Tracking

Covid cases in New Mexico may have begun their exponential rise. The confirmed number of cases stands at 191 as of yesterday, a rise of 55 over the day before, quite a jump after a week or more of no more than a couple of dozen new cases daily. So far, about 10,000 people with symptoms have been tested.

The first death connected to Covid in New Mexico happened on March 22. However, it was not identified as a Covid death until March 24, and it was reported on March 25. The 70 year old man with underlying conditions took sick and was transported to the hospital on March 22. He died in the hospital later that day. As I understand it, a test was not administered until after he died. But I could be wrong about that -- he may have been tested before he died but results were not received until afterwards.

This suggests to me that there are asymptomatic cases or mildly symptomatic cases that quite suddenly become life threatening and they are devilishly hard to identify -- until it's too late.

But it also suggests that comparatively speaking they are very few in the overall universe of symptomatic New Mexicans, let alone in the population as a whole.

Nevertheless, as identified cases start an exponential rise, it's pretty clear that the virus has been circulating for some time, weeks at least, and that there are likely to be many asymtomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals spreading it even though initially their numbers might be very low.

The first identified cases in NM were among people who had recently returned from travel to Egypt, Italy and New York. These people were isolated, their contacts were traced and isolated, and initially it seemed the virus was contained. But then, community transmission started turning up -- people who had not traveled to or through hot spots and who had to their knowledge not been in contact with anyone who had or was suspected to have Covid-19. At least some of these community spread cases appeared to have connection to the highways in that they appeared near the three interstates that criss-cross New Mexico. Clusters of cases then appeared in the Permian Basin oil fields which are closely connected with the Texas oil fields. Destinations for well off escapees from various hot spots -- destinations like Taos and Santa Fe -- started showing clusters.

Albuquerque is a special case, as it's the only large city in New Mexico. Although there are more cases there than anywhere else in the state, they are still relatively few given the population and the cross-roads nature of the city. People travel to and from and through Albuquerque from everywhere, by air, rail, truck and automobile, and some are no doubt bringing the virus with them largely unbeknownst.

Until yesterday, there were no controls on travel except for the "shelter in place" rules that were implemented as soon as the first community spread case was identified. Those rules were gradually tightened until the schools were closed and eventually all non-essential businesses were ordered shut down, gatherings of more than five were prohibited, and people were told to stay home except for essential trips (groceries, pharmacy and such).

As of yesterday, people arriving by air were ordered to self-isolate for two weeks, and those who came in contact with them were also ordered to self-isolate. There are still no restrictions on highway travelers, however, and it seems to me the virus will continue to spread via the highways as more and more people flee the hot spots. The flight of the wealthy to their resorts, summer homes, and bunkers is one of the primary means of spreading this virus. And they are still fleeing New York and Los Angeles and other hot spots. Some are coming to New Mexico, to their ranches spread around the state, to their pied a terres and estates in Santa Fe and Taos, and some are no doubt bringing it with them.

If New Mexico is on an exponential track for the virus we'll see quick doubling of cases every few days, or maybe not. We'll see.

So far, there are no confirmed cases in my county. The virus may be spreading anyway, and at least for the time being, there's no way for us to avoid going into Albuquerque now and then for meds and such that have to be picked up.

And So It Begins

The first three coronaviris patients in New Mexico were reported yesterday, and the governor declared a state of health emergency. The panic appeared to begin all but immediately, though it was muted. How things proceed from here we'll see. I loaded up on some supplies at the grocery store, but we can't really anticipate what will happen can we? There seemed to be a good-sized supply of paper products on the shelves, though, so there's that. The store was packed with old folks. Some of the staff was showing real stress. The cases are not close by, they are all self-isolating, but transmission seems to be almost random at this point.

More and more of Ms Ché's planned events are either canceled or postponed. The campus where she's completing her MFA is effectively shut down for the rest of the school year. No more in person classes, possible canceling of graduation ceremonies, no tours or visits from outside. Students living on campus can stay, but those who left for Spring Break are encouraged not to return except to pick up their things.

Gathering of Nations has been postponed. It's one of the biggest Native American events in the country. The Cherokee group in Albuquerque will not have its scheduled meeting this weekend. Friends coming from various parts of the country have been advised to hold off.

There are a lot of other actions being taken, some I'm unaware of or only vaguely aware of. Things are changing fast, yet some things are not. The fear is there but for now is low-key.

And then there's the regime in DC and its constant fraud and bungling. Trump made a major gaffe in his speech to the nation last night, stating that neither shipments nor passengers from Europe would be allowed into the USA, only to have to tweet -- or someone twitted on his behalf -- that he didn't mean that shipments were banned, only passengers. OK. Sure, whatever. And I've seen that in any number of appearances lately, backed up by all these health professionals, he lies about everything, assuring falsely, and so on, and no one corrects him in real time, and all these experts first have to ensure they don't cross him before they sometimes tell something like the truth --carefully parsing their words so as not to enrage the man in the big chair. It's nightmarish.

There are said to be 2500 test kits in New Mexico, and we are instructed to call a triage hotline before doing anything else if we suspect we have symptoms of the virus. Then and possibly only then we will be brought a test or be referred to a clinical facility for testing. We are not to go to hospital ERs or in some cases even to our own doctors. Interesting.

The shortages of tests and protective gear for medicos is a big part of the restrictions. There simply isn't enough materiel to address the looming crisis. And it may get worse as the bungling continues. The oil price free fall will severely affect New Mexico's public funding ability too.

And it's happening all over the country in one way or another.

The paradigm shift is and will be significant.

Take care.

News and Notes

I'm almost ready to start painting again. I mean "art" rather than painting the house or something like that.

I gave it up a couple of years ago due to joint pain that made it so difficult to do much of anything.

But I've been re-animated thanks to being almost pain free almost all the time now (how amazing is that?)  and since I've been able to get around better, I've been going to exhibits that I couldn't do before.

The New Mexico Museum of Art celebrated its 100th Anniversary the other week and we went amidst crowds and crowds of mostly elderly people who wanted to enjoy the festivities before they shuffled off their Mortal Coils. Well, I understand. Believe me.

I also understand that many were disappointed as we were.

The Museum has an extraordinary collection of Santa Fe and Taos Colony art as well as a Contemporary art collection that can be mind-blowing, some of which was on display, but a lot of it must have been still in storage or on loan to some other museum. There were few pieces on display that everyone hadn't seen before... many times. And taken as a whole, the 100th Anniversary exhibition was ... sparse.

The greatest disappointment was in the contemporary gallery where few things stood out or even held any interest. And there wasn't much anyway. A stack of Horizon magazines was momentarily intriguing, but you have to be Of a Certain Age to even know what they are. We have a fair-sized collection of them (as well as a larger collection of American Heritage magazines) all of which we're quite fond of but have never done anything with except keep them on the shelves and pull them out for reference now and then.

And here was an artist who had glued a dozen or so issues together and glued a magnifying glass on top of the stack and the assembly was on display at the New Mexico Museum of Art with a prominent sign reading PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH!!

OK then. Somebody's cred in the museum world must have been at stake. I dunno. Reminded me a bit of an earlier exhibit of "art" that included a couple of sawn 6x6s laid on a low platform and labeled "Wood," as well as several pages from a lined notebook each with a splotch or two of watercolor, lovingly framed, called something I don't recall because it was so... limited.

There had to be an Agnes Martin in the Contemporary gallery, and there was. In context, I rather like her minimalist pieces, but the context needs to be full in order for her stripes or boxes or whatever stand out. There was no context to the painting on exhibit. Sigh. Sadly, it was boring.

Perhaps the most annoying piece was a white wall on which the artist -- don't know who, don't care -- had drawn all over serpentine shapes that you couldn't see unless you were A) very close or B) standing at just the right angle but not too far away. Casual passers by wouldn't even know it was there...

Idiotic s putting it charitably.

Contrast that with the energetic exhibits at the Albuquerque Museum. Oh my. I'm still breathing a bit heavily.

"When Modern Was Contemporary" is a touring exhibit that's been there for a while, but I hadn't seen it yet until I decided to check in at the Museum on "doctor day," December 1, when I had a gap between the Eye Doctor and the Rheumatologist.

I happened into the exhibit while the Albuquerque curator Andrew Connors was taking some Santa Fe ladies on a tour of the exhibit, and he just added to my astonishment and joy. Andrew is quite a personality in town, and his absolute thrill at hosting this exhibit was infectious. The Santa Fe Ladies were captivated. So was I. This was a wonderful exhibit, and I'm only sorry the Museum doesn't have more of it online. Andrew mentioned that he hoped the Santa Fe Ladies would check out the "Common Ground" exhibit that he curated as well, but I somehow doubt they did.

I didn't have time that day myself, but I came back a few days later and took in "Common Ground" as well as taking another look at "When Modern was Contemporary".

Here's one of several videos of Andrew introducing the "Common Ground" exhibit:

I'd seen many of these works before, but never so many displayed in so concentrated an exhibit. It was almost overwhelming.

The contemporary selections were outstanding, and they were in context, and they were inspirational:

This is the kind of contemporary exhibit I wish the New Mexico Museum of Art had done. One of the sad things about the failure in Santa Fe was that some of the same artists were on exhibit in Albuquerque -- where in context their works shined bright.

Albuquerque is (still) considered something of a rough backwater in the Art World. Oh every now and then somebody says something nice about its "vibrancy" and whatnot, but Santa Fe and Taos are considered "serious." Albuquerque is "interesting." Sometimes.

A painting that struck home in the "Common Ground" exhibit was a portrait of Governor Bruce King at his ranch just up the road from our place. That's one aspect of our common ground. We met Governor King -- wouldn't say we knew him -- and we pass by his ranch all the time. I see a portrait of him in that landscape and feel a deep connection to these people and this place.

Another exhibit I was able to take in briefly was the collection at the Roundhouse, the New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe. (Speaking of governors and such.)

It's a stunning collection both inside and outside the building.

A friend who was there at the same time as me said he'd never been there before -- like me -- and he was -- like me -- gobsmacked, never imagining there was anything like this collection in a capitol building.

I've been in quite a few state capitols, most of which have some kind of art in them, but nothing approaches the breadth and depth of the New Mexico Capitol collection.

I'll have to go back one day.

We're planning to do Christmas in Taos at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House -- let's hope the weather holds. Ms. Ché has done writing workshops there and she loves it. Mabel of course is an Icon besides.

The weather. Don't know quite what to say about it. We have not had any precipitation in two months, and November was far and away the warmest in recorded history. We were supposed to plunge into cold weather overnight, but so far, nope. Well, maybe it won't warm up much today. And we'll get a little chill, but week after week of well above average temps for November and December has discombobulated pretty much everyone.

Meanwhile, how about that Russia Thing? Why do I think it's a charade?

The Odd Thanksgiving

We've never been much for the myths of Thanksgiving and the mutual feasting by the Indians and Pilgrims giving thanks for making it through the early famine period of English settlement in Massachusetts.

Over the years of course the truth -- at least partially  -- wills out. We find the myth is a sad and damnable lie, that the relations between the English settlers and most of the native peoples of the land was anything but happy and cooperative, and that massacres were perpetrated with some regularity and glee. The settler were not peaceful, they were religiously intolerant, and their response to resistance by the original peoples was increasingly brutal slaughter.

Since I'm of both English and Irish descent (the German component apparently doesn't  register in my DNA) I've had some interest in the issue of English/Irish relations, including the many times the English and Irish went to battle with one another. In the 17th Century, there was a mass slaughter of Irish by the English under Cromwell, really quite terrible. This took place about 20 or 30 years after the Pilgrim settlements in New England, but Cromwell's practice in Ireland was not particularly different from the mass murder and destruction of Native peoples in Massachusetts and the rest of New England. Patterns were set, and they were maintained throughout the period of Anglo settlement of what became the USA. Mass murder, displacement, and seizure of lands and goods was policy. To an extent it still is.

But I wasn't particularly thinking about that over this year's Thanksgiving holiday. We live in Indian Country, and many of our friends and colleagues are Indians. Ms. Ché is an Indian after all and she's getting her creative writing degree at an Indian art school. We've wrassled with the history for a long time, and in the end we let the past be the past. Indians have their own reasons to mark the harvest season with thanks as they have done in their own way for many thousands of years, but the meaning of the American holiday is quite different for most Indians than many Anglos presume.

No, this year, I was thinking more of the fact that I've survived another year, and this year, at least since May, has been largely pain free. Believe me, I'm grateful for that. Ms. Ché is too. She's been through so much anguish over my condition. There were periods I could barely walk, other times I was in such intense pain and there was nothing she could do about it. This situation actually goes back quite a bit longer than the two or so years I've been diagnosed with RA. It's been tougher for her in some ways than for me.

At any rate, I had the last of four Rituxan infusion treatments this year on the 22 of November; went to the hospital in Albuquerque in the morning, got infused and was released in the early afternoon. I felt OK except I was tired, more tired than I'd been after previous infusions. At least there was no pain.

I had some things I wanted to do while I was in town, but found I was too tired to do it, so I went home. I discussed with Ms Ché that I wasn't really up for a home-prepared feast on Thanksgiving, and asked if she'd like to go out instead. She said, "Why don't we go out this evening? I know just the place." She mentioned a barbecue joint in the Sandia foothills we haven't been to in a couple of years. I said "sure!" and took a nap.

There was an odd chemical smell in the restaurant. I couldn't identify it, but it was noticeable -- except when we were eating, when I didn't notice it at all. When we got home, I felt fine and went to bed at my normal time.

I woke up about 2am. I was nauseous and very dizzy. The room was spinning around me, and I could barely stand up let alone locomote to the bathroom in case I had to expel my stomach contents. By holding on to walls and furniture, I managed to make it, and in the end, nothing came up from my craw.

I sat in the living room for the next couple of hours, head spinning, gorge rising and falling. Went back to bed, slept till about 1pm, and when I got up, I was still dizzy and nauseous, but not as bad.

I told Ms Ché what was going on. She said it might be due to that chemical smell whatever it was, though she said she felt no ill affects. Later, when I could I looked up side effects of Rituxan, and sure enough, dizziness and nausea were among them.

I had not experienced those symptoms after previous infusions. In this case, they seemed to be fading slowly, so I told Ms Ché I would let doctors know I had apparent side effects if they didn't fade by the weekend. I'm scheduled to see the eye doctor and rheumatologist on December 1 anyway.

So Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, was spent in a kind of WTF haze. We did enjoy some home made mac and cheese for Thanksgiving dinner, and we both reflected on what we're grateful for. The list is long and growing.

Of course we're grateful for each other. Every day together is amazing.

This morning, there's a movie on the TeeBee, "Silverado." It was filmed in the Santa Fe/Cochiti/Galisteo area. Galisteo is a few miles north of our place, and the primary location for "Silverado" was on what was then called the Cook Ranch. A western town set was built for the movie, and though it burned down in 1999 when some fireworks used in another movie started a range fire, the movie-town was rebuilt and is still frequently used for filming.

"Silverado" though was the first Big Picture filmed there --other filming location included the Eaves Movie Ranch south of Santa Fe on Highway 14, and at Tent Rocks on the Cochiti Pueblo even farther south of Santa Fe off I-25.

Most of the outdoor scenes feature the views of the mountains and rolling plains toward the west (Jemez Mountains), northeast (Sangre de Cristo Mountains) and south (Ortiz and Sandia Mountains). Practically every outdoor scene features an image we have in our mind's eye, as we pass through the Galisteo Basin, seeing the same views, every time we go to Santa Fe.

This is our home country, and we are extremely grateful to live here. For both of us, it evokes memories -- good memories -- of our more-or-less rural California childhoods. Ranches and farms were all around. Ranch and farm people were and are our family friends. Salt of the earth.

We spent many a year traveling all over the country for work and for pleasure, and we had an extraordinary time of it, but one place and one place only captivated us -- New Mexico. I think we first passed through -- it wasn't even really a visit -- on the way to someplace else (probably St. Louis) in 1983, and we said then, "Someday this will be our home."

And so it is. We can't think of anyplace we'd rather be.

It's full of Indians, and Hispanos and Anglos, sunsets that only happen in other people's imaginations, sunrises that penetrate the soul, challenges and tribulations that you never imagined you'd encounter, let alone get through, and endless spirit-lifting visions, people and experiences. There's no other place like it.

And if you want to see some of what we see practically every day, watch "Silverado" and pay particular attention to the outdoor scenes. Sometimes those sights are dotted with pronghorn antelope, and when they are, we take it as a sign. The antelope, which few people ever see in the West, are more common than deer or coyotes for us. They are our friends, and they, among others, our our spirit animals.

Make no mistake. "Silverado" is a rough story with a lot of violent and unhappy people living violent and unhappy lives -- if they survive. New Mexico is not for everyone, not at all.

The Cook Ranch, Galisteo Basin locations for "Silverado" filming, is no longer the Cook Ranch; it's now called Cerro Pelon ("Bald Hill") after a hill known locally as "The Wave" that's on the 22,000 acre Cerro Pelon Ranch now owned by fashion designer Tom Ford. He's got it listed for sale, if you're interested. Asking price $75 million, including the movie set. the Wave, a contemporary mansion, various outbuildings, a couple of pueblo ruins, and who knows what else. Cowboys negotiable.

The Wave

While all this strikes us as kind of silly, it too is part of our home place.

We're grateful to have a tiny portion of it as our own.

There's much else we are thankful for. Much, much else.

This year's Thanksgiving was a little odd and challenging. But we know where we are. Every day.

Cannery Row

While getting infused with Rituxan the other day, I read John Steinbeck's 1945 novel "Cannery Row," a work I was vaguely familiar with but had never read.

I was familiar with it in part because Steinbeck and Monterey (the setting for "Cannery Row") had been important in my youth, he as a writer who seemed to capture the essence of life and people on California's Central Coast and Monterey as the place where so much life-changing experience occurred when I was 18 or 19.

I knew somehow of Ed Ricketts who was the inspiration for the character of Doc in the novel. It's hard to say how I had any knowledge of Ricketts, but years ago, I spent a day at the Steinbeck Museum in Salinas, and I suspect there was a display that described him and his laboratory in Monterey -- and how it was important to Steinbeck.

I didn't finish reading the novel at the infusion center on Monday, but I took the book with me and finished it while waiting for Ms Ché to have her sonogram at the radiology center yesterday (she's developing edema in her legs, something new and needing monitoring along with various heart checks to see if she's developing congestive heart failure, the cause of her mother's and grandfather's deaths.)

I confess, I shed a little tear at parts of Steinbeck's story of these wayward souls on the margins of society and the edge of the ocean. Oh yes, it was quite a moving tale, and I have no doubt that Steinbeck intended to draw a tear or two from his readers. Tears of recognition, sympathy, empathy.

According to what I've read about it, Steinbeck himself was trying to get back some of the joy he felt when he lived in Pacific Grove, next door to Cannery Row in (New)Monterey during the Depression.

The novel was a way for him to recapture some of the spirit of the time and the place and the people and to bring some joy back to his increasingly complicated life.

Fame and fortune had done so much for him, but it had changed his life in ways he could not have anticipated-- and not entirely for the better.

What I noticed first was the structure of the story. The novel consists of a series of mostly very short chapters which are constructed as stand-alone short--short stories strung together like the firecrackers from Lee Chong's which figure toward the end of the novel. It's quite a trick, not easy to pull off at all, but Steinbeck seems clear about what he wants to do with this story and how he wants to tell the tale. Quick glimpses, vignettes, sketches, some quite elaborate, but others merely outlines and shadows.

I could see a lot of it in my mind's eye, though the image wasn't much like my memories of Monterey. Not at all, really. This was a very different, colder, and surprisingly darker Monterey. In fact, most of the story seems to take place in twilight or darkness. My memories of the place are mostly sunshine and fog, oh my the fog, and the chill that comes with it, even in high summer.

Or especially so.

In Steinbeck's telling, there's little daylight, and no fog at all. Seems impossible. You can't live anywhere on California's Central Coast and not be immersed in morning and evening fog, sometimes all day fog, fog that set the pattern for your days and nights, fog that's sometimes very comforting but sometimes very annoying, too, as the eaves and the trees will drip and drip and drip, and a chill will grab hold of you and penetrate deep into your body. After a warm and sunny day, you may suddenly shiver with that fog-brought chill, wondering how the warmth of the day can vanish so completely and quickly as the sun lowers in the west over the sea, and the fog rolls in flowing over the coastal hills and filling the little valleys where lettuce and strawberries and artichokes are grown.

Sometimes here in New Mexico, high in the mountains, there will be morning fogs like those on California's Central Coast, and for some moments when the fog comes down like that, I'm puzzled about where I am, because here in this little valley in New Mexico's central highlands, I'm often reminded of the little valleys along California's Central Coast. No, there's no ocean here, but there are plenty of evocations, and they say that many long years ago, a "warm shallow sea" penetrated deep into what's now New Mexico, and there might have been fogs from that vanished sea that swathed the region's dinosaurs in dripping mists.

Indeed, our location now was the shore of a lake not that long ago, a lake the size -- and about the elevation -- of Lake Tahoe. Fogs easily could have arisen.

But they don't figure in Steinbeck's tale of Cannery Row in Monterey c. 1938 or 39.

It's not really clear when the story takes place, but it's almost certainly before the War, during the latter portion of the Depression.

The characters are familiar types to me, Mack and Doc and Hazel and Dora and The Girls and Lee Chong, and even the dog Darling. These are roughnecks for the most part, not a refined and high-faluting one among them, though some like Doc and Dora are clearly closer to the ideal of the era than others.

Marginal people at the time, maybe particularly in California, had a rough go of it, and whether they lived or died mattered not at all to their betters, the self-appointed and self assured leading lights of communities and cities and the state itself. California was for the winners. Still is.

So here are the characters of Cannery Row, flotsam washed up on the shores of Monterey, lucky to be there, happy to be there, living out their simple-complicated lives, getting by as best they can with little or no money, stealing, swapping, borrowing or creating what they need from the throwaways and debris around them. There's a lesson for the rest of us if we could learn it, as some have tried  in times past and more are trying now.

These rough people in rough times live lives with more humanity and joy, it seems to me, than many of our well-off modern people can imagine, and they might read the story now and believe it is all fantasy, a never-was fantasy.

But it was more real than they can imagine. I knew these people, some of them. I still do. They were my neighbors when I was growing up in California, and they are my neighbors now in rural New Mexico. There may be more broken down cowboys in these parts, but no one in "Cannery Row" would be out of place in my adopted home.

I'm one of them.

Rituxan In the Morning

Yesterday was another infusion day, so I spent the morning hooked up to an IV drip in a comfy bed at the Infusion Center reading "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck which I had not done before despite my enthusiasm for Steinbeck and his dyspeptic vision of California's Central Coast and its society.

In that regard, I should mention that my (new found) cousin sent me a journal kept by her mother and our aunts that has an extended section  telling tales about their cross country rail expedition from Washington DC (where they were working at the WPA headquarters) to The Coast, where they did and saw everything. They saw all the sights from the Redwoods to San Francisco's Golden Gate and International Exposition at Treasure Island to Hollywood and Beverly Hills where they hob-nobbed with the movie stars and studio honchos. They went out to the beach and sunburned lobster red, they even went to Mexico, briefly, and saw a disgusting bull fight.

This was 1939. They passed through the Salinas Valley on their way to Los Angeles, but I can't imagine they noticed much. Certainly not the wretchedness and waves of travelers up from Mexico and still crossing the country from Oklahoma. What they reported and what they saw was the idealized tourist vision of California. There was always some truth to it, but it never told the whole story. Not by a long shot.

Steinbeck fills in some of the blanks, but he was hated for it in and around Salinas. His stories of his home place and the people there were stories you weren't supposed to tell. I grew up in other parts of California being socialized to that same notion. There are simply things you do not mention. If you're smart, you won't even look into them.

For example, I spent years studying the Gold Rush and the people who made their way to California between 1849 and about 1855. I reviewed all kinds of original documents kept at the California State Library and other places, and scoured the Gold Country for remaining clues to what was going on in those days.

The picture that emerged was nothing like the glorified and romantic image of the Gold Rush we were taught in school -- and I guess is still widely believed. For many who made the trek, it was horrible. Many died along the way or shortly after arrival. It cost a fortune to make the trip, and the chance of finding gold or even surviving more than a few months was slim to none.

And yet they kept coming. By the hundred thousands and ultimately by the millions they kept coming. My mother and her mother and stepfather among them. Most of my father's siblings -- but not himself -- came and settled in California, too.

Ms Ché and I left, though. She was born in California, and I lived there almost all my life, and the two of us could hardly wait to move to New Mexico.

Where I think we've never been happier -- health issues for both of us aside.

And so it goes.

Yes, there are plenty of challenges in front of us, and many memories left behind (along with a storage unit full of... stuff, including some of those memories...)

Perseverance, yes. But ultimately relaxation and freedom, too.

More to come.

OT: Houses Once Again

[Not much interested in the latest wrinkle of the Clintoooooon Email Scandalllllll because I doubt it will have more than a marginal effect on the (s)election at this point, and because none of the email hooey up to now has amounted to all that much. I can equate it with the more or less "nothingness" of the Snowden NSA revelations which were almost all things we either knew or suspected, and which resulted in essentially no change in the agency's domestic and foreign surveillance -- except perhaps its intensification. Hello.]

So let's deal with houses once again. This one isn't so much of a memory exercise, though that may enter into parts of the post, as it is a consideration of contemporary housing trends in this area of New Mexico, that is to say the north-central corridors between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. We live about mid-way between the two metropoli, on the east side of the Central Mountain Chain, far enough away from each to be relatively untainted by either Santa Fe Style or the urban madness of ABQ, but close enough to get to either one when we need to or want to.

Santa Fe is in some ways a victim of its own style, often referred to as "Adobe Disneyland." It is an ostensibly an honest depiction and reinterpretation of an historic Spanish Colonial architectural vocabulary and vernacular.

But it's always been questioned and questionable. The problem can be manifested clearly at the Palace of the Governors on the Plaza in Old Town Santa Fe, a building which ostensibly dates back to the foundation of the Villa Real, c. 1610. That's actually a dubious claim as the oldest parts of the current structure post-dates the Reconquista of 1692-3 prior to which (between 1680 and 1692) the entire facility and the fort which it was part of had been reconfigured into a pueblo by the Indians whose revolt led to the expulsion of the Spanish.

After the bloody reconquest of Santa Fe and the outlying pueblos by the Spanish, the Palace of the Governors and its extensive Presidio was restored more or less as it had been prior to the Pueblo Revolt and the pueblo constructions were dismantled and destroyed. However, the restoration was largely a reconstruction as not a whole lot of the previous buildings were still standing when the Spanish came back. This is much the same situation as was the case at San Miguel Mission church in the Barrio Analco, which was destroyed by the Indians in the Revolt leaving barely a shell of a structure -- and perhaps not even that -- for the Spanish to rebuild after 1692.

Yet San Miguel is considered the Oldest Church in Santa Fe, if not New Mexico.

What is standing now has less to do with what was originally built and remodeled and rebuilt over the years since than it has to do with the imaginary architecture and buildings that have arisen due to the imposition of Santa Fe Style.

The Palace of the Governors was the first example of the Style, c. 1909. What we see today is what resulted from that imposition; nothing -- substantive -- has changed since then, whereas the appearance and function of the Palace was changing constantly throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

That, to me, is the fundamental flaw of the Style. Once imposed, change is almost impossible.

The Palace of the Governors today appears almost exactly as it did when it was remodeled in the Style in 1909. Next door, across the street, is the New Mexico Museum of Art, built in 1917, in the Style, and it, too, appears almost exactly as it did the day it opened, but that's not how genuine Spanish Colonial/Pueblo architecture was handled back in the day.

Once built, the rebuilding, remodeling, expanding, contracting, re-envisioning and repurposing were constant. Nothing ever stayed the same for long, and the very idea of presenting a permanent appearance and function throughout all time wouldn't have made any sense.

But that's a fundamental factor of Santa Fe Style: once built or remodeled in the Style, the structure must maintain the same appearance for all time to come.

It's jarring and wrong, in my view, to impose such strictures, as it fossilizes what should be dynamic and organic architecture into a design straitjacket.

I use our own home as example of how a domestic building has changed in appearance and function over time, though it has appeared much the same since its last major remodeling fifty some odd years ago.

Our house was begun, built from adobe dug on site, about 1900. We don't know the actual year construction started, but this area was first opened to homesteading and settlement about that time (squatters arrived earlier of course) once the various land-grant claims were quashed by the Supreme Court. It is our impression that the first part of the house to be built was what's now the living room and two bedrooms, but which was originally probably two rooms: a kitchen/work room and a living/sleeping room. There would have been no indoor plumbing. There might have been a windmill pumping water from a well into a raised cistern that probably supplied water to livestock troughs and a pumphouse beside the residence. There would have been an outhouse, as there was no indoor bathroom. We're not sure, but there may not have been an indoor bathroom until the remodeling of the 1950s.

The next part of the house to be built was an addition on the east that was probably built in the 1920s or thereabouts, also from adobe dug on site, that is now two bedrooms, a bath and hallway but which was probably only two rooms, a parlor and a bedroom, originally. The original kitchen/workroom was probably turned into two bedrooms and a hallway at that time. The original living/sleeping room was turned into a kitchen/workroom as it was larger.

Then in the 1950s (a period of dust storms in this area) most of the land this house was headquarters for was sold for building lots, and the house underwent major remodeling. The south-facing front porch/portal was enclosed and became host to an entrance hall, a dining area, a kitchen, and a laundry room. The east wing was remodeled to accommodate a bathroom, hallway and two bedrooms. The central kitchen/workroom became a living room. The exterior was clad in aluminum siding and the shingle pitched roof was covered with corrugated tin.

Apart from new windows and paint, we didn't change the appearance of the exterior nor did we change the function of the interior spaces.

But we might.

In fact the future plans for this house involve some pretty extensive remodeling while preserving as much as we can of the house's original character.

After removing the aluminum siding and repairing the stucco underneath, we would have a new propanel roof installed, probably blue or copper color. With the roof, however, we intend to finish the attic into a bedroom and bath and a large north-facing studio. This will mean re-building part of the rafters and reorienting the gable on the north side of the east addition to face east. But if we're going to do that, we'll go ahead and rebuild the enclosed portal that now serves as entry hall, dining area, kitchen and laundry room. In fact, it was not built very well to begin with, and because there is a kind of cellar under the former porch, part of it is slowly sinking into the void. Consequently, it requires a new foundation and reconstruction.

If we do that, we'd add a new portal/porch on the south wide enough to cut the glare from the summer and winter sun and also allow for outside leisure activities. If we add a porch there, we'd also add one on the west side of the house where hot summer afternoon sun can be a real problem. Temporary shade would become permanent. Interestingly there are large old elm trees on the west, but they only partially block the afternoon sun.

Rebuilding the south side of the house would allow us to extend the entrance hall some four feet or so to the south, and that would make it large enough to accommodate more than one guest at a time. It would also allow us to put in a bay window in the eating area of the kitchen which will make it somewhat less cramped. Right now we can only seat three at a time in the kitchen eating area, and we'd like to accommodate four.

The kitchen itself could use a remake. It's adequate to our needs, and so it does not require either enlarging or significant reconfiguring. We'd like to install better cabinetry -- the current cabinets are particle board -- 50 or 60 years old -- and have not held up well. I've long felt that a 50s style kitchen would be fun, so have been looking for a reasonably priced Wedgewood or O'Keefe and Merit stove from the era, and even potentially a working period refrigerator. We've had dishwashers in some of the places we've lived over the years, but we hardly ever used them. They always seemed to be more trouble than they are worth. But because of our advancing age, we would consider installing one in a newly envisioned kitchen. We don't have one now, and we don't miss it.

Real linoleum on the floor -- as opposed to the current vinyl sheet goods -- would be ideal, and in fact  linoleum was one of my requests during the initial renovation before we moved in. The problem was two fold-- the contractor did not know what I was talking about, and once I carefully walked him through what linoleum was, he discovered it wasn't available in this area of New Mexico -- he could get it, but it would take a while -- it cost a LOT more than sheet vinyl and that might break the budget (it wouldn't, but the budget would top out at just about what we'd agreed to), and he could find no one locally who knew how to install it. Finally, he said he couldn't install it during the winter because the house had no heat yet, and the linoleum would crack in the cold. So we went with sheet vinyl which after ten years is looking pretty ratty.

In order for the tap water here to be usable, it must be treated with an acid -- such as citric acid or vinegar --  in order to cut the very high alkalinity and mineral content. The water comes from an underground aquifer that is the bed of a former lake, and it has very high concentrations of lime and calcium and so on. We have investigated various non-salt ways of treating the water (most folks around here just add a little bit of vinegar whenever they draw the tap water). We've pretty much settled on a citric acid injection system.

We want to combine the two small (8 X 11) bedrooms on the west side of the house into one bedroom (11 X 16). We would also add a small bathroom by cannibalizing part of the laundry room. The laundry room now houses a very large hot water heater, and because of that, we can't get the washer and dryer to fit side by side. If we had a smaller water heater in a different position, side by side washing/drying equipment would be possible, and thus the laundry room could be much more compact.

The current living room would become a dining room which would include a stairway to the second floor and lots of bookshelves. We now have our books in bookcases in every room, so we would like to combine as many as possible in one room, a dining room cum library. Using the current living room as a dining room would mean adding a new living room as a wing off the north side of the house, adding another 320 square feet or so. Because it would be on the north side of the house, it would have east, west and northern exposures.

There is no central heat or air conditioning in this house, so if we can do it efficiently, we would add them. The problem of course is that the adobe walls are very thick (almost 3' on the north side) and finding ways to run ductwork is no easy feat. It simply may not be possible, and if it's not, we have alternatives including split systems, and even sticking with what we use now, window air conditioners and a big free-standing gas heater. We've also looked into installing gas fireplace-heaters in each wing, and a wood-burning fireplace in the new living room.

The bronze-framed dual pane windows installed during the initial renovation look nice, but they're not holding up well, and some have become difficult to open and close. One was shot with a b-b gun years ago and has now cracked clear across. I would want to replace them all at the same time the rest of the remodeling is done.

We would fence in part of the property on the west side of the new living room creating an enclosed patio-garden which we could make as lush as we like with roses and many other kinds of flowers. Outside that area, further west and north, we'd have raised beds in which to grow whatever we can. Because of the altitude (6,300 ft), dryness and long winters, not everything grows here, but our friends at IAIA have come up with an excellent covered raised bed formula that extends the growing season, and offers an easy method of cultivation for many crops that don't grow here very well at all out in the open.

The rest of the landscaping would be pretty much solely xeriscaping and fostering volunteer native plants like wild lilac.

We'd move our storage outbuilding from beside the house to the northeast corner of the property where it could serve eventually as a "tiny house" for guests, though that would probably be far in the future if it ever happened at all.

Finally, the separate garage would either get rebuilt or replaced -- right now I'm favoring replacement, but that could change. There are other outbuildings, one of which is approximately as old as the house itself which we would like to preserve as a kind of artifact, but it's starting to lean a bit, and I'm afraid it might collapse one day, so we're not sure whether to reconstruct it or merely prop it up.

This is of course a major remodel, but we would hope that the result is compatible with the various expansions and remodels the house has gone through over its long history. This is a genuine Territorial New Mexico house, originally built during the Territorial period and repeatedly remodeled, expanded, and renovated ever since. There's no reason to stop that process now or necessarily at any time in the future. These changes are organic to the kind of place it is.

The fossilization  that occurs to many New Mexico buildings that are built in "Santa Fe Style" or that undergo a "Santa Fe Style" renovation or remodel is to me a sad result of a Disneyland-ish architectural ethic that became standard -- required in the historic district -- over a century ago in Santa Fe and has spread to other areas of the state. It's sad in that nothing is allowed to (significantly) change once the style is set. But that's not how living, organic architecture or communities are or should be.

Whether we do an extensive remodel of our house one day or not, we can be sure that this house will not stay the same over an extended period. It might even be demolished one day and another house take its place. But that's what happens and is perfectly normal in a vibrant living community, rather than one that's preserved in an often inappropriate aspic.

[This post started off with the idea of dealing with contemporary housing trends in New Mexico, but then it veered into other considerations. The spur to writing it was consideration of a friend's house in El Dorado (a rural-ish suburb of Santa Fe) that she's trying to sell. It has many of the hallmarks of contemporary Santa Fe Style, but ultimately it doesn't really work as any style at all. It's a mish mash, and that is common among newer houses built in the Style or a facsimile of it. Because the Style has become so attenuated, alternatives have been growing in popularity, particularly in Albuquerque. High end contemporary domestic architecture, particularly in Albuquerque, has achieved national and international recognition, and many of its elements are available to those on a limited budget in the many live-work, loft and multi-family buildings that have been built in ABQ in recent years.

Housing in standard developments, however, tends to emulate Santa Fe Style -- badly -- or to follow style trends current in suburban developments in California -- such as the ever popular "Tuscan" style, or "Craftsman" or various iterations of the all time favorite "Ranch." In other words, there is nothing particularly "New Mexican" about most of the houses built in recent years, and those that pretend to emulate Santa Fe Style fail and generally fail badly.

I actually like Santa Fe Style domestic architecture when it's done well. The problem is that doing it well is criminally expensive these days, to the point where only the very wealthiest clients can afford it. Given its inherent limitations, many of those who can afford it would rather purchase an extant and well-done house than build a new one in the Style. Consequently, new houses in Santa Fe Style done well are becoming rare, while there continues to be a hot market in older and rather grand homes that were built in the Style decades ago, starting literally with Carlos Vierra's home ('the Ruins' it was called) on the Old Santa Fe Pecos Trail built in 1918 (I've written about it before.)  Other artists' homes -- Frank Applegate (1) (2), Witter Bynner, Gustave Baumann, Gerald Cassidy among others -- are all in variations of the Style as it was understood by artists and architects in the early 20th Century, and they are all interesting and compelling interpretations of historic designs in what was then contemporary garb. Any one of them would make a comfortable home today but not a "stylish" one in the sense of current contemporary must-haves. But the ones that have been on the market have run into the millions of dollars to purchase. A brand new house in the Style would cost as much or more.

So. It isn't often done any more at the high end, and many more modest interpretations are failures.

On the other hand, standard suburban housing, no matter the style, is often uninteresting and ultimately uncomfortable with its insistence on "open concept" living, granite, stainless, pendant and recessed lighting, laminate or carpeted floors, and so on. In other words, the standard contemporary housing vocabulary results in something that's almost a prison of contemporary "must haves" that ultimately have nothing to do with comfort, convenience or the real needs of families.

People like us -- people who don't have a lot of money but who wish to live comfortably in a historic home -- do well to find and rehab an old adobe (they're out there), perhaps not stylishly, but livably. And do as we do, consider other renovations and expansions over time. This kind of home becomes a living, organic residence, in tune with the needs of its residents, not particularly fretful over "authenticity" -- since that's built in -- and subject to change and alteration as needs arise.

That's what I have to say about the subject for now...

Spring Is Nearly Here

Had a wonderful day in Santa Fe Monday enjoying the weather and three of the museums in Downtown Santa Fe I dearly love: The New Mexico Museum of Art; the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors; and the Museum of Contemporary Native Art.

Santa Fe (or "Fanta Se" as the City Different is sometimes known) can cause a lot of tittering among the cognoscenti -- I titter about it myself from time to time. It's also called "Adobe Disneyland" -- and for good reason. There is a certain artificiality about it, a certain belief that "what you see is what it was meant to be -- but it was never really like this, and it isn't really like this now." Not real.

It's a stage set for tourists. Even though it's not high season, and there's still a nip in the air (they say there might be snow by the end of the week) the tourists are assembling in their multitudes. Oh my yes. They come from all over. Yesterday, I encountered  tourists from the South, some from Germany, some from Japan.

They come from all over, they do.

Once there in Santa Fe some are enchanted, some complain. Well, the altitude (7,200 ft or so) affects people differently.

Ms Ché and I tend to take the Old Pecos Trail which leads to the Old Santa Fe Trail into town. The historic route. The road gets narrower and narrower the closer you get to the Plaza, but interestingly -- at least to me -- it doesn't go directly to the Plaza. Instead, it jogs on Water St. a sharp 90 degree turn, then another sharp turn on what's now Washington, and even then, where it ends at the corner of La Fonda Hotel, the trail is just off the Plaza. How supply trains maneuverered through that maze -- or even if they actually did -- I have no idea. I have a hard time imagining that a fully loaded supply wagon pulled by a team of mules, horses or oxen -- six, eight, or ten strong -- would even attempt it.

Many of the complaints of tourists today have to do with getting around and finding this or that attraction in Santa Fe -- once you find the city different itself. Or rather, its historic district. It's not exactly hidden, but it's not on the freeway, either, and the signs that seem to point you toward it aren't necessarily helpful. Unless you know your way around -- or have the patience of Job -- you're bound to get lost and frustrated, annoyed and even angry. I've seen it happen.

It must have been similar in the old days. Except in the Old Days, Santa Fe wasn't really a city at all. It was barely a settlement. There was  cluster of adobe buildings huddling around the Plaza and a big old adobe church -- the Parroquia -- a block off the Plaza, and that, pretty much, was "it." The rest of what constituted the town was a smattering of scattered farmsteads and haciendas extending north and south along the superlatively named Santa Fe River (which then and now was an intermittent creek.) At most, the area population amounted to a few hundred families, Hispano and Indio in several combinations. There were also a few Anglos from early times, but the demographics weren't like California's where the Anglos seemed many.

Santa Fe was more like a frontier garrison in the Old Days, with the Presidio dominating everything. A small remnant of said Presidio, grandly styled the "Palace of the Governors" remains across from the Plaza today. Although some of the building is "historic" -- ie: contains elements that were built in the 17th, 18th or 19th Centuries -- nearly all of it is a recreation. And the facade which greets tourists today and the portal under which the Indians sell their wares dates from 1913. It has not changed since 1913. When the Palace was being used for government and military affairs -- as opposed to being a museum -- the facade was regularly changed and the building was continually modified to suit whatever necessity or desire its proprietors envisioned. It was a living building. It hasn't been "alive" since it was re-skinned with a heavy beamed portal in 1913. And its mummification is one of Santa Fe's many peculiarities.

Josef Diaz, a curator of the History Museum, took us on a "backstage" tour of the Palace on Monday-- actually it was "on stage," and he was explaining how the set would change over the next few years. I've been to the Palace many times, but I saw rooms Monday that I've never seen before. I also saw rooms lit by natural light that had always been dim and shrouded in darkness in the past. One of the persistent frustrations of Palace exhibits is that they were so dimly lit, you could barely make out what was on display.

Now some rooms have been opened to daylight for the first time in decades, and Josef said that many more rooms will be. So. That's good. I'm all for it.

He also said that many of the current exhibits in the Palace will be removed and allowed to "rest." Some of them have been on display for 20 years or more and they are deteriorating. Others, he seemed to think, don't belong in the Palace, and they will move to the History Museum behind it. Or they duplicate what's already at the History Museum and they'll be retired. What they want to do with the Palace is focus less on New Mexico history per se and more on the actual history of the building itself -- particularly its period as governors' offices and residence -- and its role in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680-92. Well, now, there's an idea, I thought.

During the Pueblo Revolt, I've read, the Palace -- or rather the Presidio of which the Palace was a corner -- was transformed and rebuilt into typical pueblo housing  and at least one kiva was built in the Plaza. There may have been other kivas in the Presidio courtyard as well.

After the return of the Spanish, the Indian pueblo aspects were removed and the Presidio/Palace was restored to what it had been -- more or less -- before the Revolt, much as the churches that had been destroyed during the Revolt were re-built more or less like they had been prior to the Indian uprising. But exactly what the Indians had done to modify the Presidio and Palace was never entirely clear -- though there is a good deal of evidence of it remaining -- and there was very little on display in the Palace that made sense of that period at all.

Josef said that the plan was to turn over an entire room to the Revolt, and to open up many of the floors and cover them with glass that could be walked on so that the buried elements -- both Spanish and Indian -- can be seen more fully and clearly.

That's good, too. I'm all for it.

It will take years to change the Palace set, and then to populate it with holographic actors might take even longer. Yes, holograms are in the offing, and I'm not entirely sure it's a good idea. Governor Armijo is supposed to offer his holographic greetings in a room off the main entrance to Palace, and Governor Prince and his wife might have their holographic discussion in another restored residential room. This Governor Prince I don't know, so I asked Josef "What about Lew Wallace?" He seemed momentarily startled: "Didn't I mention him? Oh yes, we'll have an extensive display on him. There's a problem getting artifacts from his tenure as New Mexico governor, as they are in other museums or private collections and arranging a long-term loan can be problematical." I said, "Well, wouldn't he make a good holographic subject?" Indeed. Indeed he would -- thus obviating the need for many artifacts it seems to me.

Other things that Josef pointed out would be changed over time are that the Segesser hide paintings would be moved from a dark and narrow corridor to a building of their own which was previously used for storage. Murals that once graced the entrance hall would be restored and replaced and other murals in the building would be restored and better lit. The print shop would -- maybe -- be reconfigured (Tom Leach, Palace Press honcho, is not entirely convinced it's a good idea)  and the entire Palace would be lightened and brightened.

It all sounded great.

They only need $6 million and change to get it all done, and they have a million or so from the State to do the structural repairs. The rest gets to come from "us" -- the public, starting in 2018. OK. The amount of private wealth available in Santa Fe for these sorts of projects can be positively breathtaking.

At the Art Museum, curators took us through the current Alcove Show and the "Stage, Setting and Mood: Theatricality in the Visual Arts" exhibit that was prepared to go along with the (brief) exhibit of a Shakespeare First Folio. The First Folio/Stage exhibit was located in a room beyond the guitar exhibit, and the guitars were the main draw once people learned they were there. The Art Museum had publicized the First Folio extensively, but not the guitars. So when people arrived to see the Folio and had to go through a really extraordinary display of contemporary and historic guitars, including an air guitar, to get to the Folio, they stopped, stunned and intrigued. I bet half of those who arrived never got to the Folio at all, they were so captivated by the guitars.

It happened even on the tour I went on on Monday. The Folio was gone, but the guitars were still there, and about half those on the tour stopped and gawped. The curator for the "Stage, Setting and Mood" exhibit encouraged them to come join her in the next room -- they could appreciate the guitars on the way out. Well, that seemed to bring them into the "Stage" exhibit, but I could see some looking longingly out the archway into the other room.

The curator (didn't get her name -- was it Carmen Vendelin?) had selected works that demonstrated "theatricality" in painting, sculpture, and other media. Most of the items were from the Museum's own collections, and many of them I had seen before. There was no problem in seeing them again and appreciating them this time for their theatricality. But there was one standout work I had not seen before, a painting by William Jacob Hays from the 1860s of a huge buffalo herd on the move that was lent from Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum. As the herd rumbles toward the viewer, one of the animals appears to stop to consider the skull of a long departed buffalo on the ground before it. The moment is compelling, almost otherworldly, and that is one reason why the painting was selected for this show.

Theatrical? Positively Shakespearian!

The Alcove Shows have been a feature at the New Mexico Museum of Art since its opening in 1917. A handful of artists are offered alcoves off the entrance to the Museum proper to exhibit their works for a week. Works in all genres and media are acceptable. The emphasis is on New Mexico artists -- of which there is an inexhaustible supply -- and the frequent rotation of artists and their works is energizing. We saw works by Scott Anderson, Gloria Graham, Scott Greene, Herbert Lotz, and Bonnie Lynch. Media varied from ceramics, to photography, to paintings and mixed media. Whether one "liked" the work or not was beside the point. The point was exposure to it and to its varied point of view. I found myself intrigued by everything shown at this Alcove Show.

Ms Ché and I have long been participants and patrons in the arts, and now that Ms Ché is a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, our participation and patronage seems to be growing. One of the reasons we live in New Mexico in our dotage is the pervasiveness of art and the presence of so many artists, galleries and museums to showcase the work.

It's a never-ending wonder.

OT: Houses

Looks like quite an interesting place:



Las Milpas -- "The [Corn]Fields". I've passed by it any number of times without realizing it was there. It's set back quite a ways from the street, and I'm not at all sure you can even see it when passing by. For sale. $12.5 million. A sure thing. This is not the most expensive property I've ever seen listed in Santa Fe, but it's close to it. Some of the swells have that kind of money to be sure, but whether any of them would be willing to part with their lucre for an "authentic-historic" adobe (supposedly the only one on the Eastside) is an open question.

The listing says the house was built in 1886, well into the Territorial period, so I have a difficult time believing it was built the way it appears now -- a rather early colonial casa (c. 1700) that's been added to but only slightly modified over the years by people with plenty of money. Yes, this is a big place, and even in the 1880s a place like this would have cost a good deal to build and even more to maintain.

No, I suspect it was built as a fairly ordinary Victorian house -- modified for adobe construction and local weather conditions -- and then later (probably in the1920s) it was remodeled into the formative Spanish-Pueblo "Santa Fe Style" that nowadays makes Santa Fe into what's been called "Adobe Disneyland."

So I did a little  research and discovered that actually, Las Milpas was in fact remodeled in the 1920s and the current compound is a relatively recent renovation, remodel and expansion done by one of Santa Fe's show business elite in authentic early colonial style. Well, well, well. It's more like a setting for a movie that's now passing for a museum.

There are several house museums in the region (Casa San Ysidro, Las Golondrinas) that preserve something of the Spanish colonial era lifestyle for the edification of contemporary schoolchildren, scholars and visitors. I used to be fascinated with these sorts of places in California (where there are quite a few of them) and I enjoy the ones I've found in New Mexico.

We live in something of an Old House ourselves.

As I've mentioned previously, our house is a pioneer adobe, started about 1900 when this area was (finally) opened for settlement by the courts (including the Supreme Court) which extinguished competing land grant claims. Its style is not that of Santa Fe. It's pretty standard late Victorian, and the only way you'd know this is an adobe house is by the thick walls and deep window recesses. The adobe and stucco were covered with aluminum siding in the 1950s when the house was last remodeled. So friends who've come to visit sometimes have a hard time picturing its adobe-ness and antiquity.

Most people don't want to live in places like this because they're really pretty rough and can be hard to heat, cool and maintain. They're drafty, not well insulated (despite the legendary insulation properties of adobe), the floors creak, they're dusty and a home for spiders and other fauna, and in our case, there is no finished floor over most of the house. The subfloor (ancient and refinished) is the finished floor, and it's been that way from the get go.

Our pipes freeze regularly in the winter because of the lack of insulation on the one hand and our tendency to forget to run a stream of water through the pipes during particularly cold weather. Thankfully, the previous owner replaced the galvanized iron pipes with plastic that doesn't burst when the pipes freeze. Good move.

During particularly cold and windy weather, drafts come up through the floor and it can get very chilly at floor level. On the other hand, the heaters can generally defeat the drafts if they're on long enough -- which means that our utility bills can be pretty high, certainly much higher than they were in California. But then the tradeoff is that our basic housing expense is half or less of what it was in California.

We haven't tried to retro-remodel the place into something like it might have appeared when it was first constructed, though we have a lot of old stuff inside the house. I've thought about doing a major remodel retro-remodel, though.

If we did, our place would probably look something like this:

But when I checked on costs to do this kind of remodel some time ago, I found it was well beyond our budget. More than likely, it still is. The cost to do it is probably two or three times the value of the house in any case.

Some people have wondered why we live in this house when there ought to be others which would suit our needs -- possibly better than this house does  -- and not cost so much to maintain, heat and cool?

I was attracted to this house from the moment I saw its picture in the listing ten years ago, and when I visited and learned some of its history, I said, "This is the one." From the time I was little, I wanted to live in an adobe house. The idea of living in a house built from the earth itself appealed to me. The fact was that people had been making and living in such houses for thousands of years, and it seemed to me to be a thoroughly natural way to use available resources for shelter.

Indians in New Mexico had long used a form of adobe to build their pueblo communities, but they didn't -- generally -- use adobe bricks. Instead they built with hand-shaped "turtles" -- roundish masses surrounded with adobe mud. They also used puddled adobe and forms of construction which resembled pottery making.

When the Spanish came, brick making was introduced. It was revolutionary in the sense that it was much faster than the Indian way of building with adobe, but it didn't really change the nature of the structures that were built. Spanish colonial structures were generally separated rather than coalesced as was the case with many of the Indian pueblos that functioned as apartment buildings, but the nature of the structures built by the Spanish and those built by the Indians -- multiple rooms for housing and storage typically built around a plaza or courtyard -- were almost identical.

The main difference was the number of people (and animals) housed in any given compound and the finish and decoration of the resulting structures.

Las Milpas is intended to resemble a Spanish colonial compound that would have been built over a couple of centuries (say 1700-1900) by generations of a particular Spanish family. While it claims to be "authentic," it's actually an "authentic re-creation." It's not original, in other words.

However, as a re-creation, it's quite appealing. When I first saw the photos of the place, I was captivated. If only our place looked like that! Well, no. On second thought, no.

I think Las Milpas would be a very difficult place to live in.

It seems to ramble somewhat randomly -- which is (and isn't) "authentic." It doesn't appear to have modern heating (which might be a problem in the cold-cold Santa Fe winters.) I don't see a kitchen among the pictures at all (although there must be one, no? One is mentioned in the story. but maybe the cooking is fired by wood, and water is carried in jars from the acequia out back?) and only one bathroom is pictured. For some reason, I feel something of a shiver when I see it. Brr.

In other words, it seems like the effort to make it authentically historic has made it difficult or impossible to include modern conveniences. That's OK up to a point, but there comes a point where the discomfort level rises so much that almost nothing else matters...

No, let's not be quite so deliberately uncomfortable.

And yet Las Milpas has a very strong appeal -- to me. I think I would really like to imagine myself living there at some point in the long-ago. It reminds me in some ways of Mabel Dodge Luhan's Los Gallos house in Taos. That house was expanded from a core of four rooms to quite a large place in the 1920s, and it has a great deal of appeal to visitors and caretakers alike. It is "authentic" in the sense that it was built by Indian labor according to Indian designs (Tony Luhan was the builder-creator). But there are modern conveniences, and so the discomfort level is lessened.

If we ever do retro-remodel our own house, I suspect the result will be a sort of hybrid between high -- or low -- Victorian and Arts and Crafts. Box beams instead of vigas, for example, touches of stained glass, wood floors instead of ceramic tile, and probably fireplaces with mantles instead of the kiva style so popular in the Santa Fe tradition.

But that may be years away if it ever comes...

(I've been working on another post about houses I've lived in over the years that have been influential in the way I see things... one day I may find time to complete it and post it!)

Tired-Energized. What a Week

I haven't written a whole lot about what we've been up to -- indeed, I haven't written a whole lot about much of anything -- in a while now. It's partly been a slow-down for the summer, partly physical/health issues, partly a slow transition from one phase to another as we get older and our lives in New Mexico become fuller.

This last week has been astonishing in many ways, and it represents some of the changes we're going through. It's been extremely busy, especially for Ms Ché as she returns to college to (finally) get her degree, a BFA in Creative Writing from IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts) after decades of doing other things in other places. That change in her life means I get to take up a lot of the domestic chores that were once her bailiwick, including looking after the feral cat colony which she's been wrangling and supervising. Given the fact that I don't get around as well as I used to, this domesticity on my part is probably for the best. At least I can make my way around most of our modest spread here and take care of it relatively well -- for the time being anyway.

One of the challenges we're facing is that IAIA is about 50 miles away, a good hour's commute if she drives herself, an almost 3 hour commute if she takes transit. There is a free bus to Santa Fe that picks up passengers at the Park and Ride not too far from our place (maybe three-four miles) -- at 6am. It gets to Santa Fe around 8am; there she has to catch a city bus to another transit center at a mall south of town where she can catch yet another bus to the IAIA campus where she arrives just before 9am. She's done it once. She says it's grueling, basically because of the early start and the bus changes. She can use the time to do her studies, so there is that. But it makes for a very long day, close to 14 hours on the road, in study and in classes. For the time being, at any rate, she's decided it's better for her to drive herself. It's still a long day, but doing so cuts 4 hours off the commute, though it adds considerably to expenses for the car.

When the weather changes, we'll reassess the situation. Snow can be heavy at times, and the road to Santa Fe, while well-maintained, is a rural two-lane highway, and the spur she takes from Galisteo to Highway 14 and then to the campus is tricky even in good weather.

We have some friends in Santa Fe who say she can stay with them if the weather is too severe to travel from there to our place, so that's a plus.

This last week has included activities that are more social than educational, though they overlap in various ways.

On Tuesday evening, we went to the Allan Houser Scholarship announcement/reception at the Compound restaurant in Santa Fe. This was one of the periodic social/fundraising events IAIA engages in throughout the year to raise and distribute money for the college and its students. In this case, the proprietors of the Compound established a scholarship fund in honor of Native American Sculptor, IAIA founding instructor, and artist mentor Allan Houser last year during celebrations for his 100th birthday. They gave out their first scholarship last Tuesday evening at a gala event that included a lot of Santa Fe's swells, plus a number of others, including some we talked to who had no idea why they were invited! The scholarship recipient, Maria Fairbanks(? -- not sure of her last name, actually) is a wonderful individual studying studio arts with a minor in performing arts, and there is little doubt in our minds that she's going to go far, as far as she wants to doing pretty much whatever she pleases. Interestingly, I was chatting with Allan Houser's widow, Anna Maria, at the event, and she pointed out that this is not the first "Allan Houser Scholarship" as the family has been giving scholarships and money for scholarships for years. But it was the first scholarship from this specific fund, and so...

On Wednesday evening, we attended the annual Scholarship Dinner and Auction at La Fonda in Santa Fe, an event that raises money for general scholarships that we've attended three times now since moving to New Mexico. Tuesday night's event was gala, the Wednesday Scholarship benefit event was gala-squared. The main ballroom at La Fonda was packed with Santa Fe's and some of the rest of New Mexico's swellest of swells, and money flowed like water. These events have been raising about $150,000 for scholarships each year, but I suspect this year's event raised quite a bit more. There is a silent auction of items -- mostly art -- many of which are produced by IAIA students, faculty and alums. There's also a live auction during the dinner which can raise large amounts of money, as many of the items auctioned are works by some of the country's major Native American artists, IAIA alums or faculty, including Dale Chihuly, Preston Singletary, Virgil Ortiz, Tony Abeyta, Rose Simpson and others... oh, so many others. Some of the works this year and in past years have been remarkable. We usually can't afford to bid on them, but quite a few of those in attendance can and do. Last year, we bid on some plates by Virgil Ortiz but we were outbid almost immediately by the governor of Pojoaque Pueblo (who's also an artist) who pushed the price into the stratosphere and well out of our budget range. (The pueblo has considerable casino money and has used a lot of it on purchasing art and establishing some rather stunning art exhibitions and funding arts education.)

This year, we didn't bid in the live auction at all, but we did bid on and win a number of items in the silent auction, including a large painting by Tyrone Headman (IAIA alum) entitled "Geronimo Sipping Latte." I may photograph it and post it at some point. Our house is already full of paintings, so it took some juggling to find a place for it. But it got hung. Hopefully to the amusement of a guest one night.

We purchased more items in the silent auction than we have in the past because we attended the dinner as guests of a friend who has a Native American art appraisal business and so we did not have to pay for the dinner -- meaning we could spend more for other things, and so we did... Ms Ché's favorite item from the silent auction is a lapis wolf fetish carved by Ray Tsalate of Zuni Pueblo that she almost didn't get because another woman wanted it and kept outbidding her. But in the end Ms bid the full "buy it now" price and so, it is now hers.

Ms Ché has received several scholarships to attend IAIA, so it seems only fitting that we do our part to return the favor. Since we've been contributing to the scholarship fund for years, we're happy to do a bit more this year if we can.

The event also featured a performance-art piece by created by Virgil Ortiz and Rose Simpson that seemed to enthrall, stun and puzzle the audience. I've mentioned Virgil a number of times in these pages as he was one of the artists we became immediately attracted to when we moved here. He's a well-known fashion designer, but there's much -- much -- more to his work than "just" fashion. His focus is on a futuristic version of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, set in 2180, with a whole elaborate cast of characters, a series of pottery figures depicting some of those characters (and others), film and video of those characters and their adventures, and many other items of art and fashion that relate to his theme. The performance art at the Scholarship Dinner was puzzling to those who were not familiar with that theme of the Pueblo Revolt and its futuristic counterpart, but for those who knew it, the piece was relatively clear. A god-like illuminated musician (he wore electric lights and played an amplified violin) accompanied a young man and young woman who find items in a trunk which they learn to wear as a kind of cloaking element, protection in a way, as they contemplate and prepare for the Revolt to come. At least that is how I interpreted the piece. It seemed obvious to me!

Rose Simpson is the daughter of Roxanne Swentzell, a very well known Native American sculptor -- whose exhibit at the Pojoaque Pueblo is stunning. Rose has been collaborating with her mother and with other Native American artists in a flurry of creativity which we were also privileged to encounter and enjoy yesterday at a "Breakfast With the Curator" event at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

The curator in this case was Leticia Chambers who I think we can fairly say has become a friend in the past year or so since we met her at an event at her house held to introduce the New Mexico Film Foundation to a wider public.

Leticia is from Oklahoma and believes she is of Cherokee descent though she is not a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her interest in Native American art goes way back to her childhood when her family visited Taos for the first time, and she spent the small allowance she had on a pot created by a Taoseno. She's been collecting, she said, ever since. She claimed, modestly, that she doesn't have a very large collection, but having seen it myself, I'd say she has one of the most important collections of Native American contemporary art in private hands in Santa Fe -- and perhaps in the nation. It is nothing short of amazing. I think a word I used when I saw it was "breathtaking."

When she and Ms Ché met that evening, they seemed to bond almost immediately, as if they were long-lost sisters or cousins (which they might be, who knows!) and they've remained bonded ever since though they're not in particularly constant or close contact.

Yesterday at breakfast and afterwards we heard Leticia explain about the sculptures and the sculptors she chose for the Museum's exhibit of monumental pieces by Native women about Native women. It was remarkable and very moving. We'd seen the exhibit before, but not in this way, not as intimately, not as fully elucidated, not as touchingly personal. The works are remarkable for themselves but the stories behind them -- how and why they came to be, and who created them -- added depth and dimension that otherwise we wouldn't have known. Leticia happens to be an excellent story-teller to boot, so the morning was extraordinary. Ms Ché became overcome with emotion at one point and Native staff members recognized what had happened immediately and offered her their comfort and understanding -- because it had happened to them, too.

Leticia herself knew and saw and empathized with Ms Ché and said she often found herself choked up when she contemplated the works and the women who made them. Indeed.

We left the museum a little after ten and went to Santa Fe's Railyard district to attend the Indigenous Fine Arts Market, the rebel-alternative to the immense SWAIA Indian Market in Santa Fe's historic plaza and surrounding areas. We went to the SWAIA market once and I doubt we'll return simply because it is too big. The IFAM market is smaller, more intimate, more comprehensible in fact, and I think it's fair to say it's edgier with a more contemporary feel on the one hand, and a wider variety of Native arts and artists on the other.

We were delighted to see so many artists from the East, from the Northwest and Alaska, and from Oklahoma. While the SWIA market does include artists from these areas, Pueblo and Navajo artists predominate to such an extent it can be difficult to locate the "others." At IFAM, it was not a problem. Though there were many top-notch artists from Navajo and Pueblo areas, there were also many from other areas mixed among them, which helped make for some very interesting/exciting juxtapositions.

At the Scholarship Dinner on Wednesday, America Meridith, publisher of First American Art Magazine, shared our table and she insisted that we had to go see the pottery by Karin Walkingstick, a Cherokee potter from Oklahoma. She said Karin would be at both markets -- and we had to see her work. Had to.

So we made it a point to find and check out her booth at the IFAM. Sure enough, her pottery was extraordinary and compelling. More amazing still was that she had only been potting for two years, but there was nothing at all raw or tentative about her work. It is all fully and beautifully realized, remarkable in fact, and we were very glad to have seen it for ourselves. Unfortunately, we couldn't purchase anything from her as our budget for art is exhausted for the year.

We had some other stops to make in Albuquerque later in the day which meant the long, boring drive down the hill from Santa Fe. Smoke from the fires in California and Washington has made its way to central and northern New Mexico and so casts a pall on the scenery. The mountains practically disappear in the murk, but there were also rain squalls mixed in with the smoke, so the usually boring drive down to Albuquerque had moments of interest as cloud bursts and rain-spattering periodically interrupted our boredom.

We got our business done in Albuquerque and headed home late in the afternoon. It was a heady day after a very heavy and heady week, and we were both exhausted -- but remarkably energized and elated.

One of the booths where we spent quite a bit of time at the IFAM was that of Leonard Peltier, wrongly convicted of crimes he didn't commit and wrongly held in Federal prison for those crimes -- and smeared and slandered by the FBI for decades. Dozens of Peltier's paintings were on exhibit -- and for sale -- along with posters, prints and minor items all to help fund his legal challenges to his continued imprisonment.

I had never seen so many of his paintings before. He's a highly talented artist in a more or less traditional style. Again, we couldn't afford any of them, but just to see so many was a remarkable experience. Among the minor items on display, Ms Ché found a patch with the combined figures of a wolf and a raven (both spirit animals for her) around which was the motto: "Do right and fear no one," and "Free Leonard Peltier." Well, that was something we could afford, and that patch now has a place of honor in the library here at the house (which is also her study.)  Peltier has been a symbol of Native oppression and resistance for decades. His continued incarceration is an injustice -- among so many injustices that typify the American system of injustice these days. To find his work in the "rebel" Indian market seemed just right somehow, and we felt privileged at that moment.

As Ms Ché has said, after spending a lifetime in the white world and learning how to survive and succeed in it while preserving something of her Indian heritage, she's now "becoming" what she's always been -- a strong and purposeful Native American woman. She's coming into her own in ways that simply weren't possible before. Exhaustion is part of the process of transformation they say!...

[I haven't put links in this post but will try to include them within the next day or two.]

Down Country and the Persistence of Colonialism in New Mexico

I've been thinking about colonialism as endemic to New Mexico.

It's part of Pueblo culture and other Native culture, too, including Diné/Navajo.

I've been reading Lucy Lippard's magisterial "Down Country" (mostly) about the Tano people of the Galisteo Basin, just to the north over a ridge from our own place in the Estancia Basin. The Tano came as colonizers from the north and west in -- perhaps -- 1200AD or so; there were already scattered settlements in the Galisteo, some a thousand years old, perhaps (then again, maybe not so old.) The inhabitants were overwhelmed, driven out or incorporated into the new Tano pueblo villages, the ruins of which are found all over the Galisteo. The Spanish, in their turn, overwhelmed the Tano pueblos, and eventually, they were all abandoned, the remnant Tano people moving to Hopi-land where their descendants still are.

The Spanish settled in after a while, and they in their turn were overwhelmed and the Anglo colonists moved in. Galisteo itself has been a Tano pueblo, a Spanish pueblo and it is now (mostly) an Anglo artist colony, an offshoot of Santa Fe's art colony.  Fancy people, all 250 of them,  in their fancy houses and studios, with their fancy (non-functional) mailboxes, lording it over... well, their own domain. A domain taken from others, who took it from others, who in turn took it from others still.

I'm a colonist too. Ms Ché is in a slightly different category being Native and all, but Cherokee are not the local indigenous even so.  Cherokee are more or less in charge of IAIA, and even though it is Indian-centered and Indian run, IAIA is very much a colonial enterprise.

Where we are, the Empty Quarter, has a similar pattern to that of the Galisteo Basin, though much attenuated, as no one (much) lived here to take the land from, and there were few resources easily exploitable.

The closest pueblos were fifteen/twenty miles away. This was an open grassland where buffalo roamed. The deer and the antelope played in the hills and mountains round about, among the cholla, pinon, and juniper. Before the Spanish, the Tompiro people coming from the west established a few outposts which became large pueblo trading centers, the chief product being salt which the people collected from the salt ponds to the east, the remnants of the once mighty lake that had filled the Estancia basin. The trade was between the local pueblos, the pueblos along the Rio Grande on the west side of the mountains, and the Plains tribes, chiefly the Kiowa and Comanche who roamed and were fierce in their war paint wherever and whenever they wished. They followed the buffalo, but so did the Pueblo peoples whose hunts were legendary.

The Tompiro fought the Spanish and submitted to the Spanish and that was their undoing, for once they sumitted, they no longer were able to rely on their own customs and resources to ensure their survival, they had to rely on the Spanish -- who literally had no concern for the well-being/survival of the People, only for themselves. Ultimately, the remnant Tompiro people (perhaps only a few hundred by then) left en masse and joined the Rio Grande pueblos, chiefly Isleta, just before the outbreak of the Pueblo Revolt.

They never came back. The land was empty -- except for the birds, the buffalo, the deer and the antelope, the coyotes and the occasional forays from the Kiowa and Comanche, who now had to scale the mountain passes to get to the pueblos and the Spanish settlements for slave-raiding and trade. Such an inconvenience, but they managed somehow.

This land became part of contested and competing land grants and was used primarily for sheep-raising when it was used at all. It was wild-country, no-man's land.

There were a few Spanish villages along the east foothills of the Manzanos and there was a ranch headquarters at Estancia, and that was pretty much it for settlement. The ruins of the stone-built pueblos did not dissolve back into the ground like adobe would but still stood stark, rigid and crumbling, not unlike tiny versions of Chaco and Mesa Verde.

Anglo colonists came from Texas with their multitudes of cattle and claimed the land for their own, demanding that the sheep-ranchers and their sheep withdraw forthwith. There was a notorious shoot-out after a friendly poker game. The colonists came from Texas, but the Anglo colonial enterprise was directed from California, via Boston, or vice versa. I had no idea until after I'd lived here for a while that the cattle operation was owned by the Whitneys who had a vast ranch and experimental farm outside of Sacramento which turned into one of the many microchip suburbs and where I had worked from time to time. The Whitneys came from Boston at the tail end of the Gold Rush. In New Mexico, the Whitneys claimed to be from Boston, though their entire expansion program was being run from their California ranch. Colorado didn't escape their ministrations, either, I'm told, but that's another tale for another time.

(I'm sure I've told this story before) The Whitneys fought the Oteros on the ground and in court for decades for control of the land, and finally they both lost at the Supreme Court, and the land was opened for Anglo homesteading/settlement. The railroad promptly laid tracks, and the remnants of history are all around, as are the many ruins of broken dreams. Our house was one of those ruins until we, colonists from California, "rescued" it and rehabbed it enough to live in. With the skunks underneath and the song birds nesting in the eaves.

Now and then, we still hear a coyote howl or see an eagle soar. There are no buffalo, though, no more. I don't know why not. There are vast ranches nearby where they could be raised and roam, ranches that host numerous cattle, horses, llamas, or goats, and if they can host any of those, they can host buffalo, but they don't. The pronghorn, they say, are not the Native variety -- they were hunted to extinction in historic times -- they are an imported variety from Wyoming; colonists you might say, in their own right, like the cattle, the horses, the llamas and the goats.

The Russian olives are colonists as are most of the plants that now cover the grasslands. The farms and most of their crops are colonists, though corn, beans and squash are raised in abundance and are highly sought after by city-folk who flock to the country at harvest time. Colonists. The farm nearby where the cranes roost in the daytime is a working farm, but also an "attraction," hosting thousands of school children bussed in from the city every year to see what a "real farm" is like.  Colonists.

All I'm saying is that there is no escaping colonialism in New Mexico. Even the Diné/Navajo are colonists -- coming in from the north so late in the game they were practically simultaneous arrivals with the Spanish, within a hundred years or so. They were raiders like their cousins the Apaches. The pueblo peoples feared and despised them. Some still do. Colonists all.

The question is whether colonialism will continue to be imposed by force and bloodshed. That's the issue of police violence in a nutshell. That's the issue raised by so many of the Indians we've come to know in New Mexico -- who say, almost to a one, "It didn't have to be this way."

The violence was never necessary.

The taking and the stealing and the use of force and bloodshed was never necessary. Matters could be worked out (relatively) peacefully. Accommodations could be made. They still can be.

That's what I'm hoping to see happen in the next phase of opposition to police violence -- and implicitly to the violence of Anglo-colonialism.

The Spanish and the Indians learned -- the hard way -- to accommodate one another in this harsh and unforgiving land. As I've heard said, they're all related now, they're children of one another's mothers, and though they may maintain distinctive cultures, they are still family. They often unite to oppose more Anglo colonial impositions and these days they can and do succeed in their opposition.

The question is whether the Anglos will learn there is another way. In my view, they must learn.