Ear to the ground

“Guess what Dad?I just went poop, and so did mom!”

-A local 3-year-old making a full-volume announcement inside a crowded Durango restaurant

A-LP for public consumption

“Cowboys, Indians & Lawyers” is landing on the big screen. The documentary on Durango’s Animas-La Plata project will be broadcast on Rocky Mountain PBS as part of its prime time fall line-up.

Eight years in the making, “Cowboys, Indians & Lawyers” is an intimate portrait of the clash between old West and new, as both sides struggle over the fate of the free-flowing Animas River. Filmmaker Julia Dengel, an expatriate New Yorker, became obsessed with A-LP when she moved to Durango and found the headlines dominated by the huge project.

“Coming from New York City, I found in A-LP a counter-intuitive mix of everything Western: Indian tribes, a dry landscape, farmers, developers, politicians, river runners,” Dengel said. “But the lines were drawn in ways I wouldn’t expect. I wanted to find out who and what forces were behind this massively ambitious plan to funnel a natural river into economic ventures.”

Dengel said she hopes that the picture will give an insider view of the people and relationships behind the long-standing fight surrounding A-LP. Beyond that, she said that she believes the battle over power and water provides an intimate portrait of American politics and modern Anglo-Indian relations.

The film will show on Rocky Mountain PBS on Thurs., Sept. 7 at 9 p.m.

The art of coffee

The coffee bean has inspired much more than all-night pushes to get out weekly newspapers. The second annual Durango Coffee Festival is hoping to capture a little of this artistic zing for this year’s event, scheduled for Sept. 9 on Main Avenue.

The event’s sponsor, the Durango Adult Education Center, is seeking artists to submit two-dimensional coffee-inspired art pieces. The submitted art will be juried by the Coffee Festival participants during the event, with first place taking home $100 and second place scoring a coffee gift basket.

Art pieces must be submitted by Aug. 15 to the Durango Adult Education Center at 301 E. 12th Street. Call 385-4354 Ext. 18 for details.