climbing anchors to more trailhead parking, bike trails and even wi-fi access.
Known as the “Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences, or EXPLORE Act, it passed its final hurdle late last year when the Senate passed it on Dec. 19, before its holiday recess.
“This is really, really good news for our country,” Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W. Va., said upon the bill’s passage. Manchin led the charge on the bill, along with Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
The bill aims to expand and improve outdoor recreation opportunities across the country and includes a number of Colorado priorities.
Introduced in November 2023 by House Natural Resources Committee Chair Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., and Ranking Member Rep. Raul Grijalva, DAriz., the package combines outdoor recreation policy and access with support for public-private partnerships and even broadband access at recreation sites. Colorado Reps. Joe Neguse, Doug Lamborn and Brittany Pettersen were co-sponsors of the House bill.
“It will help create more fun all across the country,” Westerman said after the passage. “This isn’t something that just happened overnight. Some of this legislation has been going on for years, and we finally got it all packaged up and got it passed. So it’s a great day for outdoor recreation.”
A number of efforts championed by Colorado lawmakers made it into the package. That includes the Biking on Long-Distance Trails (BOLT) initiative, introduced by Neguse, which encourages the development of long-distance bike trails on federal lands. It also includes Protecting America’s Rock Climbing, which would continue to allow fixed bolts for climbing in wilderness areas and national parks and was pushed by Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.
“Our booming outdoor recreation economy creates jobs and drives local economies across Colorado,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “We’re making it easier for our outdoor rec businesses and outfitters to thrive while improving access to our public lands.”
Hickenlooper also celebrated provisions of the bill that would lead to more parking at federal recreation sites and trailheads. The package also reauthorizes the U.S. Forest Service to lease administrative sites for housing. It’s an idea championed by Neguse and Sen. Michael Bennet to help mountain communities address affordable housing needs.
“It’s as simple as this: In Colorado, the preservation of our public lands and the strength of our outdoor recreation economy is not only integral to the spirit of our state but to the success of our people,” Neguse said in a statement. “I
am proud to see these bills through to the finish line – and even more excited for the ways in which they will deliver for our communities.”
Bennet echoed this sentiment in his own statement: “By passing this legislation, Congress is finally recognizing its importance to rural economies and ensuring that as demand for outdoor recreation grows, rural economies grow too.”
The package also includes provisions to streamline permitting for outdoor guides and outfitters, set up new shooting ranges on public land, do more to increase youth recreation and military and veterans access to federal lands, and combat aquatic invasive species, like the zebra mussel.
Westerman also credited several outdoor groups for getting the bill over the finish line.
Jessica Wahl Turner, president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, called
the bill transformative. “The EXPLORE Act will supercharge the outdoor recreation industry and is a victory for our economy, our communities, our quality of life, and our shared connection to the outdoors,” she said in a statement. “By advancing this transformative legislation, Congress has shown its commitment to ensuring every American has access to world-class outdoor experiences, from our backyard to the backcountry, while supporting the businesses, workers and communities who make those experiences possible.”
According to a survey from Colorado State University, output related to outdoor recreation by Colorado residents amounted to $56.8 billion in 2023, contributing $36.5 billion to the state’s GDP and $11.2 billion in tax revenue.
For more from Colorado Public Radio, go to www.cpr.org. ■
A climber makes his way up a route in Rocky Mountain National Park. The long-simmering topic of use of permanent anchors on climbing routes in wilderness and national parks has been put to rest with the EXPLORE Act, which allows anchors to remain./ Photo National Park Service
BetweentheBeats
A stacked month
Seven gems to take you into Snowdown fun and games
by Stephen Sellers
Greetings, dear readers! A fresh dusting of powder to you and yours. Here’s a look at some of our town’s musical events this January. These gems will take you right into the Snowdown roll of the dice. May you only “pass go” this year and not land on too many high-rent properties with hotels. Big shout out to the good folks at Community Compassion Outreach’s Emergency Warming Center striving to keep all of our unhoused neighbors warm and alive in these sub-freezing temps. Be thankful for what you’ve got, and see you on the dance floor!
• Kyle Hollingsworth Band, Safety Meeting, Animas City Theatre, Thurs., Jan. 9, 8 p.m. - Acclaimed keyboardist and member of The String Cheese Incident, Kyle Hollingsworth touches down in Durango this month amidst a flurry of mid-winter Colorado dates with his ripping solo project. Hollingsworth has been at the top of his game for decades as the harmonic and melodic glue for Colorado’s most successful Gen-X jam band, and unlike so many jamalama greats, his solo project is nothing to scoff at. Opening the show are some of Durango’s most talented musicians under the banner of Safety Meeting – a jazzy, funked-out, pop power trio of Eli Emmett, Chuck Hank and Alec Mayes.
lay down high-level improvisational funk, hip hop and jazzadjacent tunes for your enjoyment and edification.
• The Motet, Animas City Theatre, Sun., Jan. 12, 8 p.m. - Over the last 20 years, this Front Range-based funk band has shifted its lineup and sound meandering from heady West African rhythms to a more Daptone-esque, soulful sound. If you were lucky enough to catch The Motet rock the Transit Center for this year’s July 4th party, you know that this band is the real deal. All of the pieces are finally clicking for The Motet, and thanks to local promoter Eugene Salaaz, we’re lucky to catch them in their prime.
• Big Richard, Animas City Theatre, Fri.-Sat., Jan. 16-17, 7 p.m. – You may have missed this virtuosic, all-female bluegrass band last year when they sold out the ACT seemingly in a matter of minutes. Their meteoric rise in the bluegrass world is a testament to their incredible live stage presence and string-based wizardry. Durango has been endowed with not one, but two nights of Big Richard energy, to help you bridge the gap between holiday merriment and Snowdown antics. What a treat it is to have Telluride Bluegrass main stage-level talent drop in during our coldest winter nights to keep our collective fire burning.
• CollabWest, Black Heron Lounge, Wed., Jan. 15, 7 p.m. - Somewhere between an open mic and structured jam, CollabWest is the brainchild of local bass boss Wade Campbell. It’s a weekly creative space for musicians, DJs, MCs, visual artists and promoters to come and make connections. Wade and fellow collaborators like Yope’s Tyler Kelley
• Mixed in Mancos Album Release Party: Farmington Hill & Little Wilderness, Mancos Brewing Co., Sat., Jan. 25, 5 p.m. - The 2024 edition of Mixed in Mancos, brought to you by the Mancos Creative District, was an event last March featuring the musical stylings of local indiegarage rock demigods Farmington Hill, Little Wilderness and The Crags. The event was held at the Mancos Opera House, where it was recorded, mixed and mastered for vinyl and CD by local engineering legend Jeff Jones. The wax has been pressed, the CDs tucked away in their jewel cases featuring art from Jody Chapel of Mancos Common Press, and now it’s time to party. Come celebrate this important project and show some love to our beer-brewing neighbors in Montezuma County.
• Snowdown Dance Parties, Black Heron Lounge, Fri.-Sat., Jan. 31 - Feb. 1., 7 p.m. - In a matter of two months, the Black Heron has become an indispensable gathering space for lovers of dance music. It is finally making space in Durango for all of our town’s electronic subgenres to play nice in the sonic sandbox. Friday night after the Snowdown Parade features a proper seven-hour dance party with Kevin Callison, a longtime Denver house DJ, Bad Goat and Spark Madden.
Saturday night will be the launch party for Varsity Crew Productions, a brand-new event team that features a stacked line up of Durango’s most beloved house and techno players. The theme is “Jumanji,” and the Heron will be transformed with art and lighting to help Durango tap into its wild side. Think Dirtybird’s or Desert Hearts’ first party years ago. This is that moment for the Varsity Crew family. Don’t miss it, and be sure to visit www.varsitycrewproductions.com for tickets. ■
Big Richard plays the ACT two nights: Jan. 16-17.
by Jeffrey Mannix
TThrough the window
French author spins razor-sharp comedy of neighborly curiosity
his year’s quarter-century promises some anticipated social and political crescendos to reorder or disfigure comforts or traditions. It appears the bolts have been blowing out of everything, and disintegration is the new progress. The trend from U.S. crime fiction publishers of anti-intellectual product and excessive flummery is following the swirl of disparaging achievement so the unqualified don’t feel unequal. European crime fiction writers soar above only the rarest U.S. counterpart.
That brings us to the “Murder Ink” selection to start the new year, master French storyteller Antoine Laurain’s deceptively unfussy “French Windows.” The respectful 175-page eccentric mystery is ably translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie.
This is a curious little book telling a story about a Freudian psychiatrist in Paris and his treatment of a scurrilous young woman. Making a subsistence living as a photographer, she is now unable or unwilling to take even one more picture.
Natalia Guitry, the unlikely patient, calls herself a street photographer, drinks at various times throughout the day after the first beer in the morning, does dope and goes out daily with her cameras to capture the street scene in Paris. She’s 30 years old going on to or coming down from some other age when it’s convenient, and particularly suited to play mind games with Dr. Faber. She sits cautiously at her first appointment on Faber’s therapy couch before timidly reclining, because she knows how this abracadabra goes.
Natalia is something of a vixen, a talent at whatever oddity strikes her curiosity. Psychoanalysis is her latest passing interest, because she’s lost her mojo.
And Faber couldn’t be better cast: parochial about not leading a patient, not criticizing a patient, prompting patient self-analysis, remaining silent for the 60sixty minute session if the patient doesn’t talk – all under the penumbra of Freudian sexual repression.
Faber knows it’s all about the patient, and Natalia knows that, too. And after a few sessions, she has Faber craving more than he’s getting and turning to Google for guidance.
“French Windows” starts out cu riously enough, as the patient/doctor relationship attempts establishment:
What can I do for you, Natalia?
I think my life is a failure.
And what makes you think that?
I feel as if I’m not fully alive. My professional life is a failure.
And what do you do?
I’m a photographer. She smiles apologetically.
Tell me about that. (“Now, at this precise moment, we are in analysis; the first real contact with the patient.”)
I’ve run out of work.
And why do you think that is?
I’ve lost my talent. (“I’ll put her with the Melancholic Depressives.”)
Can you remember the last photograph you took? Yes.
What was it of?
A murder.
Ever careful not to violate Freud’s dictum of not showing surprise or questioning a patient, on the next visit, Faber proposes a course of therapy far removed from photography that he feels could be his own breakthrough in changing the dreaded melan cholia for – oh, can he even say it? – normalcy.
window? I’m going to make a suggestion: a change of strategy for our sessions. Here’s what I suggest: you will bring a short, written piece each time, about life on one floor of the building. A true story, or one you’ve made up, it doesn’t matter which.
At the next session, Faber is exuberant: “You say you watch the occupants of the five floors of the north wing of your building from your apartment
And we’ll go from floor to floor, starting at the ground floor, then the first, second, third … Up to the fifth floor. Do you think you can do that?”
Natalia agrees but sniggers a caution Faber’s way if he thinks her stories are going to tell something about herself. And Natalia insists she can’t bear to watch him read what she’s written and won’t bring stories with her but instead post them in advance of each ses-
Right here is where this book becomes precious, funny and too short. Natalia’s stories of residents on each floor are so good, so real, that Faber is overwhelmed with curiosity, and we begin to wonder just who the patient in the therapy session is. Faber begins obsessively investigating the veracity of Natalia’s larger-than-life characters on each floor.
“French Windows” is a wonderful, ironic comedy, and Antoine Laurain will continue to be thought of as a French novelist on the order of Georges Simenon with surgical ability.
I loved “French Windows.” Don’t miss this short, blade-sha rp literary performance. And ask Maria’s Bookshop for your 15% Murder Ink discount. ■
Thursday09
Journal Making, 4-5 p.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave.
“Animal Safety and Wildlife Confrontation,” led by City Parks Ranger Tosh Black, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Durango Rec Center, 2700 Main Ave.
Bluegrass Jam, 6 p.m., Durango Beer & Ice Co., 3000 Main Ave.
Friends of the San Juans Avalanche Awareness, 6-8 p.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave.
Tim Sullivan plays, 6-9 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Andrew Schuhmann plays, 6-9 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave.
Nerds Night Out Trivia, 6:30-8:30 p.m., EsoTerra Ciderworks, 558 Main Ave.
Drag Trivia Night hosted by Aria PettyOne, 7:309:30 p.m., Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.
Kyle Hollingsworth Band performs with special guest Safety Meeting, 8 p.m., Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Dr.
Open Mic Night, 8-11 p.m., The Tangled Horn, 275 E. 8th Ave
Friday10
BID Coffee and Conversation, 8:30-9:30 a.m., TBK Bank Community Room, 259 W. 9th St.
Larry Carver and Ben Gibson play, 5:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Gary Watkins plays, 6-9 p.m., Cliffside Bar and Grille, 314 Tamarron Dr.
Dustin Burley plays, 6-9 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave.
A Night of Improv, 7-9 p.m., Durango Arts Center, 802 E. 2nd Ave.
Dandu featuring Yope, 8-10 p.m., The iNDIGO Room, 1315 Main Ave, #207
Michal Menert with 3420 & Nelli, 8 p.m., Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Dr.
Saturday11
English Conversation Circle, 10-11 a.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave.
“Learning from the Past to Power the Present” presented by Animas Museum and La Plata County Historical Society, 1-2 p.m., Animas Museum, 3065 W. 2nd Ave.
Yarn Meetup, 1-3 p.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave
Snow Science and Social Snowshoe hosted by San Juan Mountains Association and Mountain Studies Institute, 1-3 p.m., Andrews Lake Winter Parking Area
Karaoke, 6 p.m., Durango Beer & Ice Co., 3000 Main Ave.
Alpine Bank Full Moon Howler, hosted by San Juan Mountains Association, 6-9 p.m., Durango Nordic Center
Majik Ham plays, 6-9 p.m., Union Social House, 3062 Main Ave.
Ladies only night, 6-9 p.m., The Subterrain, 900 Main Ave., Ste. F
Matt Rupnow plays, 6-9 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave.
Adam Swanson plays, 6-9 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Mountainfilm on Tour, 6:30 p.m., Kendall Mountain Community Center, Silverton
Dandu plays featuring Funk Express, 8-10 p.m., The iNDIGO Room, 1315 Main Ave., #207
Live music, 8 p.m.-12 midnight, 49 Lounge Sky Ute Casino, Ignacio
Sunday12
Demo Days, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Purgatory
Irish Jam Session, 12:30-3 p.m., Durango Beer & Ice Co., 3000 Main Ave.
Board Game Sundays, 2 p.m., Lola’s Place, 725 E. 2nd Ave.
Weekly Peace Vigil & Rally for Gaza & Palestine, every Sunday, 4 p.m., Buckley Park
Funk Jam Session presented by Jimmy’s Music & Supply, 5-7 p.m., 11th Street Station, 1101 Main Ave.
Blue Moon Ramblers play, 6-9 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Ben Gibson plays, 6-9 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave.
The Motet - Love Time Tour, doors 7 p.m., Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Dr.
Monday13
Happy Hour Yoga, 5:30 p.m., Ska Brewing, 225 Girard St.
Joel Racheff plays, 6-9 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Comedy Open Mic, 8 p.m., The Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.
Swing & Brewskies dance lessons, 7-9:30 p.m., Durango Beer and Ice Co., 3000 Main Ave.
Tuesday14
Cowboy Tuesdays, 12-3 p.m., The Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
9-R educators present to the Rotary Club of Durango on supporting students learning English as a second language, 6-7 p.m., Strater Hotel, 699 Main Ave.
Jason Thies plays, 6 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Open Mic Night, 7 p.m., Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.
Wednesday15
Donny Johnson plays, 5:30-9 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Word Honey Poetry Workshop, 6-8 p.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave.
Open Mic with Leigh Mikell, 7 p.m., EsoTerra Ciderworks, 558 Main Ave.
Karaoke Roulette, 8 p.m., Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.
Ongoing
Christmas Tree Drop Off, thru Jan. 31, Santa Rita Park, 149 S. Camino del Rio
“Given Time: Sensory Aesthetics of Reclamation,” exhibit exploring Indigenous relationships to land, FLC Center of Southwest Studies. Show runs thru April 24, 2025.
Heartwood Cohousing 4th Friday Potluck, every 4th Friday thru Oct., 6:30 p.m., 800 Heartwood Ln, Bayfield, heartwoodcohousing@gmail.com to reserve a tour
Upcoming
Spanish Conversation Hour, Thurs., Jan 16, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave.
Plant identifying, Thurs., Jan 16, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Durango Rec Center, 2700 Main Ave.
Brain Yoga, Thurs., Jan 16, 5:30-7 p.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave.
AskRachel Right hand dogs, non-resolving and cell-free shopping
Interesting fact: Dogs heel on the left because of right-handed dominance. This keeps your hand free for self-defense on the trail. Or, more likely, to better dispense dog treats.
Dear Rachel,
The city is going to make a big change to the sidewalks in Durango. How about a change in the walking of dogs on the river trail? Right now, most dogs heel on the left side of the person walking. Why not reverse this and have dogs walk to the right? This will be like driving in England. Plus, the dog will be in the grass to do his duty. I know this might be a change but it’s safer for dogs and bikers.
– Pit Bull
Dear Unleashed,
This sounds like even more madness than usual. It’s bold of you to presume that most dogs on the trail are heeling at all, let alone on the left. I think our real problem is that horrendous abomination known as the retractable leash, that lets dogs run amok all over the place. Banning those will work wonders for human and canine-kind.
– Let walking dogs lie, Rachel
Dear Rachel, Whoever decided that the New Year was the right time for resolutions and “Becoming a Better You” had to either be high or living
Big Richard - GIRL Dinner Tour night one with special guest Birds of Play, Thurs., Jan 16, 8 p.m., Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Dr.
Larry Carver and the Rando Zone with Randy Crumbaugh play, Fri., Jan 17, 5:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
“The Life and Music of Claude Debussy,” presented by San Juan Symphony, Fri., Jan. 17, 7 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 910 E. 3rd Ave.
Big Richard - GIRL Dinner Tour night two with special guest Stillhouse String Band, Fri., Jan 17, 8 p.m., Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Dr.
National People’s March, Sat., Jan. 18, 11:30 a.m., meet at train station and march to Buckley Park for speakers
Durango Wedding Expo, Sat., Jan 18, 12-3 p.m., La Plata County Fairgrounds, 2500 Main Ave.
National People’s March workshops and planning, Sat., Jan. 18, 1:30-3:30 p.m., Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave.
Live Clay Painting with Eunika Rogers, Sat., Jan 18, 12-6 p.m., Blue Rain Gallery, 934 Main Ave., Unit B
Kirk James plays, Sat., Jan. 18, 5 p.m., Cliffside Bar and Grille, 314 Tamarron Dr.
in the southern hemisphere. This is no time for self-improvement. This is a time for blankets, hot toddies and storing up fat for the summer adventures to come. Don’t you think we could start, like, Fourth of July resolutions or something?
– New Year’s Dissolution
Dear Lack of Resolve,
Oh, are we supposed to actually take action on our resolutions in January? I thought the whole point was to brainstorm and daydream about how we’ll become better people … starting sometime later, after all the eager beavers have given up on the gym. Ideally, by the time we’ve finished daydreaming sometime in the spring, we’ll have forgotten all about our resolutions and carry on as always.
– Dream on, Rachel
Email Rachel at telegraph@durangotelegraph.com
Dear Rachel,
I see that as of Jan. 1 use of hand-held cell phones while driving is banned. But how about also for people who push a grocery cart in City Market while on the phone? They don’t even pull over to talk. I’ve been hit twice by these people and not even a “so sorry.” They just keep talking and shopping. Thank god my eggs didn’t brake. Your thoughts on this moving issue.
– Cart Patrol
Pain Care Yoga, free series, Tuesdays, Jan. 21March 11, 4:30-5:45 p.m., Durango. Registration required: innerpeaceyogatherapy.com/locations/durango/
Recovery Yoga, free series for individuals in recovery, Thursdays, Jan. 23 - March 13, 4:30-5:45 p.m., Durango. Registration required: innerpeaceyogatherapy.com/locations/durango/
“Animal Tracking and Tracks,” presented by City Parks Ranger Tosh Black, Thurs., Jan 23, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Durango Rec Center, 2700 Main Ave.
Snowdown 2025: The Board Game Edition, Jan. 24- Feb. 2.
Black Velvet with Larry Carver & Nina Sasaki plays, Fri., Jan 24, 5:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Mixed in Mancos 2024 Album Release Party featuring music by Farmington Hill and Little Wilderness, Sat. Jan. 25, 5-9 p.m., Mancos Brewing, 484 Hwy 160 E. Frontage Rd, Mancos
Larry Carver and Ben Gibson play, Fri., Jan 31, 5:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.
Valentine’s Day Showdown hockey game fundraiser for girls hockey, Durango Betties face off
Dear Wobbly Wheel, Eggs are fragile enough. Can you imagine if they had braking power? Every 2 feet, they’d be tapping those suckers and screaming “Ah! Slow down!” Kind of like my mom does when she’s a passenger in the car. But seriously, I’m sorry for any time I’ve bumped into you. I keep my shopping list on my phone, so I can’t put it away. Also, it keeps me from having to talk to you. Even to say I’m sorry.
– Outta my way, Rachel
against the DAYHA Girls U19 Team, Fri., Feb. 14, 5-7:15 p.m., Chapman Hill Ice Rink
“Outdoor First Aid Basics,” taught by City Parks Ranger Tosh Black, two-week class, Thurs., Feb. 6 and 13, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Durango Rec Center, 2700 Main Ave.
Hiking and backpacking essentials for going into the backcountry, Thurs. Feb. 20, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Durango Rec Center, 2700 Main Ave.
Outdoor etiquette and how to go potty in the wilderness, presented by City Parks Ranger Tosh Black, Thurs., Feb. 27 and March 6, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Durango Rec Center, 2700 Main Ave.
Deadline to submit items for “Stuff to Do” is Monday at noon.
Please include:
• Date and time of event
• Location of event
FreeWillAstrology
by Rob Brezsny
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries poet Charles Baudelaire said that if you want to fully activate your personal genius, you will reclaim and restore the intelligence you had as a child. You will empower it anew with all the capacities you have developed as an adult. I believe this is sensational advice for you in 2025. In my understanding, you will have an extraordinary potential to use your mature faculties to beautifully express the wise innocence and lucid perceptions you were blessed with when you were young.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In many Asian myths, birds and snakes are depicted as adversaries. Their conflict symbolizes humanity’s problems in coordinating the concerns of earth and heaven. Desire may be at odds with morality. Unconscious motivations can be opposed to good intentions. Pride, self-interest and ambition might seem incompatible with spiritual aspirations, high-minded ideals and the quest to transcend suffering. But here’s the good news: In 2025, I suspect that birds and snakes will cooperate rather harmoniously. You and they will have stirring, provocative adventures together.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Using a fork to eat food was slow to gain acceptance in the Western world. Upper-class Europeans began to make it a habit in the 11th century, but most common folk regarded it as a pretentious irrelevancy for hundreds of years. Grabbing grub with the fingers was perfectly acceptable. I suspect this scenario might serve as an apt metaphor for you in 2025. You are primed to be an early adapter who launches trends. You will be the first to try novel approaches and experiment with variations in how things have always been done. Enjoy your special capacity. Be bold.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Psychologist Abraham Maslow defined “peak experiences” as “rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter.” The moment of falling in love is one example. Another is when a creative artist makes an inspiring breakthrough in their work. These transcendent interludes may also come from dreamwork, exciting teachings, walks in nature and responsible drug use. (Read more here: tinyurl.com/PeakInterludes) I bring these to your
attention, because I believe the months ahead will be prime time for you to cultivate and attract peak experiences.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): According to my analysis, your life in 2025 will be pretty free of grueling karmic necessity. You will be granted exemptions from cosmic compulsion. You won’t be stymied by the oppressive inertia of the past. To state this happy turn of events more positively, you will have clearance to move and groove with daring expansiveness. Obligations and duties won’t disappear, but they’re more likely to be interesting than boring and arduous. Special dispensations and kind favors will flow more abundantly.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): One of my most enjoyable goals in life has been to expunge my “isms.” I’m pleased that I have made dramatic progress in liquidating much of the perverse cultural conditioning that imprinted me as I was growing up. I’ve largely liberated myself from racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heteronormativity, looksism and even egotism. How are you doing with that, Virgo? The coming months will be a favorable time to work on this honorable task. What habits of mind and feeling have you absorbed from the world that are not in sync with your ideals?
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here’s one of my predictions for you in 2025: You will reach the outer limits of your domain and then push on to explore beyond those limits. Here’s another prediction: You will realize with a pleasant shock that some old expectations about your destiny are too small, and soon you will be expanding those expectations. Can you handle one further mind-opening, soul-stretching prophecy? You will demolish at least one mental block, break at least one taboo and dismantle an old wall that has interfered with your ability to love.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): If you’re not married and would like to be, 2025 might be your best chance to find wedded bliss. If an existing intimate bond is less than optimal, the coming months will bring inspiration and breakthroughs to improve it. Let’s think even bigger, and speculate that you could be on the verge of all kinds of enhanced synergetic connections. I bet business and artistic partnerships will thrive if you want them to. Links to valuable resources will be extra available if you work to refine your skills at collaboration and togetherness.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I wonder how you will feel about the fact that I’m declaring 2025 the Year of the Muses for Sagittarians. Will you be happy that I expect you to be flooded with provocative clues from inspiring influences? Or will you regard the influx of teachings and revelations as chaotic, confusing or inconvenient? In the hope you adopt my view, I urge you to expand your understanding of muses. They may be intriguing people and might also take the form of voices in your head, ancestral mentors, beloved animals, famous creators or spirit guides.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Astrologers in ancient China had the view that over two-thirds of all omens are negative, or scary. I haven’t seen research into modern Western stargazers, but evidence suggests they tend to be equally pessimistic. I regard this as an unjustified travesty. My studies have shown there is no such thing as an inherently ominous astrological configuration. All portents are revelations about how to successfully wrangle our problems, ameliorate suffering, find redemption and perform ingenious tweaks that liberate us. They always have the potential to help us discover the deeper meanings beneath our experiences. Everything I just said is essential for you in 2025.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): A few people who don’t know me well have accused me of “overthinking.” They are wrong. While I aspire to always be open to constructive criticism, I am sure that I don’t think too much. Not all my thoughts are magnificent, original and high quality, of course; some are generated by fear and habit. However, I meticulously monitor the flow of all my thoughts and am skilled at knowing which ones I should question or not take seriously. The popular adage, “Don’t believe everything you think” is one of my axioms. In 2025, I invite you to adopt my approach. Go right ahead and think as much as you want, even as you heighten your awareness of which of your thoughts are excellent and which are not.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I’m pleased that your homecoming is well under way. All the signs suggest that as 2025 unfolds, you will ripen the processes of deepening your roots and building a stronger foundation. As a result, I expect your levels of domestic bliss will reach unprecedented heights. You may even create a sense of loving yourself exactly as you are and feeling like you truly belong to the world you are surrounded by. I dare you to cultivate more peace of mind than you have ever managed to. I double-dare you to update traditions whose emotional potency has waned.
Deadline for Telegraph classified ads is Tuesday at noon.
Ads are a bargain at 10 cents a character with a $5 minimum.
Even better, ads can now be placed online: durangotelegraph.com Prepayment is required via cash, credit card or check. (Sorry, no refunds or substitutions.)
Ads can be submitted via: n durangotelegraph.com n classifieds@durango telegraph.com n 970-259-0133
Announcements
Applications for Advanced Standing
MSW Program Students with a bachelor’s degree in social work (BSW) are eligible for a one-year Masters of Social Work program through the University of Denver. The program starts summer 2025 and classes are taught in Durango. Stipends for child welfare, integrated behavioral health care are available. Native American tuition support to eligible students is also available. For more info contact Janelle.Doughty@du.edu or www.du. edu/socialwork.
Lost/found
My Cat Cid is Missing
Long hair, white with black spots, green eyes. Last seen near 18th St. and E. 2nd Ave., by St. Columba. Reward. Call 970-403-6192
MeetMarket
Very Kind and Understanding straight white male, 40s, nonsmoker, in shape!! New to Durango area, hoping to find single woman who have the time to make the trip to Purgatory for ''snow
tubing.'' Email or call Jim: Awsomejim 3000@gmail.com or call 719-985-1935
ForSale
Dry Firewood
Pick up or delivery. Call Gabe, 970403-2784 .
Reruns
Home Furnishings
Lots of new furniture/cool furnishings for home, office or dorm. Nightstands, coffee tables, kitchenwares, rugs and more. Also looking to consign smaller furniture pieces. 572 E. 6th Ave. Open Mon.-Sat. 385-7336.
Seasoned Firewood
Cedar, piñon, oak – delivery and stack available. Text 9707596900 for pricing.
ForRent
Professional Offices Downtown
near Main Ave, sunlit patio with Buckley Park views. Lease terms negotiable. 970.247.1233
Wanted
Wanted: Vintage License Plates
Cash paid based on age/rarity/condition/etc. Call or text Colin: 970-3677594
Female Seeking Home Share
Excellent references. 970-759-9287.
Cash for Vehicles, Copper, Alum
Etc. at RJ Metal Recycle. Also free appliance and other metal drop off. 970259-3494.
Books Wanted at White Rabbit
Donate/trade/sell (970) 259-2213
Services
Lowest Prices on Storage!
Inside/outside storage near Durango and Bayfield. 10-x-20, $130. Outside spots: $65, with discounts available. RJ
Mini Storage. 970-259-3494.
Chapman Electric 970-403-6670
Specializing in all things electrical. Colorado state licensed and insured
Need Repairs, Remodels or Renovations? Durango Wrangler quality constr. 970-708-7451
Boiler Service - Water Heater
Serving Durango over 30 years. Brad, 970-759-2869. Master Plbg Lic #179917
Electric Repair
Roof, gutter cleaning, fence, floors, walls, flood damage, mold, heating service.
HaikuMovieReview
BodyWork
Massage by Meg Bush LMT, 30, 60 & 90 min., 970-759-0199.
CommunityService
SWCO Men’s Cancer Advocacy group Stay connected and avoid isolation during your cancer journey. Meet-up will provide a space where participants can give and receive support. Open to all cancer warriors and their caregivers. If interested, contact Phil Campbell at Cancer Support Community Southwest Colorado at hope@cancersupportswco.org or call 970-403-3711 .
Engaging Volunteer Opportunity Alternative Horizons in need of volunteers to staff our hotline. Training and support provided. For more info., visit al ternativehorizons.org
‘Snack Shack’ The best movie of 2024 that you’ve never heard about – Lainie Maxson
