Longtime local, Art Goodtimes, has been a staple in the Telluride community not only as a former County Commissioner for San Miguel County but as a poet and writer. Art serves as the Master of Ceremonies and poet laureate of the Telluride Mushroom Festival. Additionally, Art is the Founder and Director of Talking Gourds. In 2010, he was named the first Western Slope Poet Laureate at the first annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival in Carbondale. Art's multitude of literary accomplishments also includes longtime journalist and editor for Telluride Watch and Cortez’s Four Corners Free Press, as well as poetry editor of several publications, including Fungi magazine, Mountain Gazette, Wild Earth, and more.
Recent dream?
From my bedside dream journal:
“Got noticeably drunk after two Porters (Longboard & Cutthroat) & three or so pours of Jimbo’s scotch & dreamt I was sitting beside a lovely short (like me) brown-skinned woman with bright red lips (I of course hate lipstick, although it was a minor annoyance in this case). We both kept leaning into one another as we spoke. Finally I found myself nuzzling up to her neck, inhaling her fragrance & totally turned on. I looked right at her & asked her for a date & she said yes...”
Tea or coffee?
I sip a hot drink every morning made by pouring boiling water into a blend of roasted beet, barley & dandelion powder, a tablespoon of Valrhona unsweetened Chocolate, a couple scoops of Erythritol, two droppers of Chocolate Raspberry Stevia, a dollop or two of organic cow’s cream, and two capsules of powdered mycelia – Stamets 7: Royal Sun Blazei (Agaricus brasiliensis), Cordyceps, Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum sI), Maitake (Grifola frondosa), Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceous), Chaga (Inonotus obliquus), and Mesima (Phellinus linteus)
Favorite verse?
“Ultimately the air / Is bare sunlight where must be found / The lyric valuables” – Geo. Oppen
Bird or beast?
Simba, Mary’s dog that I care for.
If not yourself, who would you be?
Out of my mind
Last gift you gave someone?
A bouquet of flowers from my garden
Are you a hunter or a gatherer?
As Silverton wise woman Dolores LaChapelle explained to us at the Telluride Mushroom Festival one year, “This is a hunter-gatherer event, a throwback to the Paleolithic.”
I love to hunt mushrooms and gather them for the kitchen.
Favorite color?
“…and the blue bleak embers, ah my dear, fall, gall themselves and gash goldvermillion” -Hopkins
Funniest thing that has happened to you recently?
A Montrose fellow came to Norwood to fix my driver’s side car window after a Bear Creek bear shattered it -- Iooking for food I guess (it was empty). I got up before sunrise to meet him. When I finally heard something in my driveway, I went out to check and he already had the replacement finished. The window worked great. But after he drove away, I couldn’t get the indoor driver’s side door handle to work. For the next two weeks I left the window open, having closed myself in numerous times only to have to turn the car back on, roll down the window, and let myself out. My repairman came back to Norwood and started working on the door. When I came out to see how it was going, he showed me that, now, the outdoor driver’s side car door handle didn’t work either … We drove it to a local shop.
Best inspiration?
Denver-based Blue Kudu’s Isle of Capri, 10 mg
Main fault?
The San Andreas
Do you get writer's block?
Personally, I like to tackle a piece of writing as a floating city that I climb into & wander around in, rather than getting hung up block to block
How is your personality reflected in your work?
As clearly as cut glass,
and just as dangerous