Musicians supporting artists -- and vice versa

Wyomingarts is seeing more organizations in the Mountain West that are finding new and interesting ways to support artists and the arts. The above poster by Randy Pijoan promotes the June 22 performance by Widespread Panic at the Taos (N.M.) Solar Music Festival. All proceeds from poster sales will go to the Ventero Open Press non-profit organization in San Luis, Colo., which provides arts education, scholarships, art supplies and exhibition opportunities for both emerging and established artists. Check it out. Buy a poster.

Buffalo Bill Historical Center competes in the EPA’s “Battle of the Buildings”

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center has been selected to participate in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Energy Star National Building Competition: Battle of the Buildings to help improve the energy efficiency of commercial buildings and protect the environment. In the spirit of popular weight-loss competitions, the Historical Center will battle it out against hundreds of other teams from buildings across the country to work off the waste through improvements in energy efficiency with help from EPA’s Energy Star program.

“The Buffalo Bill Historical Center is honored to be a part of this competition,” says Phil Anthony, operating engineer at the Center and a leader of its sustainability program. “We are committed to continuing to improve our energy efficiency and we look forward to seeing how we measure up against other buildings across the nation.”

--snip--

According to EPA, energy use in commercial buildings accounts for nearly 20 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and energy use at a cost of more than $100 billion per year. On average, 30 percent of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted. Thousands of businesses and organizations work with EPA’s Energy Star program and are saving billions of dollars and preventing millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions from entering our atmosphere each year.

To watch the competition unfold, visit www.energystar.gov/BattleOfTheBuildings. More information on the Buffalo Bill Historical Center can be found by exploring www.bbhc.org.

Celebrate Earth Day at Wyoming State Museum

From a SPCR press release:

Twelve organizations will be on hand to teach youth about conservation, recycling, ecology and other outdoor issues during a celebration of Earth Day on Saturday, April 24, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., on the grounds of the Barrett Building, 2301 Central Avenue in Cheyenne.

Hosted by the Wyoming State Museum, the Earth Day celebration is an educational family event that will include a scavenger hunt, free t-shirts for the kids, face painting and refreshments.

Numerous area organizations will have booths on the lawn each addressing various issues related to the environment. Each booth will provide an activity for children.

Organizations expected to be in attendance are the Wyoming State Museum; State Museum Volunteers; Wyoming Division of State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails; Department of Environmental Quality; Bureau of Land Management; Greater Cheyenne Greenway; and the Laramie County Conservation District.

Others include Wyoming Association for Environmental Education; Laramie County Community College Range and Wildlife Club; LCCC Wind Energy; Cheyenne Botanic Gardens Paul Smith Children’s Village; and the Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming.

Also supporting the event are KGWN TV; Warren Federal Credit Union; the Wildlife Heritage Foundation of Wyoming; and Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power.

The event is free of charge and open to all ages.

For more information about this and other State Museum programs, please call 777-7022.

Gillette's AVA Center celebrates Earth Week

Chris Paine: "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

Filmmaker Chris Paine will speak on Thursday, April 8, 7:30 p.m., in the Fine Arts Concert Hall at University of Wyoming in Laramie. His presentation is part of the Shepard Symposium on Social Justice.

Chris Paine is a filmmaker and environmentalist living in Los Angeles. "Who Killed the Electric Car?" premiered at the Sundance in 2006 before its worldwide release by Sony Pictures Classics. Chris also produced "Faster" with Ewan McGregor about the world's fastest motorcycle race, and "No Maps For These Territories," a road trip with cyberpunk author, William Gibson and featuring U2 front-man, Bono.

Outside of film, Chris was an early player in California’s dotcom boom with his firm Internet Outfitters. His company Mondo-tronics, provided materials for the Mars Pathfinder mission. Paine’s activist work includes campaigns to protect forests and to curb US nuclear programs. He supports the Black Rock Arts Foundation, the Rainforest Action Network and Plug-In America. His website is available at http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/

Chris's talk is entitled, "How many lightbulbs does it take to plug in the electric car?" and is about the politics, activism, zeitgeist and cold hard business reasons for return of the electric car . This presentation begins with a quick recap of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and the reasons for its rise and fall in 1990s California. It then picks up where the first documentary left off and presents the reason for the incredible turn of events for the electric car as we are chronicling in "Revenge of the Electric Car."

FMI: http://outreach.uwyo.edu/conferences/justice/

Jackson Hole Wildife Film Festival kicks off International Earth Week

Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival will be held on Sunday, April 18, noon-7 p.m., in the Center Theater at the Center for the Arts, 265 S. Cache St., Jackson. Free and open to the public.

The Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival kicks off Jackson Hole's local celebration of International Earth Week with a day-long EarthFilm Festival in the Center Theater.

Films will target families (noon-2 p.m.), focus on plastics (2-4 p.m.), and look at our local Sustainability Project (4-6 p.m.), including the premier screening of the film "One Less Bottle," and a screening of Teton Gravity Research’s latest film. "Generations."

Several speakers also will be presented throughout the day. Dancers' Workshop will perform a recycling/plastics-inspired piece. A student percussion ensemble will perform a work using recycled five-gallon plastic buckets. And the Art Association will lead a recycled art project for kids and sell hand-made ceramic bowls – thereby reducing the use of disposable bowls.

Jackson Whole Grocer will sell concessions throughout the day, local conservation groups will have information booths in the theater lobby, and the Jackson Sustainability Project will give an update on its progress and goals.

In addition, a small "herd" of elk (see photo above)– constructed from recycled plastic bottles by an estimated 350 students from throughout the valley – will be exhibited during the festival, before they "migrate" to the EcoFair at Powderhorn Park the following weekend, and then to the Recycling Center.

Contact the Wildlife Film Festival for additional details at http://www.jhfestival.org/ or 307-733-7016.

Call for entries: 2010 Green Book Festival

From a press release:

The 2010 Green Book Festival has issued the call for entries to its annual competition honoring books that contribute to greater understanding, respect and positive action on the changing worldwide environment.

The 2010 Green Book Festival will consider published, self-published and independent publisher works in the following categories: non-fiction, fiction, children's books, teenage, how-to, audio/spoken word, comics/graphic novels, poetry, science fiction/horror, biography/autobiography, gardening, cookbooks, animals, photography/art, e-books, wild card (anything goes!), scientific, white paper, legal, business, mystery and spiritual.

Entries can be in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese or Italian. Our grand prize for the 2010 Green Book Festival Author of the Year is $1500 and transportation to our April 30-May 2, 2010 outdoor festival in Los Angeles as part of the LA Garden Show OR an equivalent amount donated in your name to the environmental charity of your choice.

A panel of judges will determine the winners based on the following criteria:
1) The overall writing style and presentation of the work;
2) The potential of the work to enhance understanding of the environment and its issues;

TO ENTER: Entry forms are available online at http://www.greenbookfestival.com or may be faxed/e-mailed to you by emailing GreenBookFestival@sbcglobal.net or calling our office at 323-665-8080.

Q: "How da body?" A: "Body fine."

"How da body?"

"Body fine."

If your body's fine, you're fine. That's the view of Liberians, anyway, who greet each other in this way.

William Rogers remembered this when he returned to Liberia earlier this year after a ten-year absence. He wasn't so good about duplicating the country's traditional "snap-shake." As he described it in a July 19 Washington Post column:

After a regular handclasp, each person uses the other's middle finger to snap his own. The result is a satisfying double pop. But I'd been out of Liberia too long. My snap-shake wouldn't snap. "Keep tryin'," he [an immigration official] said.

"Keep tryin'. " Good advice for people practicing snap-shakes -- and for writers.

Bill Powers now lives in New York City and is one of the presenters at the Casper College Literary Conference that continues through Saturday. He's published two books and has a third on the way. His first book, "Blue Clay People: Seasons on Africa's Fragile Edge," chronicled his two years working for Catholic Relief Services during Liberia's civil war. Charles Taylor became infamous instigating and then perpetuating the war that went on for 14 years.

Bill presented images from Liberia at his literary conference talk Thursday evening. One showed the view from his CRS office. Young Liberians fired automatic weapons at an unseen enemy holed up in a bombed out cityscape. Death and torture were endemic. Bill told this grisly true story from the war. Taylor's soldiers cut open a man's belly and pulled out his intestines. The soldiers stretched the intestines across a road and gave the end to his daughter to hold. She was warned not to drop it. If she did, she would be killed. Her father yelled at her not to drop it. She held on as her father died.

Amongst the mayhem, Bill discovered "an unbelievable joy and lightheartedness -- joy in being alive." He reminded the audience that there's more to any story than what's happening on the surface. To illustrate, he showed photos of young boys surfing Liberian waves and [people clapping in church. Some kids were being killed -- and some child soldiers were doing the killing. But some kids were playing ball and having fun.

Bill said that he filled up lots of journals while in Liberia. He didn't try to fashion those into a book until he was reassigned to La Paz, Bolivia. He submitted the manuscript to a hotshot book doctor in NYC and she didn't like it. Bill let the manuscript sit for awhile and then tried some small literary presses. Three of them responded favorably and one -- Chicago Review Press -- even made an offer.

But someone told him to get an agent. He did. The agent offered the book at auction. To his surprise, Bill received a huge advance and quit the world of international relief to write full-time.

But those two things have a lot in common.

"Writing and action can help make real change," he said. He outlined "three lessons he learned by living abroad: trust your own truth; we live in one world now; and ideas can change the world."

All of these could apply to any artistic discipline, writing especially.

"Words are worms that can burrow into people's minds and change them," he said.

While we were mulling over that imagery, he told the story of his second book, "Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from Bolivia's War on Globalization." Bolivia's glaciers were disappearing as quickly as its bountiful rain forests. "There is no skiing in Bolivia any more," he said, noting that the country's glaciers have retreated away from the skiing areas.

But the rain forests are being saved. Preservationists bought out five companies which were logging the forests, creating a huge preserve that butts up against another one across the border in Brazil. Indigenous tribes were able to reclaim land for a reservation on the western side of the new Bolivian preserve. Not every battle ended in success, but progress was being made through this idea of "carbon ranching."

When Bill's book came out, Bill thought he'd been fair to the international conglomerates who'd gone from despoiling Bolivian land to assisting in its preservation.

Not so. They complained about the book and the publisher pulled the book for six months. This is a terrible thing to happen to a new book. Bookstores give it only a few months to sell and then its off the shelves for something new.

The book is available again. But Bill received some schooling on the dynamism of raw power.

Bill will be at the conference through Saturday. You can buy his books at this evening's presentation by Tim Sandlin and Linda Hasselstrom at 7:30 p.m. at Durham Hall.

And don't forget the chili social and WAC creative writing fellowship poetry reading beginning at noon on Saturday. Fellowship recipients Sam Renken, Lori Van Pelt and David Zoby will be reading with fellowship judge Greg Pape.

Mike Shay, at the Casper College Literary Conference