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Round 3 on Drivers License Debate Coming
12/27/2011

By Matthew Reichbach Governor Susana Martinez promised today to bring back the controversial and time-consuming issue of repealing a law that permits undocumented immigrants to receive New Mexico drivers licenses. Significantly, both the pro- and anti-repeal sides on this question claim that their respective positions better protect the public’s safety. Martinez, and proponents of the [...]

Get Your Hater-ade at Chick-fil-A
12/27/2011

So what’s the deal with national fast food chain, Chick-fil-A? Sarah Kennedy has the story.

Protests and dissent as EIB looks at rolling back environmental protections
12/27/2011

By Matthew Reichbach As the Environmental Improvement Board looks at rolling back environmental rules instituted under former Governor Bill Richardson, protesters from the Occupy Movement and environmental groups have made their voices heard opposing the changes. The existing environmental rules that the Martinez-appointed board is considering repealing relate to carbon dioxide emissions. Industry groups including [...]

State Fair’s Casino Deal Raises Pay-to-Play Concerns (VIDEO)
12/27/2011

Neighborhood and community groups are still in a state of shock over last week’s unscheduled vote by the State Fair Commission to approve a 25-year lease arrangement calling for construction of a new $20 million casino smack in the middle of Albuquerque. But it’s what Governor Susana Martinez wanted and so that’s that. Somehow it [...]

OKeeffe and Fisk, Resolution?
12/22/2011

Photo courtesy of Fisk University

The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but this week they spit out a verdict that seems right to me.

Nearly a year and a half ago, I wrote a post on the latest saga of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum vs. Fisk University. If you want a refresher, or need to start at the beginning (!), click here to read my first post in this series, from November, 2007.

Basically, the struggling Fisk wanted to sell two pieces from the Stieglitz collection that O'Keeffe donated to the university in 1949. The historically black college was in danger of shutting down, could no longer afford the upkeep on their art museum (and therefore could no longer safely display the works), and wanted to sell only two of its 101-piece Stieglitz collection. The two pieces to be sold were O'Keeffe's Radiator Building and another painting by Marsden Hartley. The O'Keeffe had been valued at more than $20 million.

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe argued that Fisk was violating the terms of the bequest, and asked that the entire collection be turned over to the Museum (with, as far as I can tell, no money changing hands).

But on July 14, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that the O'Keeffe had no right to the work and no standing in court. This clears the way for a possible arrangement with the Crystal Bridges Museum described in a previous post. While the O'Keeffe has 60 days to appeal the decision, one hopes that they will have the grace to back down this time.

Sadly, this has been an expensive victory for Fisk. President Hazel O'Leary said she was pleased by the ruling, but "the expense the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum has forced Fisk to incur in its effort to gain ownership of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Modern Art could have been committed to scholarships for our students."

In other O'Keeffe news this week, the Museum was considering action against the Georgia O'Keeffe Elementary School in Albuquerque for abbreviating her name on a sign as GOK. The Museum contends that the only acceptable abbreviation is G.OK, because O'Keeffe would not have liked the way GOK sounded when it was pronounced. Seriously.

1607 - Juan Martínez de Montoya testified before Acting Governor Cristobal Oñate that he had established the plaza of La Villa de Santa Fe.

1609 - Spanish Viceroy Luis de Velasco signed an order to make Santa Fe the capital of New Mexico on March 30. He also named Pedro de Peralta as Governor.

1610 - The new Governor arrived in Santa Fe to assume his office, and to let the residents know of their new status.

Santa Fe thus lays claim to being the oldest capital city in the U.S.--and it's been a capital under three governments (Spain, Mexico, and the U.S.).

Unfortunately, the weather was rainy off and on all weekend, but all events took place. At the Saturday night concert I attended it rained primarily before the performances began--and the dancers, singers, and musicians were all on a covered stage. Still, a lovely small-town evening! Photographs of performers throughout this post include Black Eagle (Grammy-winning Jemez Pueblo drummers and dancers), Blackfire (Navajo band), singer Lila Downs (whom I actually first saw perform in Massachusetts, at the Somerville Theatre), and the 13 women of the El Paso mariachi group Mariachi Femenil Flores Mexicanas.

Other performances (no photos) were by Ozomatli and "The King of New Mexico Music" Tobias Rene.

The plate replaces the so-called "balloon plate", which has been around for the past 10 years.

The question the Governor has for you is the following. Should this be the only standard (i.e. no extra charge) plate available to New Mexicans, or should they continue to be able to choose the other current standard plate, cleverly known as "the yellow plate"?

If you'd like to vote, click here to go the state's license plate survey website.

Those who are willing to spend an extra $25 can forego the above choice(s) and instead acquire the new Santa Fe 400th anniversary license plate, which will be available after Labor Day. The extra $25 will go to offset the costs of the 400th anniversary celebration.

See how dark the sky is--and at the same time how much sunlight is shining on my next door neighbor's house!

Geologist Dr. Kirt Kempter (who has studied plate tectonics and volcanism around the world) was our guide for the day.

About 1.25 million years ago, a volcanic eruption occurred in the Jemez Mountains. After the first phase, which spewed magma maybe 10-12 miles up into the stratosphere, crystals and ash (known as tephra) rained (or more descriptively, snowed) down on the area.

After a few hours, waves of so-called pyroclastic flows (very hot and very fast--600-700 degrees in temperature, and moving at 100-200 mph) spread across the region, filling valleys, and forming plateaus such as the Pajarito Plateau (which was the subject of a recent post). The photo above shows a small part of the Plateau, which we passed on our way up to the Valles Caldera.

Finally, after the magma was depleted, the earth's crust around the vents began to collapse. The east side of what is now known as the Valles Caldera collapsed nearly a mile--the west side only about a quarter of a mile.

The area has had an interesting history. Pueblo Indians (from nine different pueblos along the Rio Grande) hunted, farmed, and collected tool-making rocks in the Caldera (such as the obsidian outcropping shown in the photo above which was used to make arrowheads) before the Spanish came. When the Spanish brought sheep, horses, and cattle, the lush summer grasslands provided ideal grazing.

In 1860, 12 years after the US took over the area, a land-grant settlement was reached by awarding a grant of 100,000 acres (almost the entire Valles Caldera) to the heirs of Cabeza de Vaca (see my previous post on the Cabeza de Vacas). Four private owners held the land until 2000 when the US government purchased it and established the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Today, the Caldera is home to the second largest elkherd in the state (numbering about 3,000), and its beautiful meadows and slopes are also home to deer, golden eagles, mountain lions, bobcats, bears, 60 species of birds, and wild turkeys. Lottery-based fishing permits are available, and each fisherman gets about a mile of stream to him/herself for the day to fish for the native trout.

In the winter, it is a fabulous location for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and sleigh rides when the weather cooperates!

The Preserve also hosts a number of special events including mountain bike rides, overnight birding events, fly fishing clinics, elk hunts, and night sky adventures. The number of visitors to the Preserve is controlled--so you really get a chance to experience nature and not crowds.

Illustration Credits and References

Thanks to my friend Gloria Gordon for the wildlife photo.

This post was informed by Valles Caldera: Map and Geologic History of the Southwest's Youngest Caldera, a High Desert Field Guide authored by Kirt Kempter and Dick Huelster, and by the website and brochures of the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

This year for the first time I worked as one of 1,500 volunteers at the market. In an effort to become greener, and also to save money, the market (for the first time) did not sell bottled water. I worked at a water station where we gave away free water (Santa Fe water chilled and filtered on the spot by The Good Water Company) to refill customers' own bottles, or paper cones of water for those who did not have bottles. Lots of customers in that heat!

A first for the market this year: former President Bill Clinton, a folk art fan, commissioned three Folk Art Market artists to make the prizes that will be presented in September to the winners of the Clinton Global Citizen Awards. The award honors individuals and organizations for their contributions to solving global challenges. All three artists — Serge Jolimeau and Michée Ramil Remy of Haiti and Toyin Folorunso of Nigeria — work with recycled metals.

Here are some clouds from last night with a cold front moving in--real silver linings!

So it was very exciting to have this chance to tour the site! It was, however, a very hot day, and we probably walked at least four miles. FOA is very good about making sure everyone carried enough water--2.5 litres (which is heavy!) Our lunches were made (including fresh-baked sandwich bread) by the Totavi Café and were excellent. (At least we didn't have to carry those!)

For a general history of the area, check out my recent Tsankawi post. (Otowi is only about two miles away from Tsankawi.)

The various ancestral sites within the canyon now consist primarily of semi-cleared areas, mounded dirt areas, and rocks that were used in construction. When these residences were built (some as early as the 13th century) they were likely not intended for permanent use, and once they were no longer lived in, they "melted" back into the ground pretty quickly. The Pajarito Plateau was abandoned by the Tewa as a residential area by 1550; most went to settle along the Rio Grande where they still live today. However, the area still continued to be used for hunting and worship.

The first photo above shows a pile of volcanic rock that was used in construction; the second shows the rocks that were positioned for the corner of a dwelling--still in place. There is evidence on the site of hundreds of rooms, and 10 circular kivas.

Although we did not explore the "cavates" at Otowi (as we did at Tsankawi), we got a good view of them from the canyon (see the photo above). And we saw the place where the water sinks--a running stream disappears underground (on the way to lunch, and too hot and tired to backtrack for a photo!).

The IAIA's location is ideal for furthering its mission--in Santa Fe, which is the second largest art market in the U.S., and near the 19 native pueblos of New Mexico. In addition, the size and setting of the campus allowed it to be constructed in a way that references and respects native traditions (directions, solstices, etc.), and it is home to native plants and wildlife. On-campus housing includes residences for traditional-age students, as well as family housing units for older students. A new daycare center is expected to open soon.


All facilities are full of native art, and our tour included views of studios and galleries, and art that included painting, metalwork, jewelry, glass, beading, and leatherwork.

This painting by an IAIA student, a Native American version of the Last Supper, was hanging in the Administration building.

This spinning wheel in the IAIA library is by Apache artist Bob Haozous, son of Allan Houser (whom I've written about in an earlier blog).

One of the highlights of our trip was the welcome our group received in the student learning support center, where we were treated to a snack of hot blue corn meal (in a form somewhere between oatmeal and hot drink); a note on the blackboard in the student lounge area indicated that it was a "blue corn morning". Thus warmed and fortified, we were able to venture back out into the cold to complete our tour of this impressive facility.

Gruene, Texas. Located midway between Austin and San Antonio, it features a whole community of 19th century residences and businesses, which owe their survival to the Depression.

But before that, Henry Gruene built a home for himself and one for his foreman, a cotton gin, a "mercantile", and a dance hall/saloon. Business thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but after a major boll weevil attack and the sorrows of the Depression, the town was largely abandoned. As a result, 1970s restoration efforts had a treasure trove of original architecture to work with, and today the town evokes its origins in several streets of quaint shops, antique stores, and the original dance hall--Gruene Hall. (Unlike the rest of town, the dance hall/saloon never closed!)

On a recent trip to San Antonio, we detoured to Gruene to listen to Santa Fe musician Bill Hearne in the dance hall, meet an Austin friend for lunch, and tour the town. One of the things I really enjoyed was the wordplay in the naming of the shops, restaurants, etc. Though the original German name would have been pronounced "Groon'eh", the locals pronounce it "Green"--and that's how you have to read the signs in this post.

Our recent class featured four different kinds of chiles rellenos (stuffed chiles): cream cheese stuffed jalapeños in escabeche, New Mexican tempura rellenos, ancho chile rellenos, and chiles en nogada.

The last was my favorite. It featured a stuffing that included ground pork, garlic and onion, tomato puree, apples, peaches, plantains, dried apricots, raisins, and almonds. And as if that weren't enough, it was accompanied by a sauce made from pecans, almonds, queso fresco (or feta cheese), half and half, and sherry. The chiles were stuffed, lightly battered, fried, dipped in sauce, and topped with pomegranate seeds. Scrumptious!


Our chef for the day was Danny Cohen, ably assisted by Noe Cano.

And "class" is really not the right word for this experience--it's really a demonstration. The chef (who also teaches culinary classes at Santa Fe Community College) kept up an engaging patter while he cooked, and we could all see what he was doing in the reflection of the overhead mirror.

We students drank coffee and wine, took notes, and ate--a very easy assigment!

I even learned a couple of new cooking facts/tips. For example, fresh jalapeños become chipotles when dried, and poblanos become anchos. And Chef Danny prefers the use of grapeseed oil for cooking (as opposed to canola oil), with olive oil only used to finish.

They do also offer hands-on classes, restaurant walks featuring private chef meetings and tastings in some of the best restaurants in Santa Fe, an onsite market for Southwestern foods and cooking tools, and one or two day team building seminars centered around the experience of cooking and eating together.

I highly recommend the Santa Fe School of Cooking, in spite of the steep price-tag ($70 and up for most classes). Visit in February and enjoy a "bonus" class!

Photo Credits

All photos in this post were taken by my friend and fellow student Linda McIlroy.

A variety of reasons coalesced to persuade me to move back East--among them the fact that I turn out to be a city gal at heart.  I didn't think I missed the green and the ocean until I got back here and realized how much.  And there's an East Coast attitude that it's hard to define but, as Justice Potter Stewart famously said about pornography in 1964, "I know it when I see it."  In addition, I'm working on a book about Boston in 1905--you can read about my observations on that year in my Boston 1905 blog. You can find the link on the upper right of this page, along with a link to my new Providence blog.

Thanks for being my readers!!!

I'm currently reading a book about Victorian America (part of my 1905 research) and came across some interesting statistics about gunfights. From 1870-1874, New Mexico had the third largest number of gunfights in the U.S. (states and territories), behind Kansas and Texas. In the next five years, New Mexico was second only to Texas--with 23 gunfights in New Mexico in 1878 alone. In 1880-1884, New Mexico earned the dubious distinction of being #1 in the gunfighting derby.

The 1878-1881 period in NM was known for the Lincoln County War in 1878, and the Dodge City Gang which terrorized Las Vegas from 1879-1880. Several gunfighters from the gang headed out of town to Tombstone, Arizona after a vigilante party of townspeople was formed, though some returned to NM in the next few years. Billy the Kid, present for the Lincoln County War, was killed in Fort Sumner, NM by Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881.

The number of gunfights in the US forms a neat bell curve--starting with 13 in the period from 1854-1859, peaking at 106 in 1875-1879, and dropping off to 9 by 1910-1914.

In 1908, for example, there were only four gunfights in the US--though two were in New Mexico. One of the remaining two was the fight between Bolivian soldiers and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (This was counted as a US gunfight since two of the protagonists were Americans.)

Still, I guess it's all in what you count as a gunfight. An 18-year-old boy was shot to death by a 16-year-old in the parking lot of the Santa Fe Place mall this week--a fight over a girl apparently. So it's not quite over yet.

Illustration Credits and References

Statistsics on gunfighting appeared in Almanacs of American Life: Victorian America 1876-1913 by Crandall Shifflett (1996); the author credits Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters by Bill O'Neal (1979) for this data.

Other information from the Legends of America website.

Photograph of Billy the Kid's death marker courtesy of chucksville.org

12/22/2011

In April I was able to tour the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, a truly fabulous piece of property which houses this unique institution.

SAR got its start in the early years of the 20th century as the School for Archaeological Research, and it was headed by anthropologist Edgar Lee Hewitt from 1907 until his death in 1946. (He simultaneously headed the Museum of New Mexico after it was established in 1909.) SAR's mission was to train students, conduct anthropological research on the American continent, and preserve and study Southwestern culture.

Meanwhile, wealthy NY socialite sisters Martha Root White and Amelia Elizabeth White discovered Santa Fe in 1923. Both had graduated from Bryn Mawr, and served as Army nursing assistants during World War I. They found Santa Fe on a cross-country trip, and bought a large property here in the city. They built a home which they called El Delirio ("the madness"), and over the years the compound grew to include a kennel, guest houses, a swimming pool, and a variety of other structures.

El Delirio became a gathering place for artists, writers, and intellectuals, and the White sisters are said to have thrown some stunning parties in the 20s and 30s. Their home was the setting for lavish dinners, concerts, poetry readings, pool parties, plays, and masquerade balls.

Five women, including poet Alice Corbin Henderson, second from left, display their costumes at the swimming pool dedication ca. 1926.

The sisters also bred and raised Irish wolfhounds, and a cemetery for their beloved dogs can be seen on the grounds today.

Elizabeth helped to establish the Old Santa Fe Association, the Laboratory of Anthropology, the Wheelwright Museum, the Garcia Street Club, and the Santa Fe Animal Shelter--and all these organizations are still active.

The sisters were patrons and promoters of Native American Art and they opened the first Native American art gallery in New York City. Elizabeth was a founding member of the Indian Arts Fund in 1925, an organization which focused on buying up Indian pottery and other handcrafts to preserve these artifacts for future generations. She also served on the SAR managing board for 25 years.

Martha died in 1937, but Elizabeth lived to be 96 years old. And when she died, in 1972, she left El Delirio and its remaining acres to the School for Advanced Research, giving that institution its first permanent home. That same year, the Indian Arts Fund also disbanded and deeded its collections to SAR.

The Resident Scholars' communal dining room--all set for delicious food and stimulating conversation.

Today, SAR runs an advanced seminar series and a resident scholar program. The latter has provided over 160 pre- and postdoctoral scholars with nine-month residencies in which to read, reflect, and write up research results. A key part of the program is the unique intellectual interaction which takes place among scholars from different but related disciplines. Native artists have the opportunity to do residencies on site while they work on their art. SAR also houses the IAF collections and a state-of-the-art archaeological repository, and the SAR Press produces books on archaeology, anthropology, and Southwestern art and culture.

The mausoleum for the White sisters.

The grounds are beautiful, and a tour provides a look at SAR as it currently exists, and historical views of both SAR and the life of the White sisters.

The cemetery for the White sisters' Irish wolfhounds--each dog is identified by name.

Illustration Credits and References

Photo of the White sisters' party at El Delirio courtesy of the SAR website (sarweb.org). All other photographs by the author.

Photo Credits

The photograph of the terminal interior comes from the Veritas et Venustas blog by architect, urbanist, and author John Massengale. All other photos by Catherine Hurst.

Generally accepted bartending lore assigns the origin of the drink to a time period near the end of World War I. The place was either London or Paris, and the inventor was an American Army captain who was driven to and from his local watering hole in the sidecar of a motorcycle. The drink was first mentioned in a bartender's guide in 1922, and 1934 was the first recorded recipe with a sugared rim (my preferred presentation).

Elizabeth Bowen, in The Death of the Heart (published in 1938), offers the cocktail to one of her characters:

Indoors, among the mirrors and pillars, they found Mr. Bursely and Daphne, cozy over a drink. Reproaches and rather snooty laughs were exchanged, then Mr. Bursely, summoning the waiter, did what was right by everyone. Clara and Portia were given orangeade, with hygienic straws twisted up in paper; Daphne had another bronx, Evelyn a side-car. The men drank whisky. . .

The cocktail was popular through the sixties, but faded in the seventies and eighties. Karen Kijewski, in her mystery novel Katwalk, published in 1989, laments their demise:

"Hey, Kat." I turned. "What's in a sidecar?"
"Huh? Oh. Brandy, Triple Sec, sweet and sour and lime--with a sugar rim and a cherry. Nobody drinks them anymore."
He grinned and waved and I waved back, at him and at the memories.

But by the 90s, cocktails in general were coming back in style; an article in the Boston Globe in 1994 describes the scene at a local lounge:

At the bar, the young couple put down their drinks--he with a cubana (sugar syrup, lime juice, aproct brandy, rum), she with a sidecar (Cointreau, lemon juice, brandy)--and step out on the floor to tango.

Another Globe article, six years later, is titled: "Sidecar cocktail rides again." A 2004 Boston Herald headline boasts that the "Sidecar takes back seat to no other cocktail."


And the cocktail was sufficiently mainstream to appear in a NY Times crossword in 2007.

I have been faithful to the sidecar since 1966, and in a future post I'll talk a bit about my history with the drink.

In the meantime, you can watch this video of Rachel Maddow shaking up a sidecar in a New York bar.

The Hispanic food aisle in the Santa Fe Albertson's makes me feel like Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson, where the Russian immigrant he plays faints in the coffee aisle--overcome by the sight and smell of so many different kinds of coffee.  No fainting here--but an overwhelming set of choices!!

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