It came from outer space: UFO symposium convenes

When it comes to whether or not you believe in UFOs, it seems open-mindedness makes the difference. But then there are those who get all up in your face to insist that UFOs, piloted by aliens, are here and watching us. You'd get uppity too if you were kidnapped to outer space, probed by cold alien equipment and then returned home with no scars to show for your ordeal other than the hidden mental kind that are only exacerbated by the fact that nobody will listen.

As the 40th International UFO Symposium lands in Denver, Colorado today, those people will finally find themselves surrounded by plenty of believing faces -- maybe even alien spies.

The event, presented by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) at the Marriott Denver Tech Center, runs through August 9. It is, in the words of its organizers, "an annual gathering of some of the top speakers in their respective fields presenting evidence and research concerning new UFO sightings in the U.S. and Canada, the scientific search for extraterrestrial life, UFO photo analysis, and why we still struggle with full disclosure on this highly controversial subject."

So... are they nuts? It's the first question everyone who knows I'm working on the story asks me. It's underlying everything I read, pro and con, and the questions I ask James P. Carrion, MUFON's International Director.

"We're actually skeptics ourselves," he says. Carrion is a computer expert from Bellvue, Colorado who has been involved with MUFON since 1996, and has served in his present position there for three years. "What we are not is skeptical leaning toward debunking. Too many people dismiss it outright because it doesn't fit their outlook. We want people to take the time to listen and examine the evidence."

The mission statement of MUFON declares that its purpose is "the scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity." The symposium's schedule of events includes seminars on such topics as "MUFON's 10 Step Investigation Process in Detail," "Pseudoscience of Anti-Ufology," and "Politics, Religion and Human Nature: Roadblocks on the Path to Disclosure." (Please note that the symposium is not free - see MUFON's Web site for details.)

Carrion says, "We are a public service, non-profit scientific research organization. We do quality research - we are a very professional organization." The symposium will place an emphasis this year on what is refers to as "the dawn of a new era in UFO research," according to Carrion, including new evidence, new investigation techniques, and the release of formerly classified documents that will bolster the group's databases.

An evangelical tinge seems to color the activities of ufologists. Decades of disbelief and derision have shaped the attitudes of those who assert that the proof of extraterrestrial visits to Earth is there for those whose eyes aren't closed to the possibility.

Take, for instance, the story of John Putnam. He was an author living in Sand Rock, Arizona who spent his evenings engaged in amateur astronomy. In June of 1953, he and his girlfriend, schoolteacher Ellen Fields, were stargazing when they witnessed what they thought was a large meteor strike in the nearby mountains.

The next day, the two hired a helicopter from the local airport to investigate the area where the object fell.

They found a large crater, and Putnam scrambled excitedly to the bottom of it. There he found what he later described as "a huge ball rammed into the side of the crater," which was buried under a rockslide shortly afterwards.

Putnam's story was disbelieved by local residents. The town newspaper ran a story with the headline, "STAR GAZER SEES MARTIANS!" A university professor Putnam convinced to examine the site declined to dig into the crater for evidence.

If this report of a UFO encounter sounds familiar, it's because it's the plot of the 1953 film, "It Came from Outer Space," written by famed science-fiction author Ray Bradbury.

You see the problem? Popular culture has already hijacked the tropes of brave scientific pioneers and the disbelieving mob. Like Bradbury's protagonist, ufologists are treated by mainstream society as prophets without honor. They are asserting what is popularly assumed to be impossible, and stand outside consensual realities.

Does it make them frauds? Not if they are sincere. There is comfort in the idea of the Unknown taking an interest in little old anthropocentric us. Famed psychiatrist Carl Jung published a book in 1959, "Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky," in which he writes, "Something is seen, but one doesn't know what. It is difficult, if not impossible, to form any correct idea of these objects because they behave not like bodies but like weightless thoughts."

But delusion takes many forms. In "It Came from Outer Space," Putnam says angrily to the professor, "I don't know what's odd and what isn't anymore. But I do know I expected you do be more open to the idea than the others. You're a man of science! ... Not witchcraft, Dr. Snell! Imagination! Willingness to believe that there's lots of things we don't know anything about!"

If it's the rest of humanity that's enchanted into disbelief, then the ufologists are braver than we can imagine. Thinking beyond the possible, looking over the edge of reality, is terrifying and thrilling at the same time. There's a sense of righteousness, too, associated with the certainty of knowing a supposedly suppressed truth - an undercurrent of thought that claims that governments and religious organizations are putting the lid on disclosing UFO information for fear that it would release their control of the public.

And is my biased perception springing from my conditioning - namely, "It Came from Outer Space"? "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"? "Contact"?

At one point in the film, Putnam says, "Can I prove it? Even to myself?" More famously, French mathematician and astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace said, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportional to its strangeness."

Meantime, MUFON sets up its exhibits and prepares for the advent of the faithful and the curious.

"MUFON continues to provide the best evidence for Unconventional Flying Objects," its press release states. "These respected speakers will provide well researched information on the scientific study of UFOs that will help you to decide for yourself."

It's like pulling teeth: eight remarkable dentists

In honor of National Tooth Fairy Day on Aug. 22, a salute to those brave men and women who work inside your mouth for a living:

Nobody likes the dentist, and it seems that dentists aren't too thrilled about their careers, either. Packed away in a periodontal purgatory among the gauze, Novocain needles, drills and other detritus of the profession are dreams, moments of glory and just plain strangeness that come to light only sporadically.

CORPSE AS BILLBOARD

London dentist Martin van Butchell was remarkable not only for his personal sense of style - on the street, he dressed all in white, rode a pony painted with purple spots, and wielded in his hand a large bone attached to his wrist by a string.

He also had a way with the ladies, if they were dead. Evidently, van Butchell's marriage contract stated he could hang on to certain properties as long as his wife Mary "remained above ground."

When she died on Jan. 14, 1775, he had her embalmed by two of the leading surgeons of the day. Clad in a lace gown, equipped with glass eyes, and kept in a case with a glass lid, Mary presided over Martin's waiting room for years, serving as a gruesome draw for inquisitive potential patients.

Van Butchell's display of his dead wife as an advertising tool lasted until a new Mrs. van B entered the scene and demanded the removal of her predecessor. Mary was taken in by the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, which housed her until her remains were destroyed in a German bombing raid during World War II. She had been on display for 167 years.
WHAT'S UP, DOC?

John Henry Holliday was a promising, highly educated dentist from Georgia when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 22. He was given only a few months to live, and he moved in the summer of 1873 to Dallas (it was then thought that the dry climate of the American Southwest was beneficial to the tubercular).

His constant cough frightened away his patients, and Holliday began gambling. He soon realized it was more profitable than pulling teeth.

By 1878, after several scrapes with the law, "Doc" Holliday stopped practicing his vocation entirely and became a professional gambler and gunman. He would participate in the famous "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" in 1881, survive it - and die peacefully in Glenwood Springs, Colorado in 1887.

AN EMPRESS RESCUED

Thomas W. Evans' migration to Paris in 1847 made him the confidant of royalty and an unacknowledged shaper of history.

His services became valued by Second Republic President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who seized power and named himself Emperor Napoleon III in 1852. During the Civil War, Evans was sent by Napoleon on a confidential diplomatic mission to determine the probable outcome of the war, as England had recognized the Confederacy and was urging France to do the same. Evans met with Lincoln and Grant, and his report staved off Gallic support for the Rebel cause.

On Sept. 2, 1870, Napoleon and his forces were crushed by the Prussian Army at the Battle of Sedan. Two days later, he was deposed. His wife, the Empress Eugenie, was threatened by mobs in front of the palace at the Tulieries. She fled with her friend Madame Lebreton to Dr. Evans' residence, at 43, Bois de Boulogne.

The next day, the two were smuggled out of the city disguised as two feeble patients of the doctor, dressed in Mrs. Evans' clothing.

Eventually, Evans and his charges successfully made their way to England, where Eugenie was reunited with her exiled husband. When Evans eventually retired and returned to America, he had accumulated over 200 honors bestowed on him by various European powers.

WINE WITHOUT THE BUZZ

Thomas Bramwell Welch immigrated to America with his family when he was nine, in 1834. A devout Methodist and abolitionist, as a young man he was part of the Underground Railroad that smuggled escaped slaves to Canada.

He was ordained as a minister at the age of 19. After losing his voice, he retrained himself as a physician, specializing in dentistry.

He was also a teetotaler. Concerned that wine's integral part in Christian communion made the ritual unsuitable for alcoholics ("an ugly episode of overindulgence" by a visiting minister to his home was a key event), he sought to perfect an unfermented grape juice as a substitute. In 1869, he discovered a way of pasteurizing it so that it remained non-alcoholic.

Oddly, churches and other customers didn't take to "Dr. Welch's Unfermented Wine" right away. 21 years later, until the leadership of his son Charles, Welch's grape juice became a national sensation.

WINNER BY A KNOCKOUT

Before nitrous oxide and ether were discovered as anesthetics, they were put to a time-honored use: as a way for medical students to get wasted. This took place at "parties" during which participants inhaled the substances and went about blithely and merrily injuring themselves, with no memories of having done so later.

In January, 1842, one such student, William A. Clarke, was home on break in Rochester, New York in January, 1842. There he used ether on the sister of one of his classmates, painlessly extracting her rotten tooth.

When Clarke later informed one of his instructors of his success, he was told that the lack of pain was probably due to "the hysterical reaction of women to pain." He dropped his experiments with the chemical.

In December 1844, traveling dentist Horace Wells, fascinated by the antics of citizens under the influence at a nitrous oxide demonstration in Hartford, Connecticut, used that gas on himself to have a molar removed without discomfort. Soon he was advertising his "painless dentistry," but a demonstration of his new technique in 1845 at Massachusetts General Hospital failed, leaving him open to ridicule.

One observer at Wells' unsuccessful demonstration was a former business partner of his, Dr. William Thomas Green Morton. He sought a stronger chemical agent for inducing unconsciousness and consulted his chemistry professor, Charles T. Jackson, who suggested ether.

On Sept. 30, 1846, Morton successfully used ether to remove a molar from his partner in practice. 16 days later, a successful public demonstration of ether at Massachusetts General made Morton famous.

Morton, Wells, and Jackson fought viciously for the title of Discoverer of Anesthesia, bringing the battle all the way to the U.S. Congress. Only the deaths of all concerned ended the controversy:

Morton died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1868; Jackson, who also claimed to have invented the telegraph and cellulose nitrate ("guncotton"), went insane in 1873 and died in an asylum seven years later.

Wells became addicted to chloroform, and ended up committing suicide in 1848 while incarcerated in Tombs Prison in New York for throwing acid on two prostitutes- slitting his femoral artery (after inhaling chloroform, of course).

A SHOCKING CONCLUSION

On Aug. 7, 1881, a drunken dock worker named George L. Smith visited the Brush Electric Light Company in Buffalo, New York. Eager to feel the reported tingling effects of proximity to an electric generator, he put his hands on it - and was promptly electrocuted.

The news of his death reached Buffalo dentist Alfred P. Southwick, who had a bright idea: electricity as a painless, more humane form of taking life than any previously conceived. After months of experiments on unwanted animals donated by the local SPCA, Southwick began to petition government officials to replace hanging with electrocution. (A chair was decided on in part due to Southwick's accustomed use of one with his dental patients.)

The New York legislature put such a law into effect on Jan 1, 1889. On Aug. 6, 1890, William Kemmler was the first man scheduled to "fry." The first attempt left Kemmler groaning as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. The supposedly painless procedure took two tries and eight long minutes.

Thomas Edison, reading a report later, cited "bungling"; George Westinghouse said, "They could have done it better with an axe."

To these observations, Southwick defiantly replied, "A party of ladies could sit in a room where an execution of this kind was going on and not see anything repulsive whatsoever. No sir, I do not consider that this will be the last execution by electricity."

He was right. Although its use has largely been abandoned worldwide, six U.S. states still allow its use.

WEST TAMED - ON PAPER

Zane Grey made the safe choice, at first. Despite his prowess on the baseball diamond - he was a star on the University of Pennsylvania team, and dreamed of a career in the majors - he followed his father into the profession of dentistry.

The year 1897 found him practicing in a tiny office at 117 W. 21st St. in Manhattan, a then-poor, immigrant-crammed neighborhood. He punctuated his dreary work week with periodic camping trips upstate; there his met his future wife Dolly. Her small inheritance and encouragement, along with conversations with his mother about his ancestors' pioneer adventures (among other things, they found Zanesville, Ohio) led him to begin writing magazine articles and novels about outdoor life and adventure in his office after hours.

After years, the effort began to pay off. Finally, he decided to escape the city, quit his profession and try writing full-time. On Sept. 27, 1904, he closed on a property in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania. Settling there, he began a prolific and profitable career as a writer of Westerns, including the classic "Riders of the Purple Sage."

THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE

Ben L. Salomon was a 26-year-old dentist from Los Angeles when he was drafted in the fall of 1940. He had attained the rank of infantry sergeant in 1942 when he was ordered to become an officer in the Dental Corps.

In May, 1943, Lieutenant Salomon was assigned to the 105th Infantry Regiment as its dental officer. On June 15, 1944, the regiment was part of the invasion of the Japanese-held island of Saipan. On June 22, Salomon, newly promoted to captain, took over for the surgeon for the Regiment's 2nd Battalion, who had been wounded in a mortar attack.

By July 7, the Japanese forces had been reduced by 90 percent, to a total of 3,000. The commanding general, Saito, ordered a last desperate mass suicide attack on the American lines - the largest in history of the war in the Pacific.

Salomon was operating an aid station 50 yards behind the lines when the attack commenced. His position was soon overwhelmed, as he fought off seven attacking Japanese soldiers while tending to the wounded. Finally, he ordered all who could retreat while he covered their escape.

The battle ended two days later. The 1st and 2nd Battalions were nearly decimated. When survivors returned to the aid station, they found Salomon's body behind a machine gun. The bodies of 98 enemy soldiers lay piled in front of him -- so many that he had been forced to pull his weapon back four times to obtain a clear field of fire. There were 76 bullet holes in Salomon's body.

After decades of persistent effort on the part of Salomon's comrades, Salomon was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously on May 1, 2002.

CULTURAMA: 'Complete (Abridged)' a triple-decker hoot at CSF

From left to right: Stephen Weitz, Geoffrey Kent and Matt Mueller in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)." (Photo by Casey A. Cass for CU Communications)

If laughs are needed anywhere, it’s at a Shakespeare festival. “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” is an idea whose time has come.

Oh, wait, it was created in 1987.

Well, it’s an idea . . . let’s see . . . an idea. Yes. It is. A good idea!

And where better than to stage it at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival!

Oh, wait, they put it on there last year.

Well, good job bringing it back!

As long as there’s been Bardolatry, there has been Bardophobia. Shakespeare is our sacred monster, and he provokes as much fear as awe. And much more sheer boredom.

Even the most ardent, arrogant iambic-pentameter-spouting smarty-pants gets tired of the Canon in his or her face from time to time. We have all toiled through mind-numbing English courses on Shakespeare, endured productions of his work so horrible that they warped space and made clocks run backward.

“Complete (Abridged)” is a cure for this condition. It’s a hilarious, breakneck dash through all 37 plays (OK, some merit only a mention) (and is it 38? Did he really write them? No time press on) staged by three fine clowns, Geoffrey Kent, Stephen Weitz and Matthew Mueller. That each is handling a role or roles in other CSF productions – hey, Stephen’s only playing Hamlet – is a testament to Rebecca Ramaly’s direction, their energy and the power of creative scheduling.

The Reduced Shakespeare Comedy started out at California Renaissance Faires in 1981, outclassing by a wide margin anything else that ever came out of a Renaissance Faire. Daniel Singer, Jess Borgeson and Adam Long condensed “Hamlet,” then gradually added “Romeo and Juliet” – then got greedy and dumped the rest in as well.

Years of touring and tweaking led to “overnight” success, and the brave adumbrators have since moved on to distill the Bible, American history, the Great Books, and so forth for a paying public.

The results are a riot. Whether you are the apotheosis of the cognoscenti or completely troglodytic, you will enjoy this show. The players tell you all you need to know (such as: Shakespeare invaded Poland in 1939?) and then illustrate their points with brio, a dash of insouciance and a big slice of ham.

And, to paraphrase Bobby Terrance, it’s the ham of truth. Like any cultural monument, Shakespeare needs the pigeon poop power-hosed off him from time to time. It’s centuries past the time a fresh conception of what Shakespeare was about existed. In many ways, we know him through a distorted, dirty lens. The buffoons of “Complete” pull out the funhouse mirrors instead. They have no agenda; they don’t care about analysis, criticism, or comment. They want us to have fun. They succeed.

Even the program’s funny. Make sure to read their section before the lights go down.

Kent’s clueless confidence, Weitz’s staggeringly long takes, and Mueller’s loony string of female roles (and antic vomiting sprees) mix with rapid-fire comic combat, puns, drag and more to keep things hopping. (There are a few jokes for the older set, so young children might feel left out of the fun at times, unless they are already dating and getting high.)

That being said, “Complete (Abridged)” IS fun, guaranteed. Go see it!

“The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)” is presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder through Aug. 15. Ticket prices range from $14 to $54 each; however, there are discounts for multi-show purchases, CU students, staff and faculty; and those under 18. For more info, please visit www.coloradoshakes.org or call 303-492-0554.

CULTURAMA: ‘Two Gents’ fails to satisfy at CSF

Jamie Ann Romero as Julia and Karyn Casl as Lucetta in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's production of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." (Photo by Kira Horvath for CU Communications)

OK, there are these two guys from Verona . . .

Not an inspiring opening. OK, guys, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is, by critical consensus, Shakespeare’s first play. As such, it doesn’t rate very highly on the Bardometer.

The Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s production of the play suffers from a desperate sense of shame. Sure, “Two Gentlemen” . . . well . . . the script kinda stinks. In his introduction to the play in the Oxford edition of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, Stanley Wells even admits that “the play has succeeded best when subjected to adaptation.”

So the team for “Two Gents,” led by director Tom Markus, constructed conceptual scaffolding for it. Beyond that, they built an entire play about doing the play around it. With extraneous characters, loads of extra dialogue, and digressions that involve limericks, the hokey-pokey, insights, and such.

It’s a late rehearsal of a CSF production of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” (Bruce Bergner’s set works well.) The actors are in a mix of costume pieces and street clothes. The production’s haughty English director outlines his concept, the actors grumble, drink, and talk on their cell phones. These scenes are interspersed with those from the play. The result is not so enjoyable.

Now, I don’t mind anyone monkeying with Shakespeare. Not any more. I have seen “The Tempest” in outer space, “King Lear” as a Western, “Titus Andronicus! The Musical,” a Desert Storm “Julius Caesar.” I have seen 10-minute, and 8-hour, “Hamlet”s. Adapt away.

But make it work. CSF’s “Two Gents” doesn’t work because a) it doesn’t trust the material and b) it gives us something worse in supplement to it. A good try, but let’s move on.

Everyone does their best with what they’ve given to work with. Actually, the “Two Gentleman” scenes are fine, with moments of comic invention and pathos. Despite the constant interruptions, Matt Mueller makes something out of Proteus, and Jamie Ann Romero proves as adept comically as Julia as she did dramatically as Ophelia in the concurrently-running CSF “Hamlet.”

Alexandra C. Lewis is a perfect figure of grace as Silvia, Sam Sandoe has some fun as her father, the duke of Milan . . . and of course who doesn’t love those kooky outlaws.

Listen: we’re Shakespeare fans, we’re tough, we can take it. Let’s face it, not every word out of him was of the highest caliber. But hey! This is a Shakespeare festival and sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it.

For instance, I’m sure we’ll have to run into “King John” again someday. Just don’t bring him in at the end, when he’s dying, on a surfboard or a giant French fry or anything like that. Unless it works.

“The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder through Aug. 9. Ticket prices range from $14 to $54 each; however, there are discounts for multi-show purchases, CU students, staff and faculty; and those under 18. For more info, please visit www.coloradoshakes.org or call 303-492-0554.

CULTURAMA: Tenderness and tragedy -- "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival

Sam Gregory as Atticus Finch and Ellie Schwartz as Scout in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's production of "To Kill a Mockingbird." (Photo by Glenn Asakawa for CU Communications)

One definition of a classic is something that rewards repeated encounters with new meanings.

Such is Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Its first-person evocation of a childhood in the American South, its gripping tale of prejudice, courage and empathy, struck a chord with readers immediately.

Since then, its impact has never diminished. The 1962 Oscar-winning film adaptation is itself a deeply affecting work. The book is taught in our schools, and sometimes it’s banned in our libraries (use of the ‘n’ word and frank talk about rape cited as reasons).

It should be no surprise that the Colorado Shakespeare Festival might see it as a fit work to stage. The current production, under the direction of the incredibly gifted Jane Page, is strong and compelling, a classic in every sense of the word.

Firstly, the story itself is brilliant – compelling and insightful. Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of the play, first staged in London in 1988, is a skillful translation of the work’s essence.

Over her career, Page has demonstrated her ability to summon the best out of both the materials and the ensemble at hand, on and backstage. This “Mockingbird” is no different. The pace and tone fit the piece perfectly, and the cast seems sprung from its pages.

Once again, Andrea Bechert’s set design gets the job done with elegant efficiency, and Kevin Brainerd’s costumes and Victor En Yu Tan’s lighting collaborate admirably with Page’s intentions.

The production frames the tale as a memory play, narrated by the now-grown Jean Louise Finch (played gracefully here by Tammy Meneghini). In truth, the story is so familiar to most that it could be played on a bare stage. The actors are key here, and a particular difficulty is finding the right child actors to play the young Jean Louise – the scruffy, feisty “Scout” – and her older brother Jem.

Fortunately, Ellie Schwartz and Connor Schearrer are great as Scout and Jem, respectively. Alex Rosenthal does similarly as their temporary neighbor and friend, Dill. The three children refract the events of Scout’s remembered 1935 summer in their tiny, dusty Alabama town through their personalities, and the actors let those lights shine through.

The most daunting role of all, of course, is that of Atticus Finch, the children’s father. A principled, modest hero who takes on the hopeless case of a black man charged with the rape of a white woman, the role is tough enough to begin with.

Then, consider that every actor who takes on the role must contend with the enormous shadow cast by Gregory Peck’s indelible portrayal in the film. It’s difficult to cast that interpretation out of your mind and make the role your own.

Sam Gregory, who also essays a great Leonato in CSF’s current production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” is an exemplary Atticus. He takes an impossibly good character and gives him humanity. The same is true for Doug Bynum as Tom Robinson, the condemned man who faces no chance of acquittal from the all-white jury judging him.

Other standouts include Steven Patterson as the conflicted sheriff Heck Tate, Kristen Adele’s Calpurnia, Michael Kane in the small but crucial role of “Boo” Radley, and Chip Persons and Emily Schmidt-Beuchat as Robinson’s accusers, the dastardly Ewells.

One of the big beefs with “Mockingbird” is that its characters are flat and, morally, black and white, and there’s some truth to that. But part of that comes from the unequivocal gaze of its child narrator. Part of it comes from the fact that “Mockingbird” is something of a fable, a morality play.

But Harper Lee imbued it with a magical, unforgettable quality, and it is with us now, for better or for worse. I think we are the better for it. Thanks to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, that vision lives onstage as well.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder through Aug. 5. Ticket prices range from $14 to $54 each; however, there are discounts for multi-show purchases, CU students, staff and faculty; and those under 18. For more info, please visit www.coloradoshakes.org or call 303-492-0554.

OLDFANGLED: Buffalo Bill's unquiet grave

(An expanded version of an article originally published in 5280 magazine in 2007.)

“Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death”

e.e. cummings

Ninety-two years after his burial on the top of Lookout Mountain, does the spirit of Buffalo Bill still rest unquietly?

William F. Cody lived many lives in one. He was a Pony Express rider, trapper, prospector, Civil War soldier, Army scout, Indian fighter and, of course, buffalo hunter. What distinguished him from his frontier contemporaries such as Will Bill Hickock was his flair for self-promotion.

“He was known as the most handsome man in America, and was the best-known American in the world,” says prominent Denver historian Thomas J. Noel.

Beginning in 1872 with stage appearances in adaptations of the dime novels that brought him national fame, Cody established himself as the archetype of the bold plainsman, complete with fringed buckskin jacket, flowing locks and signature goatee.

Remarkably, he also set in stone the popular vision of the American West. Having hatched the idea of an “Old Glory Blow-Out” in his home town of North Platte, Nebraska on July 4, 1882, which is often cited as the origin of the rodeo, Cody (with the able assistance of manager Nate Salsbury and pioneering press agent John M. Burke) created Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

From 1883 to 1913, it traveled the world, crafting out of a collection of riding, roping and sharpshooting exhibitions and a band of cowboys, Native Americans, and vaqueros a “national entertainment” that appealed to all classes and ages alike, and delivered the legend of Manifest Destiny as a historical pageant. “Re-enactments” of the Pony Express, Indian attacks, stagecoach robberies, and even Custer’s Last Stand kept crowds that ranged from, literally, the crowned heads of Europe to throngs of orphans, enthralled. Packaged as living memories of a disappearing era, it taught two generations ways of thinking about the West that are still passed along in the media today. “Pahaska” (the Sioux name for Bill, meaning “Long Hair”) was one of the first international celebrities.

It’s ironic, then, that the frontier scout whose reputation as a pathfinder was justly unparalleled should find himself so far from home. In 1907, Cody’s will dictated that he be buried near his namesake town of Cody, Wyoming. However, as the years passed, so did Cody’s business acumen. The debt-ridden showman had placed himself in the power of the unscrupulous co-owner of the Denver Post, Henry Tammen, who auctioned off the assets of the Wild West show in Denver in 1913, and used Cody’s indebtedness to him to force him to act as master of ceremonies for his Sells-Floto Circus from 1914 on.

By the time the 70-year-old Cody died in the home of his sister at 2932 Lafayette St. on Jan. 9, 1917, of uremic poisoning brought on by kidney failure, his will was no longer his own.

It has long been rumored that Tammen, with the aid of a $10,000 bribe to Cody’s estranged widow Louisa, conspired to have him interred against his wishes in Colorado, the better to profit from the late scout’s corporeal presence. Both Cody and North Platte clamored for the right to bury him.

“Everybody realized that it would be great tourist attraction,” says Noel.

Cody’s funeral was held in Denver on a freezing Jan. 15, 1917, with thousands filing past his body in state at the capitol building. His body was then placed in the Olinger Mortuary at 2600 16th St., supposedly under armed guard, for six months, while the authorities waited for the dirt roads that led up the mountain west of Golden to become passable. (The body was re-embalmed six more times.)

On June 3, 1917, a motorcade ferried what was estimated as between 7,000 and 20,000 mourners to the summit of the peak to pay final homage to the “knight of the saddle,” as News correspondent Meredith Davis floridly referred to him. The widow ordered the casket opened, and poems, songs and trumpet fanfares stirred the summer air as attendees filed past the coffin for a final glimpse of their hero. At 3 p.m., the coffin was lowered into the concrete-lined vault; a photograph shows the words “BURGLAR PROOF GRAVE VAULT” embossed on its side.

Just to make sure, several tons of concrete, reinforced with iron rails, eventually topped the gravesite. The undertaker is said to have stated that grave robbers “would have to blow the top off Lookout Mountain” to get at the body. In fact, when his wife Louisa died in 1921, it proved impossible to dig down to his level – so they buried her on top of him, sealing them both in with more concrete.

Meanwhile, Cody’s adopted son and Wild West sharpshooter Johnny Baker proposed in 1920 that the city of Denver allow him to construct a building adjacent to the grave to house Buffalo Bill memorabilia, as well as “the sale of the Colonel’s books, postcards, photographic views, candies, and light refreshments.” The deal was struck, and the “Pahaska Tepee” was built.

Still, the controversy wasn’t over. Serious calls for the repatriation of Cody’s corpse continued as late as 1948, once prompting the National Guard to drive a tank up Lariat Trail Road to stand guard over Bill’s remains.

The museum/gift shop’s rag-tag assemblage was presided over by Baker until 1931, and by his widow until 1956. The city took over the site, and a freestanding museum building was finally completed nearby in 1979. Today, it is presided over by director Steve Friesen, who in 12 years has crafted a more interesting and even-handed display of Cody’s life and legacy than visitors have ever before enjoyed.

“Every once in a while somebody up in Wyoming gets a wild hair going,” he says of disgruntlement over Buffalo Bill’s final resting place. As recently as last year, he states, consultants in Cody recommended a renewed effort to disinter the pioneer.

“They said, ‘You need to get Buffalo Bill’s body here,’” he chuckles, and goes on to characterize the repositories of Buffalo Billiana as sharing “a good-natured rivalry.”

So Buffalo Bill still sleeps ‘neath Colorado skies, trapped under the wife he avoided in life, catching the pitched pennies tossed on his tomb for luck by travelers, still a moneymaker through the auspices of the nearby gift shop, still a showman in death.

“It’s pretty up there,” Louisa Cody reported her husband saying of Lookout Mountain shortly before his death.

Tom Noel chimes in with a wry quote from Voltaire -- “History is a pack of tricks the living play upon the dead.”

CULTURAMA: Mighty 'Big River' at the Arvada Center

Alan H. Green (left) as Jim and Alan Shaw as Huck in the Arvada Center's production of "Big River." (Photo by P. Switzer/Courtesy Arvada Center)

Good theater springs up in unlikely places.

When the Arvada Center opened in 1976, no one thought that it might one day become a regional center for professional-quality theatrical productions. The main stage, for instance, was poorly designed and had extreme technical limitations. Ambitions, likewise, didn’t extend much past the community-theater level.

After decades of patient effort, and thanks largely to the vision of Artistic Producer Rod Lansberry, the Center is a success story. Case in point: its current production of “Big River,” the award-winning musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s classic novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Of course, it would be difficult for an adapter to ruin the original’s charm, but what makes the work soar is its score. Roger Miller’s brilliant roster of songs is reason enough to attend a performance, and “River in the Rain” is already a standard.

Before “Big River,” there was country sound on the Broadway stage – at least faux country. The Gershwins used Nevada as a gimmick setting in “Girl Crazy” in 1930, and shows such as “Oklahoma!”, “Shenandoah” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” gave nods to the flavor and instrumentation of rural acoustic music.

But Miller, the country composer/performer who had already won more Grammy awards than anyone would until Michael Jackson came along, was the real deal. He was more than equal to the occasion, using the genre in an effective, expressive way. In “Big River,” for which he won a Tony award, he crafted songs that not only capture but augment and supplement the original material.

William Hauptman’s book aptly condenses its sprawling source, shaping it into a swift-moving, entertaining evening with – gasp! – actual content.

Despite the adolescent high jinks, the emotional center of the piece is Jim, the escaped slave and Huck’s bosom companion who travels down the Mississippi with him. (Twain’s Jim was the first instance of a white writer coming within spitting distance of portraying a black character as a dimensional human being.)

Hauptman and Miller use “Big River” to open up the work past Huck’s first-person perspective, illuminating Jim’s suffering. Passages such as “The Crossing” and “Free at Last” show the underside of Twain’s universe – institutionalized slavery as a poison that ruined the souls of the enslaved and the enslavers.

Director/choreographer Stephen Bourneuf knows how to put a show across. Brian Mallgrave’s efficient, versatile set helps the action move along seamlessly, helped along by Nicole Harrison’s beautiful period costumes, Gail Gober’s lighting plot and Steve Stevens’ sound design.

Vocally, the cast sparkles – in particular, Gabrielle Goyette and Valisia Lekae pull out all the stops during their solos. Alan Shaw’s Huck, though ingratiating, is overshadowed by the immense presence of Alan H. Green as Jim. Other standouts include Kitty Skillman Hilsabeck as the sour and proper Miss Watson, and Emily van Fleet as Mary Jane Wilkes.

The biggest delight of the evening is the duo of rapscallions, the King (Eric Leviton) and the Duke (Jim Newman), two con artists who hijack Jim and Huck, using them to help them fleece the populace as they float downriver. Newman’s hopelessly awful pseudo-Shakespearean pomposity, combined with Leviton’s drawling sarcasms, makes every moment with them on stage a pleasure.

Knowing the story won’t preclude enjoying seeing it in this incarnation. Those who don’t know it will find “Big River” a stirring, entertaining introduction.

“Big River” is presented by the Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd., Arvada, through Aug. 9. For tickets and information, please visit www.arvadacenter.org or call 720-898-7200.