I finally got Effigies II, the London- published collection of five Native female poets that includes Ungie Davila; Most are dutiful to OK, but Ungelbah’s are brilliant, partially because she draws upon the cultural history of New Mexico as seen through the rhinestone – studded red sunglasses and sensibilties of a talented cowpunk artist and …
Tag: New Mexico
Old Timers
Our annual fiesta seems to have taken on new life, and despite threatening (pre?) monsoon clouds staggering by, nothing is getting cancelled. It SMELLS like O t’s. Now we just need the metronymic rhythm of 4 pm daily storms (with hail!) and maybe this will be the best “real” rain in a decade… Pics, random …
Local Artist
Libby’s friend Happy Piasso is a Navajo silvermith who is not always traditional. The belt buckle design is based on a Japanese Goshawk portait in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (notice the red coral eye); the ring is built around a silver bat skull.
Image
Leon Gaspard was a Taos painter of the early 20th century, with an eccentric style that makes him marginally less popular than some of his straightforwardly impressionist colleagues. He was a Russian who traveled in the the Soviet Union in the 20’s. Like his predecessor , the poet and novelist Lermontov (grandfather Scot “Learmont”), his …
Magdalena Old Timers Fiesta
Good week with the hawk and with guest Annie Hocker; bad week with my right hip, and not very productive. But once a year, local patriotism demands I pay some attention to Magdalena’s only event that brings out of towners in. Yeah, it’s hokey and country and so what? We missed it when water worries …
Early Monsoon?
Magdalena mountains last weekend, by Elizabeth Campbell. This is less than ten miles from us, mountains thrusting up to nearly 11,000 feet from a plain over 6000, between us and Socorro 2500 feet below on the Rio Grande. Topping out– telescope on the ridge ahead. Going down toward Water Canyon, a hummingbird appears. Peregrines nest …
Gorbatov and Seton
The live capture of the wolf in the video below put me in mind of a Vadim Gorbatov project I would love to see published in English. Almost twenty years ago a Korean publisher decided to revive the classic Ernest Thompson Seton tale “Lobo”, about a cattle- killing wolf in northern New Mexico; a story …
A new cover for Querencia- the- Book?
As my backlist comes up for reprint by Skyhorse, chances come up to change things; from wrong to right, from ugly to visually striking, or just from old to new (a new cover always catches my eye). Querencia the book has always looked just fine, with its cover by Russ Chatham, its brilliant design, its …
Seen in Santa Fe
I photographed this out the window last week in Santa Fe. I am not a total 19th Century relic, nor does my nearly 64 years yet blind me to the new. But would someone explain to me how a giant inflatable Hamster (or rather “Hamsta”) in camo pants, giving gang signs, can be seen as …
Magdalena’s Poet
Bruce Holsapple wasn’t born here any more than I was (“I’m not from here/ I just live here”– James McMurtry); but sooner or later you make your stand. Would you not credit Gary Snyder and his adopted watershed in the dry Sierra, or me in my Querencia? Bruce has been here long enough to put …