10 minute read
Media
All the Feels
A FEW RECOMMENDATIONS FOR RECKONING WITH HISTORY, CLIMATE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION
| BY JENNIE LAY
Spring is hot and cold, sunny and snowy. These days, we never know if we should laugh or cry. So, here’s a suggested media list for all your moods during this unpredictable season. No matter which way you look, listen, scroll or read, the horizon is going to look a little more interesting.
READ LOCAL
“Ray Heid: Man Behind the Duster” By Ray Heid with Irene Barba
Among his notable skills, fourth-generation local Ray Heid makes a mean telemark turn in his famous elk hide duster. He also spins a yarn like few other storytellers. Heid grew up the son of Steamboat’s lone grocer in the 1940s, was a big hill ski jumper in the 1950s, then a ski business leader in the industry’s founding days. Today, he continues to guide on the family’s outfitting ranch in Clark. You’re as likely to find him on horseback as skis, but either way he’s got a ‘boat-load of history and perspective to share with his hometown. Thankfully, he’s found a way to share a lot of it in vignettes and photos that are as charming on the page as Heid is in person. It’s the story of a man, and a community, in constant movement. This skiing cowboy is no myth; “Ray Heid: Man Behind the Duster” honors us with the voice of a legend.
Watch for a live community author talk and book signing at Bud Werner Library once gathering restrictions ease – likely winter 2022!
READ GLOBAL
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert (who visited Steamboat in 2017 to share her insights on “The Sixth Extinction”) is back with stories about how humans continue to creep into every aspect of the planet’s natural mechanisms and landing us in the Anthropocene. There are limits to what we can save and engineer, but that doesn’t mean we won’t try. Read about super coral, electrifying rivers, turning carbon emissions into stone and shooting diamond dust into the stratosphere to deflect the sun. Alas, that solar geoengineering leaves us down here on Earth “under a white sky.” Will defying nature continue to work? Invention, intervention and consequences collide in Kolbert’s brilliant, and important, new book.
READ HISTORY
“Four Hundred Souls” Edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
Absorb the stories alone. Read it as a family. Expand your truths of American history, and discuss this book widely. Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain have assembled 90 brilliant writers to stitch together a poignant 400-year “community history” of African Americans, told in fiveyear increments. The tome is a bestseller for a very good reason. Absorb diverse perspectives of resistance, struggle, hope and reinvention, and keep it close for future reference.
LISTEN TO NATURE
TreeFM
Listen to a random forest. When you can’t get out in the woods, let nature come to you. Bathe your ears in the relaxing rustle and sway of trees and their living, breathing, chirping forest ecosystems recorded all over the world. Maybe it will even spur you to reach out and protect one. https://www.tree.fm
Beast Box
Be a wildlife DJ. Brooklyn-based beatboxer Ben Mirin samples animal sounds all over the world, then layers his loops to make groovy ecosystem-inspired recordings: elephants in the Okavango Delta, bobcats in the Sonoran Desert, indris in Madagascar. Pick your natural beat. Layer in your species. Unlock Beast Mode by adding five animals from the same ecosystem. Admire the hip animation and learn cool stuff. You’re creating wild new hip hop. https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/features/beastbox
While we were paying attention to American election politics during the past year, most of us probably missed the unfolding election drama in Uganda. In a nutshell, the country’s biggest pop star, Bobi Wine, was attempting to oust revolutionary leader Yoweri Museveni and end a 30-year legacy of corruption and brutality. This story of democracy vs. dictator is told in eight episodes of “The Messenger,” although the truecrimes legacy continues to unfold. The production is five-star, and the music is so stellar. Uganda’s brutal campaign season and election are stitched together with a whole lot of African history and U.S. context. Big kudos to the exceptional host, Somali-American rapper Bas, and the skilled reporters and brave sources on the ground in East Africa. This is suck-you-in documentary podcasting at its best. www.dreamville.com/themessengerpod
At press time, there were five seasons of “Drilled,” with promise of a sixth focused on plastics ready to drop any day. Binge them all. Independent climate journalist Amy Westervelt relentlessly investigates the fossil fuel industry and the corporate-funded propaganda machine that spread climate change denial. She bills it as “an investigative true-crime podcast about climate change,” where she takes us down deeply reported rabbit holes like the “Mad Men of Climate Denial,” the decades-long debacle between Chevron and indigenous people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and the California crab fishermen who get entangled with whales and became unlikely climate activists suing big oil. Perhaps the most jaw-dropping revelations came out during what felt like rapid, whack-a-mole reporting during COVID-19, as Westervelt released an entire pop-up season that became “There Will Be Fraud” as she tracked the industry’s accumulation of pandemic subsidies and attempts to flout regulation. Climate change is real. This is how we got here. www.drillednews.com/podcast-2
Beware of the ear worm in the theme music. But don’t let that scare you, because these are critical young leaders in the climate and social justice movement working to overhaul our fossil fuel economy. We absolutely need to hear their voices, their ideas, their insecurities. Season one of the “Generation Green New Deal” podcast gives us 10 episodes (with the promise of more to come, along with a documentary film), enlightening us about a generational and environmental conversation that anyone over age 22 might be missing. The climate crisis is at the heart of the Generation Green New Deal youth movement, and the fighters are fierce, www.eyecare-specialties.com
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motivated and mad as heck. Their base is growing fast, and they’re forcing change and shifting politics. Ignoring them is destined to be the peril of the establishment, and the planet. www.generationgreennewdeal.com/podcast
You’re not alone if you’re feeling a little snarky about The Boss and The President sitting down at a mic with a bunch of guitars and calling themselves “renegades.” Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama are powerful, influential, wealthy men. But they both come from humble beginnings, and their friendship has spawned some meaningful conversations about money, family, race and music that just might make your next family road trip a little more interesting. Production values are high on “Renegades,” just as you’d expect, and there are definitely some glittering tales of Americana tucked inside the messages of hope and compassion that two smart men share over the course of eight episodes. Only on Spotify
WATCH
We’ve been inundated with iconic footage of the stage at Woodstock for five decades. Turns out, we’ve been missing a real gem from the summer of 1969: the Harlem Cultural Festival. Meticulously shot reels from multiple studio cameras have been sitting in a basement for 50 years. Thank the music gods that Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson resurrected them for his directorial debut, an effort that won “Summer of Soul” both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize at January’s Sundance Film Festival. The documentary features neverbefore-seen concert performances by B.B. King, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Mahalia Jackson, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder and more. The film also gives us a joyful and deep appreciation of Black life in America. This is essential, irresistible music history that’s destined to make you question where it’s been all your life. If you seek out one movie this season, make it “Summer of Soul.” Find it July 2 on Hulu and in theaters
REMODELING SPECIALISTS
FOLLOW
Raise the bar on what feeds your scrolling. Make three solid additions to your Instagram.
Perseverance
Watch the interplanetary drama unfold in real time as NASA’s cheeky Martian rover and its helicopter sidekick (the Ingenuity) share their scientific secrets, travel adventures and selfies from the red planet. The bio on Mars Rover’s “first person” Instagram account says it all: “Hobbies: Photography, collecting rocks, off-roading.” @perseverance.mars
Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards
The Comedy Wildlife Photo organizers are promoting “conservation through competition.” The result is photographers all over the world immortalizing myriad wildlife, ranging from tiny bugs to Serengeti megafauna, in some pretty hilarious moments. These are animals captured in compromising, awkward, introspectiveseeming positions that beg your anthropomorphic captions. The images are exactly what you and your funny bone need to stumble upon day after day. @comedywildlifephoto
Project 562
Matika Wilbur is documenting all 562 federally-recognized Native American tribes in the United States. As an acclaimed photographer, she set out to change representation and conversation about how we see contemporary Native America. Wilbur is Swinomish and Tulalip, and she’s on a multi-year mission to travel and photograph Indian Country from Alaska to Arizona to Cape Cod, changing the way we view lives and experiences of indigenous communities through her stunning images and storytelling. Her authentic portraits are moving and empowering, transforming a visual conversation into a modern appreciation. @project_562 525 LINCOLN AVE. • ACROSS FROM THE OLD COURTHOUSE 970-870-6658
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