Aspen Institute Upcoming events July August 2010

Aspen and Snowmass are unique for the variety and quality of events offered in the Rocky Mountains. Combine that with last minute lodging specials in Aspen and Snowmass and there is nothing like the value that our unique resort offers visitors.

Monday, July 26 Waste Land
NEW VIEWS: Premiere Documentaries Presented with Aspen Film
Equal parts surprise and inspiration, director Lucy Walker’s stunning Waste Land follows celebrated Brazilian artist Vik Muniz on his journey to a most unusual studio site. Muniz works a large social canvas, creating photographic images of people using found materials from the places where they live and work. This latest project takes him to Rio de Janiero and Jardim Gramacho, one of the largest garbage dumps in the world. There he photographs and collaborates with an eclectic band of catadores, local pickers of recyclable materials. Audience Award Winner at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals earlier this year, Waste Land celebrates art’s transformative power and the richness of the human spirit. Director Lucy Walker will be featured in post-film discussion. Paepcke Auditorium, 8:00 pm.
Tickets: $16 www.aspenshowtickets.com or (970) 920-5770.

Aspen Environment Forum, July 25-28
Bridges to Sustainability: People, Planet, Possibility
A limited number of forum and day passes are available for the Aspen Environment Forum – a powerful event examining the future of the environment and what we can do about it as citizens, corporations, and countries. Forum and day passes and list of speakers available at www.aspenenvironment.org


Monday, July 26
Aspen Environment Forum
Rethinking the News presented with The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, PBS NewsHour and National Geographic magazine. Featuring Jon Sawyer, founding director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting; Fred de Sam Lazaro, special correspondent for PBS NewsHour; and Dennis Dimick, executive editor for the environment at National Geographic.
Doerr-Hosier Center, 8:00 pm.
Tickets: $20 www.aspenshowtickets.com or (970) 920-5770.

Tuesday, July 27
Aspen Environment Forum
Diving Deep—the Blue Holes of the Bahamas
National Geographic magazine photographer Wes Skiles and a scientific team swam hundreds of feet through narrow, dark passages that have trapped and killed divers in the past. A screening of a National Geographic/NOVA television special about these caves will be followed by a panel discussion on the challenges of filming and photographing in this extreme environment and the intriguing clues from the past that are changing scientists’ perceptions of ancient life in this part of the world.
Paepcke Auditorium, 8:00 pm.
Tickets: $20 www.aspenshowtickets.com or (970) 920-5770.

Wednesday, July 28
McCloskey Speaker Series
A Conversation with Dr. Vartan Gregorian moderated by Elliot Gerson, Executive Vice President of The Aspen Institute. Vartan Gregorian is president of the Carnegie Corporation. Formerly the president of Brown University and the New York Public Library, Gregorian is the and author of The Road To Home: My Life And Times, Islam: A Mosaic, Not A Monolith, and The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 1880-1946.
Paepcke Auditorium, 6:30-7:30 pm.
Tickets: $15 www.aspenshowtickets.com or (970) 920-5770.

Thursday, July 29
Pre-Primary Candidate Forum
Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners District 1 and Sheriff
All of the candidates for the District 1 seat on the Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners and for Sheriff plan to participate. The Forum is being organized by the Pitkin County Democratic Party and the Pitkin County Republicans. Sponsors: Aspen Chamber Resort Association, Aspen Daily News, Aspen Institute, Aspen Public Radio, Aspen Times, GrassRootsTV
Koch Building at the Aspen Institute, 5:30pm – 7:35pm
Free and open to the public.

Friday, July 30
McCloskey Speaker Series
The Promise: President Obama, Year One
Jonathan Alter is a senior editor at Newsweek, where, since 1991, he has written an acclaimed column on politics, history, media, and society at large. He is also an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News. Alter will speak about his new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One (May 2010, Simon & Schuster). Paepcke Auditorium, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 www.aspenshowtickets.com or (970) 920-5770.

Tuesday, August 3
McCloskey Speaker Series
Ambassador Peter Galbraith
Peter W. Galbraith was chosen in March 2009 to be the United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan. However, Galbraith abruptly left the country in mid-September 2009 at the request of UN Special Representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide following a dispute over the handling of the reported fraud in the 2009 Afghan presidential election. Formerly Ambassador to Croatia, Galbraith wrote Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened America’s Enemies.
Paepcke Auditorium, 6:30- 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 www.aspenshowtickets.com or (970) 920-5770.

Saturday, August 7
17th Annual Summer Celebration
Featuring a Conversation with Public Service Awardees Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Jim Lehrer, executive editor and anchor of The PBS NewsHour, to be followed by a benefit dinner chaired by Soledad and Bob Hurst.
5:00 pm Conversation - Greenwald Pavilion.
Tickets: $35 www.aspenshowtickets.com or (970) 920-5770.
6:30 pm Reception & Dinner - Doerr-Hosier Center.
Tickets: www.aspeninstitute.org/summercelebration or (970) 544-7925.

Friday, August 13
An Evening with Mona Simpson in Conversation with Walter Isaacson
Presented by The Aspen Writers’ Foundation, a program of the Aspen Institute. Simpson will talk about her latest novel My Hollywood, “a tender, witty, and resonant novel” about the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood.
Paepcke Auditorium, 5:00pm
Tickets: $15 www.aspenshowtickets.com or (970) 920-5770

Wednesday, August 18
Earthjustice and the Sierra Club presents a free screening of Coal Country in association with The Aspen Institute Coal Country is a dramatic look at the struggle that is modern coal mining.
Passions are running high in the mountains of Appalachia. Families and communities are deeply split over what is being done to their land. At issue is the latest form of strip mining: mountaintop removal. Coal companies blast the tops off mountains, and run the debris into valleys and streams. Families have lived in the region for generations, and most have ancestors who worked in the mines. The promises of "cheap energy" and "clean coal" are coming at a cost to the land and the people of Appalachia.
Paepcke Auditorium, 8:00 pm
Free and open to everyone.