Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Arts
More jock than artist, more adventurer than poet, Colorado isn't the most obvious
candidate for a flourishing arts scene. But a convergence of key ingredients - tran-
scendent natural beauty, a scrappy history and inspiration - has fostered great per-
formances, literary movements and works of art well worth contemplating. To boot,
the state's perfect summer weather has allowed outstanding cultural events such as
the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and Aspen Music Festival to take the arts out into
the open air.
THE LITERARY CANON
Colorado's rebellious literary soul was led by the late, great Hunter S Thompson, author of
Fear & Loathing in Las
Vegas
. Here's a man who ran for sheriff on the Freak Power Ticket and made his name by hanging with the Hells
Angels, heckling Nixon and downing experimental drug cocktails. Eventually he committed suicide and had his
ashes blasted out of a canon. His favorite hangout, the tavern in Woody Creek, has become a fan pilgrimage site of
sorts.
One of Thompson's inspirations was Jack Kerouac, who also did some time on Colorado's freight trains and
downbeat street corners. Another Beat writer (and Pulitzer Prize winner) with a lasting impact is Allen Ginsberg.
The author of
Howl
was a founding poet of Jack Kerouac's School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University,
where Ginsberg taught for more than two decades.
Of course, there's still a mainstream literary scene. Stephen King has set several of his bestsellers in Colorado (
The Stand, The Shining, Misery
), Wallace Stegner's masterpiece
Angle of Repose
is partly set in Leadville, and
local Craig Childs has some fantastic books about the Southwest, from hairy wildlife stories in
Animal Dialogues
to the Anasazi in
House of Rain
. Set in eastern Colorado,
Plainsong,
by Kent Haruf, was a finalist in the National
Book Award. And then there's good old Louis L'Amour.
