SFR Picks: Trash Planet

Reuse-a-Palooza turns recycling and upcycling into a carnival

“It seems to me that so much of the dialogue about climate change is really negative, and there’s this sense of community agency that gets lost,” Reunity Resources’ Juliana Ciano tells SFR. The local nonprofit is all about creating zero waste alternatives for an utterly wasteful society on an easy-to-maintain level. It embarks on small, simple things that spiral out in massive ways. “So, we’ll collect cooking oil and turn it into biodiesel; our mission is about turning waste into value, but because so much of what we do is invisible or kind of back-alley, we started to wonder how to show people what it is we’re doing.” Thus, the brilliantly named Reuse-a-Palooza was born.

The family-friendly event takes place in Railyard Park on the performance green (that's the really nice lawn where they sometimes show movies) this Saturday, June 4; it promises to be an enjoyable afternoon of carnival-like activities that are all created and operated through recycled and upcycled means. "We'll have local artists who work with upcycled arts and educational booths from different organizations, plus we have fun carnival games, a fortuneteller booth, music and more," Ciano says.

The Partizani Brass Band will take the stage to play live, as will indie act Yosen and Friends. It sounds like the highlight of the day, however, will be Curious Chris the Singing Scientist, a Santa Fe singer-songwriter who educates about the world of zero waste solutions and the importance of composting. If that doesn't sound like enough of a reason to go, you might just hate the planet.

Reuse-a-Palooza also boasts a number of food trucks, a "trashion show" catwalk that features outfits made from trash (which Ciano describes as being somewhat similar to Project Runway) and other fun surprises. "For our community to come together around super-fun and maybe a little goofy but resourceful ways of creating value from waste is important to our planet," Ciano says. "It's so important to think about keeping our cycle round rather than continue the linear cycle of 'buy something/throw it away, buy something/throw it away.'" (Alex De Vore)

Reuse-a-Palooza Pop-Up Carnival
1 pm Saturday, June 4. Free.
Railyard Park,
740 Cerrillos Road
695-1005

Sea of Sound

Denver's Inner Oceans sounds like the union of later Beatles weirdness as performed by ghosts who were musically weaned on '80s new wave and then given a time machine for the express purpose of tapping into futuristically ambient voice and instrument melodies; it's a staggering wall of gorgeous sound that's all produced live. "We used to rely on laptops and backup tracks until this year," frontman Griffith Snyder tells SFR, "but we've been set free, [and] my goal is for the live show to outdo the recordings." Inner Oceans is a brilliant crossroads of old and new, and Meow Wolf is their one and only touring stop in New Mexico this summer. (ADV)

Inner Oceans with David Berkeley:
8 pm Thursday, June 2. $10.
Meow Wolf,
1352 Rufina Circle,
395-6369

And You Shall Receive

With intergalactic flourishes and submerged electronic beats, Columbus, Ohio-based band The Receiver evokes an ’80s childhood. The band, comprised of brothers Casey and Jesse Cooper, grew up with the music of Pink Floyd and Yes and a healthy dose of Nintendo. Their new album,

All Burn

, wraps lovelorn lyrics in synthesizer transmissions from space. “A lot of people use music for an escape,” Casey tells SFR, “but I don’t want it to be a total escape; I want it to be grounded.” The Receiver’s nationwide tour lands in Santa Fe this Friday. Come for the otherworldly melodies, stay for the feels. (Andrew Koss)

The Receiver:
10 pm Friday, June 3. Free.
Boxcar,
530 S Guadalupe St.,
988-7222


Geologic

When Georgia O’Keeffe stepped into the high desert, she felt it had been made for her, and her for it, and the world-shaping artist had two favorite places in the New Mexico landscape she called the “White Place” and the “Black Place.” Geologist and artist Kirt Kempter knows this well. “I think Georgia O’Keeffe was a brilliant student of erosion,” he says. Kempter speaks about O’Keeffe’s sacred color spaces in a lecture that “spans approximately 65 million years of geologic time and include tales of ancient rivers that no longer exist, verdant swamps with unusual reptiles and a super-volcano north of Taos.” (Maria Egolf-Romero)

The Geologic Story of Georgia's White Place and Black Place:
9-10 am Monday, June 6. $15
(includes museum admission).
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Education Annex,
123 Grant Ave.,
946-1039

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