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Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Taos - High Road, Millicent Rogers Museum, Earthships, Tres Orejas + Dinner with Carlos & Judit
Monday, September 13th
Monday, 13 September 2010
Nora at Santa Clara Pueblo + Chimayo + End of Fiesta
Sunday, September 12th
Journal:
Groggy all day. Talked w V till 1am, fell asleep on couch, awake at 3am, couldn't get back to sleep, alarm at 7.50am. Talked w MBH (no skype). Michael & Yana around to pick up Barbara for day of riding (horses then motorbikes). Guadelupe Str blocked off and people lining the streets in anticipation of a parade (Fiesta continues).
Drove up 284 to Santa Clara Pueblo (and down 30 to the wrong entrance, then Nora met us at the Danby Burger and guided us a short way to her bare-bones studio). 10.15-12.30 visit w Nora Naranjo-Morse, Native American sculptor (& activist) -- interested in identity, loss and reclamation of culture, false consciousness (esp of Native Americans who have been through the Boarding Schools), connection to the land, feminism/role of women, health (obesity, nutrition, diabetes, alcoholism), the sacred (connection to the land came up again). Interesting topics, but she seemed to be lacking (or holding back) a certain 'energy'...Wren suggested she seemed 'resigned'...in Emaho-speak (not in the sense that she's stopped fighting the good fight, coz she's still very 'engaged' politically)... Maybe her mind was simply elsewhere -- she had a deadline looming for pulling quotes for her 1hr film 'Breaking Ground', so it was very generous of her to 'shoot the breeze' with us at all... Or maybe she was just trying to figure out 'why we were there' and wasn't quite seeing the connection with her work...She did warm as the conversation progressed... I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open, was on the precipice of sleep, horrible feeling...
As we left she pointed us to El Parasol for their chicken tacos, at the turn-off to Chimayo -- then we continued to the chapel with the sacred earth in that town. Cited as 'the Lourdes of the US.' Not quite, but people were rubbing the earth on their joints, and the chapel was full of discarded crutches.
Wren drove us back (I napped) and we (re)visited SITE and watched some of the videos we'd not gotten to yesterday. Shopped at Wholefoods across the street from the Railyard Park, then returned home 6-ish. Met Rose, an (elderly) friend of Barbara's who was in the area for Vision Quest training (sounded like a type of software to me, but Wren explained it's where people fast in the wilderness for 2 weeks and, well, start seeing things). Rose's friend (and chauffeur for the day) Dave is from Malibu and is building a house in Boulder CO. I finally booked my flight Albuquerque-San Francisco for Sat, Sept 18th after having struggled with the website for the past day or so.
Bells tinkling in Hillside Park, snippets of Xmas-carol-y music, quite odd. When darkness fell we spotted a river of candles snaking its way up the hill, and went out to see what it was all about. Caught the tail end remarks of a cleric praising Santa Fe's multi-culturalism & multi-churchness, and citizens ability to live together harmoniously, carrying on the promise of 1692 (apparently Fiesta has been going on for 318 years).
Wren made some baba ganoush to go with our minestrone soup out of a can, and we watched A River Runs Through It (Brad Pitt as the bad boy / golden boy younger fly-fishing brother, directed by Robert Redford).
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Saturday, 11 September 2010
Santa Fe: Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe Fiesta, Biennial at SITE
Saturday, September 11th
Journal:
Tina left for Heidelberg (via Albuquerque) at 6am (awoke briefly and waved goodbye). Wren woke me with a cuppa English Breakfast at 9am, as our plan was to get to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum when its doors opened at 10am. Needed to catch up with MBH and A and B, so that plan fell by the wayside (for me at least). Wren cooked up scrambled eggs on toast, then left for the museum. I made it out of the house about noon, and met her at the Plaza where the annual Santa Fe Fiesta was in full swing. Tracked down some espresso in Cafe d'Arte (shouldn't that be 'del Arte'?) in the basement in a mall off the side of the square. Sipped it walking down the street in the direction of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, which we ended up visiting (nice and light, pastel paint job, cartoonish 14 stations of the cross -- pleasingly welcoming as opposed to coldly daunting, as many European cathedrals can be). Then across the street to the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (the MoCNA Santa Fe challenges SMoCA Scottsdale ;) -- loved 'Inert' wolfskin/taxidermy & threads of lineage piece, and 'my right of way' photos; also the room devoted to Rose Simpson's work (she just got her BFA! but then again, she's Roxanne's daughter). Headed back to the plaza and the Frida/Diego exhibit in an upstairs gallery we'd spotted from the street -- photos of Frida by eminent photographers, hosted by the Webster Collection. Very apropos, as we're listening to Barbara Kingsolver's La Lacuna (about Frida & Diego & Trotsky) in the car on our longer trips. Then Wren walked home to get the car to drive to Will Powell's on Don Gaspar, to check out his plaster work, and I walked over to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Asked directions of a woman on the corner - Mary Fahr, who worked at the Santa Fe radio station for 11 years, and now spends her summers in Steamboat CO. Loved the exhibit currently on, ending tomorrow, which gathers O'Keeffe works from major museums around the world (National Gallery, Whitney, Centre Pompidou, etc etc). Sprinkled with charming and insightful O'Keeffe quotes. EG "I'll tell you how I happened to make the blow-up flowers. In the twenties, huge buildings sometimes seemed to be going up overnight in New York. At that time I saw a painting by Fantin-Latour, a still life with flowers I found very beautiful, but I realized that were I to paint the same flowers so small, no one would look at them because I was unknown. So I thought I'll make them big like the huge buildings going up. People will be startled; they'll have to look at them - and they did." Wren called about 3.30pm to say she was done at Will's and would I meet her at Don Gaspar x Peralta. I walked down to where she was parked and we drove over to SITE Santa Fe, the location of the Santa Fe 8th International Biennial (didn't know Santa Fe hosted an art biennial, let alone that it's been doing so for the last 8 years...but then again, didn't realize Santa Fe is generally acknowledged to be the third largest art market in the US after New York and Los Angeles). Walked into the boxy building (had a warehouse look to it, but in keeping with Santa Fe regulations, was finished in adobe) to find that 'The Dissolve' exhibition was a collection of 26 video pieces. My first reaction as I entered the dark space with screens flashing at me right and left and further down the hall, was 'how tedious', as I've been largely unimpressed by video and 'art' included in museum exhibits. But this turned out to be fabulous. Not in the Bill Viola vein of realism at all (one of the docents there to aid and inform visitors handed me that line; I haven't had time to double check whether Viola's videos would indeed bore the living daylights out of me). These films were quirky, innovative, touching; and a wide range of techniques were employed. We caught the last hour of it (4-5pm), then returned to Emaho's where Michael & Yana announced they were cooking up a gourmet meal for some friends and we were of course invited; psyche. Wrote yesterday's blog (including photos);that took over 2hrs and I didn't even finish it. Wren made a decision regarding staying in the area or making a dash for LA; the upshot is that I'll be flying out of Albuquerque. Dinner with the young crowd (Michael & Yanna; Clovis & wife & 2 1/2 year old Lucy; Jason; Rose; Ursula/Atlana; Elena) - steak with chanterelles and prosciutto, pimento de padrone, roasted bell peppers; salad of arugula and cantaloupe and sweet onion and sunflower seeds; dessert of spiced and grilled pineapple and pears over ice cream. Delish.
Journal:
Tina left for Heidelberg (via Albuquerque) at 6am (awoke briefly and waved goodbye). Wren woke me with a cuppa English Breakfast at 9am, as our plan was to get to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum when its doors opened at 10am. Needed to catch up with MBH and A and B, so that plan fell by the wayside (for me at least). Wren cooked up scrambled eggs on toast, then left for the museum. I made it out of the house about noon, and met her at the Plaza where the annual Santa Fe Fiesta was in full swing. Tracked down some espresso in Cafe d'Arte (shouldn't that be 'del Arte'?) in the basement in a mall off the side of the square. Sipped it walking down the street in the direction of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, which we ended up visiting (nice and light, pastel paint job, cartoonish 14 stations of the cross -- pleasingly welcoming as opposed to coldly daunting, as many European cathedrals can be). Then across the street to the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (the MoCNA Santa Fe challenges SMoCA Scottsdale ;) -- loved 'Inert' wolfskin/taxidermy & threads of lineage piece, and 'my right of way' photos; also the room devoted to Rose Simpson's work (she just got her BFA! but then again, she's Roxanne's daughter). Headed back to the plaza and the Frida/Diego exhibit in an upstairs gallery we'd spotted from the street -- photos of Frida by eminent photographers, hosted by the Webster Collection. Very apropos, as we're listening to Barbara Kingsolver's La Lacuna (about Frida & Diego & Trotsky) in the car on our longer trips. Then Wren walked home to get the car to drive to Will Powell's on Don Gaspar, to check out his plaster work, and I walked over to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Asked directions of a woman on the corner - Mary Fahr, who worked at the Santa Fe radio station for 11 years, and now spends her summers in Steamboat CO. Loved the exhibit currently on, ending tomorrow, which gathers O'Keeffe works from major museums around the world (National Gallery, Whitney, Centre Pompidou, etc etc). Sprinkled with charming and insightful O'Keeffe quotes. EG "I'll tell you how I happened to make the blow-up flowers. In the twenties, huge buildings sometimes seemed to be going up overnight in New York. At that time I saw a painting by Fantin-Latour, a still life with flowers I found very beautiful, but I realized that were I to paint the same flowers so small, no one would look at them because I was unknown. So I thought I'll make them big like the huge buildings going up. People will be startled; they'll have to look at them - and they did." Wren called about 3.30pm to say she was done at Will's and would I meet her at Don Gaspar x Peralta. I walked down to where she was parked and we drove over to SITE Santa Fe, the location of the Santa Fe 8th International Biennial (didn't know Santa Fe hosted an art biennial, let alone that it's been doing so for the last 8 years...but then again, didn't realize Santa Fe is generally acknowledged to be the third largest art market in the US after New York and Los Angeles). Walked into the boxy building (had a warehouse look to it, but in keeping with Santa Fe regulations, was finished in adobe) to find that 'The Dissolve' exhibition was a collection of 26 video pieces. My first reaction as I entered the dark space with screens flashing at me right and left and further down the hall, was 'how tedious', as I've been largely unimpressed by video and 'art' included in museum exhibits. But this turned out to be fabulous. Not in the Bill Viola vein of realism at all (one of the docents there to aid and inform visitors handed me that line; I haven't had time to double check whether Viola's videos would indeed bore the living daylights out of me). These films were quirky, innovative, touching; and a wide range of techniques were employed. We caught the last hour of it (4-5pm), then returned to Emaho's where Michael & Yana announced they were cooking up a gourmet meal for some friends and we were of course invited; psyche. Wrote yesterday's blog (including photos);that took over 2hrs and I didn't even finish it. Wren made a decision regarding staying in the area or making a dash for LA; the upshot is that I'll be flying out of Albuquerque. Dinner with the young crowd (Michael & Yanna; Clovis & wife & 2 1/2 year old Lucy; Jason; Rose; Ursula/Atlana; Elena) - steak with chanterelles and prosciutto, pimento de padrone, roasted bell peppers; salad of arugula and cantaloupe and sweet onion and sunflower seeds; dessert of spiced and grilled pineapple and pears over ice cream. Delish.
Home Studios: Georgia O'Keeffe's in Abiquiu & Gail Rieke's in Santa Fe
Friday, September 10th
We visited the home studios of two inspiring female artists today, one living and one not. At neither site were photographs permitted. On the way from one to the other, we stopped by the Tower Gallery and admired Roxanne Swentzell's sculptures.
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986!) bought a large and crumbling adobe in the hamlet of Abiquiu just north of Santa Fe in 1945, and spent the next three years renovating it with the assistance of Maria Chabot (or rather, Chabot oversaw the renovations with input by correspondence from O'Keeffe then mostly in New York. (See ArtNet book review below for juicy commentary on their relationship).
It's a large place (five rooms, courtyard, gardens) with grand views over the mountains-- hardly a starving artist's garrett (are there such things as garretts outside of London?). Our guide informed me O'Keeffe was financially successful quite early in her career (thanks to the promotion of her work by her husband Alfred Stieglitz, I suppose) and funded the renovations with sales of her paintings. For example the one of two cottonwood trees that still stand at the bend in the road just below the house, recognizable even after fifty years. Or the ones of the black door in the inner wall of the courtyard -- O'Keeffe exclaimed (in a letter) that she'd fallen in love with that door and it was the reason she'd decided to buy the place
See this museum's website for one version of the Patio Door painting: http://www.chrysler.org/20century07.asp.
And here's the ArtNet review of the O'Keeffe-Chabot correspondence and relationship: http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/index/drohojowska-philp/drohojowska-philp2-11-04.asp)
The tour took us around the outside of the house more than through it -- the mud floor of the living room would not withstand the tread of rampaging tourists, we were told, and the books in the library were too delicate to be viewed. So we made do with peering through the windows of those rooms, and admired the modern appliances in the kitchen, and nodded respectfully as the guide reeled off the names of the designer furniture in the 'studio' - a spacious room outfitted like a living room, with a beige carpet O'Keeffe had had laid down towards the end as her macular degeneration meant she could no longer distinguish her beloved chows (dogs) from the dark mud floor and she was scared of stepping on them.
We were rather disappointed with the tour (not exactly good value at $30 a head, and no photographs allowed), but I liked standing in rooms O'Keeffe once inhabited, liked viewing mountains and trees she looked at every day, liked imagining life as it might have been for her in dusty Abiquiu (I can't imagine the lanes have changed much since her departure). I'll look at her paintings of this home and this landscape with fuller knowledge. Not that O'Keeffe would appreciate a comment like that, but I for me like context.
Interlude:
On the way back from Abiquiu to Santa Fe is the Tower Gallery, where sculptor Roxanne Swentzell displays her clay figures. Each one is so alive, so personal, and its emotion is to be read from its posture but also described in words for good measure. I loved them.
The 'Judgment Reflectors' description reads:
"I was feeling rather beat up from people's judments on me and I found myself trying to find ways to protect myself. The image of reflectors came to mind. I so enjoyed creating this piece because while I made her she actually worked to block the attacks I was feeling. I imagine the mirrors bouncing their mean thoughts off me and back to them to see themselves. A reminder of how we hurt others with our judgments."
Gail Rieke and her husband Zach had travelled down to Albuequerque for their friend Mary Ellen Long's art opening at The Land Gallery on Saturday, September 4th-- which is where Wren and I met her (see blog entry from that date). She told us then that she made art work related to travel, and led art tours to Japan (which is where she'd gotten to know Mary Ellen). Gail lives in Santa Fe, and invited us to visit her when we were in town, with notice we should give her advance warning (or was it a warning we should give her advance notice...).
We visited the home studios of two inspiring female artists today, one living and one not. At neither site were photographs permitted. On the way from one to the other, we stopped by the Tower Gallery and admired Roxanne Swentzell's sculptures.
 |
| Abiquiu hacienda perimeter wall -- no photos allowed on the premises |
It's a large place (five rooms, courtyard, gardens) with grand views over the mountains
See this museum's website for one version of the Patio Door painting: http://www.chrysler.org/20century07.asp.
And here's the ArtNet review of the O'Keeffe-Chabot correspondence and relationship: http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/index/drohojowska-philp/drohojowska-philp2-11-04.asp)
The tour took us around the outside of the house more than through it -- the mud floor of the living room would not withstand the tread of rampaging tourists, we were told, and the books in the library were too delicate to be viewed. So we made do with peering through the windows of those rooms, and admired the modern appliances in the kitchen, and nodded respectfully as the guide reeled off the names of the designer furniture in the 'studio' - a spacious room outfitted like a living room, with a beige carpet O'Keeffe had had laid down towards the end as her macular degeneration meant she could no longer distinguish her beloved chows (dogs) from the dark mud floor and she was scared of stepping on them.
 |
| St Thomas adobe church in Abiquiu |
 |
| Roxanne Swentzell's 'Judgment 'Reflectors' |
Interlude:
On the way back from Abiquiu to Santa Fe is the Tower Gallery, where sculptor Roxanne Swentzell displays her clay figures. Each one is so alive, so personal, and its emotion is to be read from its posture but also described in words for good measure. I loved them.
The 'Judgment Reflectors' description reads:
"I was feeling rather beat up from people's judments on me and I found myself trying to find ways to protect myself. The image of reflectors came to mind. I so enjoyed creating this piece because while I made her she actually worked to block the attacks I was feeling. I imagine the mirrors bouncing their mean thoughts off me and back to them to see themselves. A reminder of how we hurt others with our judgments."
 |
| Gail Rieke |
Gail Rieke and her husband Zach had travelled down to Albuequerque for their friend Mary Ellen Long's art opening at The Land Gallery on Saturday, September 4th-- which is where Wren and I met her (see blog entry from that date). She told us then that she made art work related to travel, and led art tours to Japan (which is where she'd gotten to know Mary Ellen). Gail lives in Santa Fe, and invited us to visit her when we were in town, with notice we should give her advance warning (or was it a warning we should give her advance notice...).
Friday, 10 September 2010
Santa Fe: Lisanne & Zozobra
Thursday, Sept 9
Vernon put us in touch with Lisanne, a long-time friend of his from LA days though originally from Somerset in the UK. She invited us over for a lovely BBQ and salad lunch, topping it off with her famous flourless chocolate cake and lemon pie (served once to Xaviera Hollander in Barcelona). We ended up spending the afternoon talking art and music projects (she's a singer and is planning a charity tour for homelessness), swapping experiences building with strawbale and adobe (Lisanne lived off-the-grid outside Taos for five years), and musing on what celebrities she is separated from by 3 degrees or less for Wren's Olympic Mile sneaker installation (Lisanne's been in a film with Colin Firth). And consulted Native American 'medicine cards' and stroked the black cat and had a lovely time together.
Back at Emaho's -- who left yesterday for California and then is off on another European tour -- we watched 'Fire Dance', a video from 2004 of the ceremony he performs (and that Wren has participated in). It lasts about 4hrs (the ritual, that is -- though the video could do with some drastic editing). Emaho opens with some comments about the healing power of fire, arranges his altar, then launches into the dance where all participate (a rhythmic stomping of feet with intermittent chanting) and he pulls people aside individually to lay his fire-warmed hands on (he literally holds his palms in a six-wick candle flame). One such ceremony had been held in Santa Fe the Saturday before we arrived, and a number of people staying at his house had participated in it.
In the evening we walked the two blocks over to Fort Macy Park for the burning of Old Man Gloom -- or 'Zozobra' as he is known in Santa Fe. This year's incarnation was a giant white puppet with a glam-rock air about his turned-up cuffs, with movable arms and mandible, making fearsome groaning noises (which grew anguished as he was set alight). Before night fell the Santa Fe Highschool Choir sang a Queen medley and the Douglas Brown Show did some James Brown and Prince covers. Then it was time for the introduction of the festivities, which we found disturbingly reminiscent of hyperbole suited to a public hanging (or lynching), with chants flung out from the audience of 'Burn him! Burn him!' Fire dancers and some modest fireworks followed, ramping up to a full scale conflagration. Quite a show.
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Vernon put us in touch with Lisanne, a long-time friend of his from LA days though originally from Somerset in the UK. She invited us over for a lovely BBQ and salad lunch, topping it off with her famous flourless chocolate cake and lemon pie (served once to Xaviera Hollander in Barcelona). We ended up spending the afternoon talking art and music projects (she's a singer and is planning a charity tour for homelessness), swapping experiences building with strawbale and adobe (Lisanne lived off-the-grid outside Taos for five years), and musing on what celebrities she is separated from by 3 degrees or less for Wren's Olympic Mile sneaker installation (Lisanne's been in a film with Colin Firth). And consulted Native American 'medicine cards' and stroked the black cat and had a lovely time together.
Back at Emaho's -- who left yesterday for California and then is off on another European tour -- we watched 'Fire Dance', a video from 2004 of the ceremony he performs (and that Wren has participated in). It lasts about 4hrs (the ritual, that is -- though the video could do with some drastic editing). Emaho opens with some comments about the healing power of fire, arranges his altar, then launches into the dance where all participate (a rhythmic stomping of feet with intermittent chanting) and he pulls people aside individually to lay his fire-warmed hands on (he literally holds his palms in a six-wick candle flame). One such ceremony had been held in Santa Fe the Saturday before we arrived, and a number of people staying at his house had participated in it.
In the evening we walked the two blocks over to Fort Macy Park for the burning of Old Man Gloom -- or 'Zozobra' as he is known in Santa Fe. This year's incarnation was a giant white puppet with a glam-rock air about his turned-up cuffs, with movable arms and mandible, making fearsome groaning noises (which grew anguished as he was set alight). Before night fell the Santa Fe Highschool Choir sang a Queen medley and the Douglas Brown Show did some James Brown and Prince covers. Then it was time for the introduction of the festivities, which we found disturbingly reminiscent of hyperbole suited to a public hanging (or lynching), with chants flung out from the audience of 'Burn him! Burn him!' Fire dancers and some modest fireworks followed, ramping up to a full scale conflagration. Quite a show.
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Thursday, 9 September 2010
Los Alamos and Banderos Cliff Dwellings
Wednesday, 8 September
Brock, who we'd met at Mary Ellen Long's art opening in Albuquerque, took us on a day-trip to Los Alamos and Banderos National Monument. He worked at Los Alamos for five years (on a superconductivity project, I believe) before setting up his own business in Albuquerque and starting a PhD in electrical engineering. He has many anecdotes about explosives testing (having friends more closely involved with Los Alamos' core endeavour) and has met -- or knows the children of -- prominent figures in the nuclear research field (I don't remember whose daughter Rebecca is, but she works for the National Park Services at next-door Banderos and we bumped into her hiking up to the Cliff Dwellings).
Los Alamos. The coming-into-being and purpose of this 'scientific community' are shrouded in secrecy and linked to death and destruction (it having been created to produce the A-bomb) -- but on the surface it is as banal as any other suburban development. The site was chosen back in the thirties for its remoteness, climate and natural beauty -- the former meant there were fewer people (mostly Native Americans) to displace, while the latter made it easier to lure brilliant minds to the site. It is built over three or four small canyons -- to reach the National Laboratory, for example, you drive across a bridge on the far side of which are 'toll-booths' where in the years following 9/11 each vehicle was stopped and checked rigorously, but since the recent budget cuts, now stand open and unmanned.
We spent the morning in the Bradbury Science Museum, home to scale models of Little Boy (dropped on Hiroshima just three weeks after the first prototype was detonated in New Mexico) and Fat Man (named for Winston Churchill and unleashed on Nagasaki). Curiously, the only photo of a devastation was of downtown Tokyo, leveled by incendiary bombs in WWII -- which, the caption informed us, "caused more casualties and damage than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." There were (further) educational displays on Plutonium and LINAC (the Linear Particle Accelerator), and on current research into brain scanning and genome mapping. global warming and radiation. And a whole historical section including a timeline of the development of Los Alamos and short 'personal testimonies' of the first scientists (and their wives) to be recruited to the site. Helen Cowan (on of the few female professionals), for example, spoke of how before she herself was recruited, most people at the metallurgical lab in Chicago where she worked started 'disappearing' in the late 30's --"I knew they were working on the bomb." Then they started disappearing from Los Alamos -- this time to the Trinity Site near Alamagordo, where the bomb was being tested, but Cowan was again "left out; she had to wait in Los Alamos." Weird stuff.
We lunched at the Central Avenue Grill (with the 'Quark' bar attached), then drove to Bandelier (named for Adolph Bandelier, a Swiss amateur archaeologist who was the first European to be shown the site in the1880s) where we strolled along the cliff face and ascended ladders into tiny claustrophobic caves, ceilings blackened by soot from fires, to a long ascent up 140ft of ladders to a much larger cavity which once held 23 dwellings.
On the way home, as the sun was setting, we stopped by the Santa Fe Opera but ended up deciding not to attend the Mariachi Extravaganza, instead opting for dinner at the Cowgirl Cafe in downtown Santa Fe.
Brock, who we'd met at Mary Ellen Long's art opening in Albuquerque, took us on a day-trip to Los Alamos and Banderos National Monument. He worked at Los Alamos for five years (on a superconductivity project, I believe) before setting up his own business in Albuquerque and starting a PhD in electrical engineering. He has many anecdotes about explosives testing (having friends more closely involved with Los Alamos' core endeavour) and has met -- or knows the children of -- prominent figures in the nuclear research field (I don't remember whose daughter Rebecca is, but she works for the National Park Services at next-door Banderos and we bumped into her hiking up to the Cliff Dwellings).
Los Alamos. The coming-into-being and purpose of this 'scientific community' are shrouded in secrecy and linked to death and destruction (it having been created to produce the A-bomb) -- but on the surface it is as banal as any other suburban development. The site was chosen back in the thirties for its remoteness, climate and natural beauty -- the former meant there were fewer people (mostly Native Americans) to displace, while the latter made it easier to lure brilliant minds to the site. It is built over three or four small canyons -- to reach the National Laboratory, for example, you drive across a bridge on the far side of which are 'toll-booths' where in the years following 9/11 each vehicle was stopped and checked rigorously, but since the recent budget cuts, now stand open and unmanned.
We spent the morning in the Bradbury Science Museum, home to scale models of Little Boy (dropped on Hiroshima just three weeks after the first prototype was detonated in New Mexico) and Fat Man (named for Winston Churchill and unleashed on Nagasaki). Curiously, the only photo of a devastation was of downtown Tokyo, leveled by incendiary bombs in WWII -- which, the caption informed us, "caused more casualties and damage than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." There were (further) educational displays on Plutonium and LINAC (the Linear Particle Accelerator), and on current research into brain scanning and genome mapping. global warming and radiation. And a whole historical section including a timeline of the development of Los Alamos and short 'personal testimonies' of the first scientists (and their wives) to be recruited to the site. Helen Cowan (on of the few female professionals), for example, spoke of how before she herself was recruited, most people at the metallurgical lab in Chicago where she worked started 'disappearing' in the late 30's --"I knew they were working on the bomb." Then they started disappearing from Los Alamos -- this time to the Trinity Site near Alamagordo, where the bomb was being tested, but Cowan was again "left out; she had to wait in Los Alamos." Weird stuff.
We lunched at the Central Avenue Grill (with the 'Quark' bar attached), then drove to Bandelier (named for Adolph Bandelier, a Swiss amateur archaeologist who was the first European to be shown the site in the1880s) where we strolled along the cliff face and ascended ladders into tiny claustrophobic caves, ceilings blackened by soot from fires, to a long ascent up 140ft of ladders to a much larger cavity which once held 23 dwellings.
On the way home, as the sun was setting, we stopped by the Santa Fe Opera but ended up deciding not to attend the Mariachi Extravaganza, instead opting for dinner at the Cowgirl Cafe in downtown Santa Fe.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Santa Fe Sedentary
A 'home' day at Emaho's, didn't get out at all.
An emotional day for me. One long conversation with a loved one in the morning; another long conversation with a shamanic healer in the afternoon.
Wren went shopping with Michael (the opera singer) in the morning, and cooked up a delicious lemon risotto for dinner.
After dinner we mapped out our onward journey in the dining roo- kiva: Santa Fe - Taos - Durango - Albuquerque - LA.
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