Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 134
October 1, 2014
A Night in the Lonesome October Twitter Book Club
Here’s how this came about… Tori was over and, not surprisingly, we got to discussing really good books. I mentioned A Night in the Lonesome October. Tori commented that she’d read it a while back and liked it. Then she brightened and said, “It’s almost October! I should read it then.”
Memory flashed. I said, “My friend Julie and her husband, Ken, read A Night in the Lonesome October one chapter a day through October. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Tori agreed that doing this would be fun. “We could talk about it, sort of a book club.”
Problem… I see Tori just about every week, but Julie lives in Utah. So… How about on-line? Should we send e-mails or use Facebook? Wait! Twitter is perfect for this sort of thing. Tori and Julie were already on Twitter and I’d just started…
Excitement! As long as we’re doing this, why not open up the discussion to anyone who wants to join in?
So that’s what we’re doing.
Since not everyone can post and read every day, just tweet along with us at your own pace; all we ask is that participants not get ahead of whatever day it is in October. We’ll be using the hashtag #LonesomeOctober so don’t forget to tag your tweets!
Questions? You can reach Jane (@JaneLindskold), Tori (@ToraLeeHart), and Julie (@julietbartel) on Twitter, or post your question under the announcement on Facebook (facebook.com/janelindskold.)
We hope you’ll join us beginning Wednesday, October 1st. It’s going to be lots of fun!
A Night in the Lonesome October
There are books I can’t read with appropriate critical detachment. Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October is one of these. I remember Roger’s excitement when he started writing it. He’d had the idea for a long time, up to and including having Gahan Wilson supply the illustrations. He’d even gone as far as querying Gahan, but at the time the artist was solidly booked and had to decline.
Opener or Closer?
As I recall, Roger told me, Gahan Wilson’s letter declining the project had been very nice. It even included a sketch of Snuff the dog, “Just as I’d imagined him.”
To be honest, Roger was pretty solidly booked at the time, too, so the story that would become A Night in the Lonesome October lay fallow for many years. Eventually, Roger found himself writing the novel – even though he had other commitments. He was very pleased with it and often read me snippets over the phone.
The delight didn’t end once the book was written. Roger had sent me manuscripts of newly completed works before.
(Can you call a photocopy of a typescript a “manuscript”? Anyhow, that’s what I mean.)
This was the first time he seemed eager, even impatient, for me to finish something. It’s a short novel, so I finished my reading pretty quickly. I had a few suggestions, but they were in the context of general delight.
This time Gahan Wilson was able to make time to do the illustrations. Roger was disappointed when, for reasons of marketing, Gahan didn’t also get to do the front cover, but the usual author portrait on the back was replaced with a lively caricature of author and artist as Holmes and Watson. Roger looks almost demonically intent, which is just right, while Gahan Wilson pauses in the middle of sketching a pair of cat’s eyes, as if only just then realizing that they are unaccompanied by a cat.
After the book was completed, Roger read portions of it at various conventions. At one event, when time ran out, he and his audience went and found an empty room. Then Roger finished reading the entire book. The same lively enthusiasm colored Roger’s reading of the book as an audio for Sunset Productions. Roger had read other of his works to be converted into audio versions, but usually the reading sessions went an hour or so at a time. This time both he and the sound engineer were having so much fun they did the entire book in one sitting…
I’m not going to say more about the novel because I don’t want to provide any spoilers, instead I’m going to invite you to join me and my friends Julie Bartel and Tori Hansen as we read A Night in the Lonesome October one chapter a day, each day in October. (There are a prologue and thirty-one chapters, some of which are super short.)
Here’s how this came about… Tori was at my house, painting the cover for Wanderings on Writing. As she painted, we got to discussing good books. I mentioned A Night in the Lonesome October. Tori commented that she’d read it a while back and really liked it. Then she brightened and said, “It’s almost October! I should read it then.”
Memory flashed. I said, “My friend Julie and her husband, Ken, always read A Night in the Lonesome October one chapter a day through October. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
Tori agreed that doing this would be fun. “We could talk about it, sort of a book club.”
Problem… I see Tori just about every week, but Julie lives in Utah. So… How about on-line? Should we send e-mails or use Facebook? Wait! Twitter is perfect for this sort of thing. Tori and Julie were already on Twitter and I’d just started…
Excitement! As long as we’re doing this, why not open up the discussion to anyone who wanted to join in?
So that’s what we’re doing. Since everyone can’t read and post every day, we’re welcoming less frequent posts. All we ask is that posters not get ahead of whatever day it is in October and that they include the Twitter hashtag, #LonesomeOctober.
We hope you’ll join us starting October 1. (That’s today!) It’s going to be lots of fun!
September 26, 2014
FF: Identity Crisis
The Friday Fragments feature lists of what I’ve read over the past week. They are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.
Kwahe’e Reads in Bed
This isn’t a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.
This week, by purest coincidence, identity seems to be a recurring theme.
Enjoy!
Recently Completed:
The Adventures of English: The Biography of a Language by Melvyn Bragg. I really enjoyed this because Bragg anchors his discussion in solid example, not linguistic theory. Recommended!
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich. Audiobook. Vinnie is kidnapped. His staff reluctantly decides to go to the rescue.
Necromancer by Gordon R. Dickson. I read this years and years ago. Revisits very well. Oh… For those of you unfamiliar with Dickson’s work, there are no zombies involved.
The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. Although set in the same world as the Percy Jackson books, this sequel introduces some neat new characters while expanding on the “Great Prophecy.” I enjoyed.
In Progress:
Tactics of Mistake by Gordon R. Dickson. Somehow I missed this one. I’m quite enjoying.
Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. Audiobook. Percy was missing in The Lost Hero. Now we know where he was. So far, so good… I only wish the reader was better.
Also:
I’m designing a new “chapter” for my on-going RPG, so I’ve been diving into my gaming manuals. I prefer GURPS, third edition.
What are you reading?
Identity Crisis
The Friday Fragments feature lists of what I’ve read over the past week. They are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.
Kwahe’e Reads in Bed
This isn’t a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.
This week, by purest coincidence, identity seems to be a recurring theme.
Enjoy!
Recently Completed:
The Adventures of English: The Biography of a Language by Melvyn Bragg. I really enjoyed this because Bragg anchors his discussion in solid example, not linguistic theory. Recommended!
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich. Audiobook. Vinnie is kidnapped. His staff reluctantly decides to go to the rescue.
Necromancer by Gordon R. Dickson. I read this years and years ago. Revisits very well. Oh… For those of you unfamiliar with Dickson’s work, there are no zombies involved.
The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. Although set in the same world as the Percy Jackson books, this sequel introduces some neat new characters while expanding on the “Great Prophecy.” I enjoyed.
In Progress:
Tactics of Mistake by Gordon R. Dickson. Somehow I missed this one. I’m quite enjoying.
Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. Audiobook. Percy was missing in The Lost Hero. Now we know where he was. So far, so good… I only wish the reader was better.
Also:
I’m designing a new “chapter” for my on-going RPG, so I’ve been diving into my gaming manuals. I prefer GURPS, third edition.
What are you reading?
September 25, 2014
New Friends Facebook Contest
https://www.facebook.com/janelindskold
by taking the Artemis profession quiz or posting a comment. Prizes include signed, personalized hardback copy of ARTEMIS AWAKENING or audio download. Less than a week to go!
TT: Mind and Body in Motion
JANE: Well, Alan, last time you promised to reveal all about your retirement plans. I await revelation!
ALAN: Once we’ve moved house, the master plan kicks in. The first step is to get a dog. I’m sure the cats will have something to say about that, but I’m afraid they’ll just have to put up with it.
Lang may yer lum reek
Partly I want a dog so that I will be forced to do some exercise by taking it for a walk. But mainly I want a dog simply because I want a dog. Unlike cats, dogs need company and I always felt that it would not be fair on the dog if I was away for long stretches of time at work – particularly since I used to travel a lot in my job. Sometimes I could be away from home for days and weeks at a time. I had a dog as a child, and I’ve always wanted another one. So a dog is high on the list of priorities.
JANE: Ah… My cats and guinea pigs are completely spoiled by having me work at home. If I leave for more than about three hours, I am greeted with worried looks and lots of clinging. The situation is complicated because Jim works at home a couple days a week. The animals are very indignant when he leaves.
Given how much more dependent they are by nature, I can’t imagine how a dog would react. It would probably have a nervous breakdown if I left for more than five minutes.
So, you’re moved and you have a dog. What next?
ALAN: I also want to indulge myself with some studying. All my life I’ve worked in a highly technical field and all my formal qualifications are in scientific and technical subjects. I’ve always read voraciously and widely outside those fields, but I’ve never formally studied things like history, philosophy, linguistics etc.: the so called “arts” subjects.
I’d really like to explore things like this in much more depth. Fortunately it’s easy to do that these days. There are a lot of free courses available on the internet. This is the decade of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). I intend to take advantage of them and dive in with my eyes wide open in wonder.
JANE: That sounds like fun. One thing I love about being a writer is that research and study is a constant – at least for me. Although I’ve only been posting them for a short time now, I’m already getting comments on my Friday Fragments to the effect that I read “all over the place.” Believe me, if I was including the shorter material – magazine articles, excerpts from various books and encyclopedias – you’d see the diversity even more.
ALAN: I don’t find that odd at all. I do the same thing. There are so many interesting subjects in the world!
JANE: So, what else are you planning on doing?
ALAN: I’d like to do a lot more writing as well. Maybe I’ll blow the dust off the dead novels I started and never finished…
JANE: Ah, hah! Jim also has three novels he wrote that he never managed to sell. Eventually, he focused in tightly on archeology but there’s one story in particular that he periodically discusses going back and re-writing when he retires.
Don’t tell me about your novel ideas, but you can bet that when you finish one, I’ll be first in line to read it!
ALAN: Of course, you are in quite a different situation from me. As far as I can tell, writers never retire, they just keep on writing forever. Old writers never die, they just live happily ever after, as it were. What are your future plans?
JANE: Well, for one, even if I had a “real” job, I’m pretty far away from retirement age, so what I might do really isn’t something I’ve thought about.
And, honestly, the issue is a whole lot more complicated than you seem to realize. Basically, if writers want to keep selling, they need to keep writing and publishing. I know of one writer (who shall remain nameless) who believed he had a solid enough following that his backlist would keep supporting him and he could retire.
What he discovered was that he could not. Readers are tempted to try a writer’s backlist because there is some sort of “buzz” about the writer. This “buzz” can take many forms, but the best is generated by a new book. A new book reminds people that a writer exists.
Now, the writer of whom I was speaking made his attempt to retire in the days before self-publishing but, as we have discussed elsewhere and at great length, self-publishing does not magically sell books without any effort on the writer’s part. In fact, as I see it, self-publishing is the furthest thing from a quiet retirement. It’s being a writer, publicist, marketing specialist, and all the rest.
ALAN: And that’s a lot of very hard work indeed.
JANE: You must remember, in the U.S. we have nothing like your government retirement pension and, as I mentioned last week, Social Security pays out based on what you contributed during your working life. Therefore, most Americans rely on savings and investments and/or retirement plans from their jobs to supplement this. Most writers do not make very much money, therefore they will not have contributed much to Social Security, nor will they have savings and/or investments.
I know from discussing this with other writers that I am in the minority in having both.
Therefore, the only way for a writer to keep having an income is not to retire…
ALAN: On the plus side, there seems to be something about the mental activity involved in writing that keeps the brain and body young. I know several writers who are currently in their seventies, verging on eighties and they are still young and spry and productive. And look at Frederik Pohl who was still writing very high quality material well into his nineties!
Of course, that’s not true of everyone.
JANE: No, it’s not. Far from it. I saw firsthand how illness can slow down a writer’s production, even if that writer wants to write. Even on his better days, Roger would often fall asleep over the yellow legal pad on which he liked to write. On the bad days… forget it. Writing is not a job you can do if you are feeling muddleheaded.
And, sadly, with aging comes a greater chance of some sort of physical debilitation, so the chance that writing productivity will slow or stop with age is something that too few writers take into account.
Honestly, it’s because I’ve seen this up close that I started salting money away for the future when I could, even if it meant going without some of the many indulgences I saw my friends enjoying. I knew that I might be forced to give up my chosen career… That would be painful enough without also facing poverty.
ALAN: That’s a very sad picture of Roger. But I have to say I admire the hard-headed, pragmatic choices that you’ve made as a result. Lang may yer lum reek!
JANE: Uh, Alan… I think I need a translation, I can get “Long may your…” but?
ALAN: “Lang may yer lum reek” is a Scottish saying. Literally it means “Long may your chimney smoke,” the implication being that we hope you have enough fuel to keep the fire going throughout the year. But idiomatically it means “I wish you a long life and many riches.” Or (in the original Vulcan) “Live long and prosper.”
JANE: Ah… Revelation!
September 24, 2014
Stuff and Sense
First some cool stuff… Then the “sense” – the answer to a question I’ve been asked several times about the planet Artemis.
Cool Stuff 1: Tori Hansen has done an original painting for the cover of my forthcoming Wanderings on Writing. I love it – especially since it captures something that I think is all too often missing from books on writing – the sense of fun!
Wanderings on Writing cover art
Cool Stuff 2: Want a chance to win either an audiobook or signed hard cover of Artemis Awakening? Take a look at my official Facebook page for details…
Cool Stuff 3: I’m experimenting with Twitter @JaneLindskold.
Cool Stuff 4: The cover art for Artemis Invaded is nearly done. As soon as a final version is available, I’ll be sure to share it!
Now for the question… This is a pretty direct quote:
“Why can Griffin understand the language of Artemis? I understand that he studied it in advance of going to find the planet, but something like five hundred years have passed. Wouldn’t it have changed more?”
The answer is that languages don’t change without reason. In fact, left in isolation, a language will change very little. In his book The Adventures of English: The Biography of a Language Melvin Bragg provides a very entertaining discussion of how and why English evolved as it did – and why it still is evolving.
The biggest reason for a language to change is for the culture speaking the root language to be conquered by another culture. This culture then imposes, with greater or lesser success, its own language on the conquered people. Sometimes this leads to the original language dying out. Sometimes – as with English – the root language adapts.
Trade is another way that new words enter a language. So is conquest, where the language of the conquerors takes on terms from the subjugated people – often for goods, services, or cultural traditions that the original culture lacked.
But language doesn’t change without a reason. Bragg provides two examples of languages that remained “preserved in the amber of history.” These are Gullah, a dialect spoken in the Sea Islands and coastal areas of the southeastern United States, and a Cornish dialect spoken on the island of Tangier. In both cases, the relative isolation of the populations led to the very little change in the language.
Artemis has far more in common with the people of the Sea Islands and Tangier than it does with the nations of Europe. Although it is a planet, as far as outside influences go, Artemis might as well be an island. In its entire history, it has not been conquered, nor has it entered into trade.
Artemis is not a “natural” society. Its population was created for a specific purpose. That purpose was best served if all the population spoke one language, so it was given a language complex and diverse enough to enable its population to cope in all anticipated situations. When the seegnur visited the planet, they used this local language. On Artemis no tower of Babel was built, nor did it fall, fragmenting speech into diverse forms.
Of course there are specialized vocabularies, especially related to climate and trade, that might not be shared by all the residents of the planet, but, what is key here is that the same words for the same items or actions or situations are used.
White is always white, never blanc or laven. Black is black, not nero or kuroi. Once a word is learned, it would carry over to any other part of the planet.
What about slang?
Slang usually develops within subsections of the population that, for one reason or another, don’t want to be understood by the larger population. On Artemis, slang has always been frowned upon because it would restrict communication with the seegnur. This provision has held during the five hundred years since the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines, since most of the population lives in faithful waiting until the seegnur come again.
How about jargon?
Jargon differs from slang in that it is usually specific to a profession, either as a verbal shorthand for commonly used terms or to name new developments. Probably some bits of professional jargon have evolved, but not as many as you might suspect. The people of Artemis are conservative – and I mean this in the old sense of the word “to conserve” or “ to preserve.” Moreover, the lack of scientific and industrial development has meant that there has been very little need for new words.
Languages change for a reason. At least in the parts of Artemis that Griffin has explored to this point, there has been no reason for the language to change. Will this always be the case? That remains to be seen…
September 19, 2014
Friday Festivities
The Friday Fragments feature lists of what I’ve read over the past week. They are not meant to be a recommendation list. If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website .
This is not a book review column. It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.
Kel’s on top of her reading
Enjoy!
Recently Completed:
W is for Wasted by Sue Grafton. Audiobook. As a reader who has usually enjoyed this series, this novel struck me as all too aptly titled. It was indeed a “waste.” The text was repetitious and weighted down with pointless description. Kinsey repeatedly lets herself be bullied by a host of unlikeable characters. A sub-plot removes any sense of discovery and leads to more repetition. Continuing characters have dead-end cameos.
The Demigod Files by Rick Riordan. Audiobook. Three short stories and a handful of amusing character interviews. Reminded me that I’ve meant to go on with the adventures of Percy Jackson and his associates.
Finger Lickin’ Fifteen by Janet Evanovich. Audiobook. Light and fluffy, even for a series that specializes in fluff. Still, I was in the mood for fluff. Now I’m also craving barbeque.
In Progress:
The Adventures of English: The Biography of a Language by Melvyn Bragg. Overall, this is still fun. The chapter on pronunciation of various British dialects became tedious for this American reader until Bragg moved on to specific authors.
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich. Audiobook.
Within the Little While:
Quite a while ago, on the recommendation of a friend who is both a librarian and a classics major, I read The Lightning Thief, the first of Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” novels. Up until my friend reassured me that Riordan knew his stuff, I had avoided these books. Basically, I get cranky when it becomes evident that an author using mythological material didn’t bother to research beyond some tertiary handbook. I was delighted with the Riordan’s handling of his material, especially how he managed to explain apparent “errors” in his world-design, like why virgin Athena has so many “half-blood” children.
Oh, I have quibbles, but that’s all they are… (Goats don’t eat cans. They lick off the glue. So goat-bodied satyrs should be glue aficionados, not junk-eaters.) I plan to continue reading Riordan’s work.
What are you reading?
September 18, 2014
TT: Frozen Beer
JANE: Alan! Alan! If I can drag you out from under your beach umbrella and get the beer mug out of your hand, I was hoping to ask what you plan to do with all the free time you’ve acquired in your retirement.
Monty Python’s Holy Ale
ALAN: Now there’s a lot of assumptions built in to that question. I promise I will answer it, but there are several tangents I’d like to explore first, if I may?
JANE: Go for it!
ALAN: Firstly, it’s the middle of winter here. So if I really was sitting outside under a beach umbrella, the chances are very good that the beer in my mug would freeze solid and I’d have to drink it with a hammer and chisel.
JANE: Is the temperature really that cold?
ALAN: It has been very cold – but it is actually starting to warm up a little now. Last night was the first night in forever that we didn’t have the electric blankets turned on. And now that we are well past the solstice, I’m greatly looking forward to the start of the asparagus season in a month or so. Yummy!
JANE: I am not quite to envying you the asparagus, since my garden is going strong and we’re finally getting tomatoes. We lost a lot of tomato plants early in the season, but the ones we planted later are finally showing ripe fruit.
But we were talking about retirement…
ALAN: Yes, we were. You know it’s amazing how many people have asked me what I’m going to do with all that spare time. Many of them ask with a look of horror on their faces. It’s almost as though they themselves have no idea of how they’d cope if they didn’t have a job to go to. It seems like work is the only thing in their lives and they regard the thought of retirement with fear and trepidation…
JANE: Sadly, that’s true, especially for men. So many men define themselves by their jobs. I know Jim thinks of himself as an archeologist. He plans to continue doing archeology even after he retires. Not all professions provide that opportunity, so when the professional affiliation is gone, there is a real identity crisis. Some people avoid that by dodging retirement.
ALAN: That’s exactly what happened to my grandfather. He simply refused to retire and just kept going in to work day after day after day. Eventually the powers that be forced him out – I’m not sure of the exact circumstances, but in his early seventies he was finally persuaded to retire. Once that happened, he was completely lost. He had nothing to do. He just sat in a chair feeling bored and waiting to die. And, in a few short months, that’s exactly what he did. I was about 18 at the time and I found the whole thing quite scary. I felt it was an object lesson and I certainly didn’t want it to happen to me.
JANE: Absolutely! My life provided me with a striking example of why retirement is something to be treasured, not avoided. My father was a lawyer at the Justice Department, doing work with lands and natural resources. He was offered the chance of early retirement and took it. Then he went and worked in the same field for a private firm for a few years. At last, he completely retired. He travelled, both domestically and oversea, and had some adventures…
That choice made it a tiny bit easier for us when Dad was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and died comparatively young. At least he hadn’t gone straight from working to dying.
ALAN: So we both have examples from our own lives. Hopefully we’ve both learned the lessons those examples teach.
A fear of retirement is an attitude of mind that is very common. I think it ties in quite closely with the everyday fear of losing your job because of circumstances beyond your control. Certainly it doesn’t help that in these hard economic times a lot of people are really under a lot of pressure to work over and above their normal duties. Some people put in a lot of overtime, and even when they aren’t physically present in the office, they still read and respond to emails and write reports. Work demands so much of some people that they don’t actually have time for any other interests! So if and when retirement or job loss comes, their lives are quite empty. That too I find very sad.
JANE: I thought that was mostly an American (as in resident of the United States) problem! I am very un-American that way. I avoid e-mail on the weekend. Even when I do check my e-mail on the weekend – as sometimes is necessary – I give myself permission not to reply to anything related to work. It’s the only way to stay sane. Otherwise, especially being self-employed as I am, it would be too easy to feel “on the clock” all the time.
ALAN: No – I think it’s probably a worldwide phenomenon. A friend of mine is literally on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He has a company-supplied cell phone which he is not allowed to turn off. Personally, I would never accept a job which had conditions like that attached to it. But some people, particularly those who live to work (rather than people like me who work to live) seem to have no problem with it.
JANE: But you don’t have to worry about that now that you are retired. So tell me, what are you planning to do with your new leisure time?
ALAN: Well, in the short term, we are planning on moving to a warmer and prettier area of the country. That means that we have to get our house into a state where we can realistically put it on the market. As a first step we are having it painted and even as I write this, Jimmy the Painter is outside slapping paint around. I am also moving some of our clutter into storage and (taking a deep breath) I am starting to dive into the paperwork and bureaucracy involved in selling a house and buying another one.
JANE: My sister is also in the process of moving. It sounds as if you and she are doing the same sort of jobs on either side of the globe. I wonder if that’s a sort of harmony…
ALAN: It helps to keep the globe in balance. If your sister wasn’t moving, it might cause the world to wobble, and that would never do.
JANE: I’ll tell her! But that’s just the short term. What happens after you move?
ALAN: I’ll reveal all next time!
September 17, 2014
What City is This?
Funny thing. I’ve lived in Albuquerque since December, 1995, and I keep encountering versions of the city that certainly aren’t the one I live in. Now, if I lived in New York City or Los Angeles or one of the huge megalopolises I could understand the disconnect but, when you compare those cities by size, Albuquerque doesn’t come close to measuring up.
Open Spaces Center
The 2012 Census put Albuquerque’s population figure at 555,417 and rising. Still, even when all the surrounding residential areas (many of which aren’t particularly proximate) are lumped in, the entire population is smaller than many of the boroughs of New York City. Manhattan, for example, has a population of 1,626,159 (2013 Census) – almost as large as the entire state of New Mexico, which, based on the 2012 Census, is just barely over two million.
So, what are some of the Albuquerques I’ve encountered recently?
The first was when I picked up a copy of Albuquerque: The Magazine when I was in the waiting room at my vet’s. In this glossy publication, I read about nightclubs, boutiques, and restaurants I’ve never even seen. I read an article about how hard some restaurants strive to ensure that the seafood they serve is fresh – a major challenge in our landlocked, hot and dry state. I’d always assumed that, when I went to El Mariscos Altimar for their lovely “Seven Seas” soup or seafood chimichangas, the ingredients were frozen. Apparently, not – or at least not always. (That dish wasn’t one of the ones examined in detail.)
I also read about the struggles of a local boutique to supply cutting-edge fashion at “Albuquerque prices.” (Are there really places where “regular” people pay $400.00 for a blouse without a second thought?)
I’m a jeans and tee shirt person. I haven’t been to a nightclub for about twenty years – and that was for a promotional event, so I wasn’t really surprised that I didn’t know much about these aspects of the city. I’m more likely to go hiking or to a museum than to a spa or boutique.
This past weekend, Jim and I went to the State Fair. One of the things that had startled me about that issue of Albuquerque: The Magazine was how many of the things it focused on had little to do with the rich, multicultural fabric that influences Albuquerque the city, as well as the state of New Mexico as a whole.
In the Hispanic Arts building, I was drawn to a dramatic, unsettling painting on display in one corner. It depicted various scenes of dissipation and violence. A man snorted cocaine. Another was indulging in some drug I couldn’t identify. At the bottom, a burly man with a wolf’s paw on his hat was backed by two howling wolves – one of which appeared to be weeping. Almost hidden amid this was a little girl with three sheep. The words “Prey” and “Pray” were written between the wolves and the little girl. What fascinated me were the spirit figures near each human, stylized and seeming to blend Indian and Spanish influences.
The painting was called “Chronicles of Burque.” This was an Albuquerque as alien to the one of Albuquerque: The Magazine as could be. I suspect it might be familiar to viewers of the popular television show Breaking Bad, which was set and filmed here. But once again, this wasn’t my Albuquerque.
So what is my Albuquerque? I live on the Westside, which – at least as I must judge by the snide comments of one fellow I encountered at a meeting a couple weeks ago – is still considered by many of those who live on the east side of the Rio Grande River to be a barren wasteland, filled with nothing but tract homes and chain shops. That’s true to a point, but it’s not the whole picture by far.
Jim and I don’t eat out often but, if we do, we have a wide selection of locally-owned restaurants from which to choose from – many of which have been in place since before I moved here and which continue to do thriving business, even as new chains – attracted by the 2012 Census figures – mushroom up.
Ours isn’t a rich area. It does have its share of crime but, when we ride our bikes through the streets of interlocking residential neighborhoods, we are frequently greeted by our neighbors. I still chuckle over the fellow who said: “If you’re out biking, it must be Spring!” If I bike alone, I’m often asked where Jim is…
When we go to the grocery store, we’re greeted warmly. Charley, the greengrocer, has been known to cut a slice from some newly-arrived fruit and say, “Try this. It’s really good!” We can count on being told how hot the green chile is this year – and often are offered a bit to take home and test. These aren’t the sterile samples offered by latex-gloved professionals with frozen smiles, but examples of small town friendliness. At another store, our usual checkout clerk will say, “You’re early today,” or “Running a little late, eh?” Anywhere, it’s easy to strike up a conversation with a stranger.
We live within walking distance of Petroglyph National Monument and a short drive from the Open Spaces Center, both of which offer good hiking and history combined – hardly the image that those east of the river seem to hold of a culturally-sterile void. Our local library branch is bustling and busy. Kids play soccer in the flanking fields and dogs socialize in the dog park. I could go on, but I hope you get the point…
My Albuquerque may not be fashionable, but neither is it creepily criminal. It’s a friendly and relaxing place to live. I wonder if every city has as many faces?
