MI BLOG ES SU BLOG

Las Cruces Style is joining the Blogosphere.
I had a tough time trying to decided what to call it...the same dilemma I faced in 1994 when I was trying to sum up all the things I wanted to write about in the City of the Crosses and the world beyond.
Why not stick with what works — Las Cruces Style — which I define loosely as the way we do things here in my quenencia, and how that relates to the rest of the world.
Now we can add a new cyberspace dimension to our ongoing interactive dialog previously conducted visa phone and e-mail and chance encounters everywhere from the Mesilla Plaza to jets headed to and from Europe, isolated arroyos, fiestas, swimming pools and mountain tops.
I’ve seen the world and this remains my favorite part of the planet.
Futurists predicted a decade ago that the big trends would no longer come from both coasts but from innovative sites somewhere in the middle. I think we’re ground zero for some of the best things developing anywhere.
I think we already have the goods, but I did a little research to see what was getting the hits online. Recent big online attractions have included things like a baby buffalo being rescued from lions and an alligator by a courageous herd, rockers dancing on treadmills, lonely girls waiting for busses, Ninjas, ghostriders (not the departed cowpokes in the sky we Baby Boomers used to sing about, but thrillseeking, dumb joyriders), cute animals and anything hot.
My blog will focus on what you love and hate about Las Cruces, collectors, prophecies and predictions, what’s up with our burgeoning role in movies, general arts and entertainment and much more.
What do you want to talk about? Mi blog es su blog. I think I’ll start with my column each week and add in some breaking news items, rumors, comments overheard on the plaza and at the gym and go from there.
Our blog will be sin fronteras, without borders or boundaries. My chief inspiration will come from the message I got more than a decade ago, when I was ready to embark of a diaspora from South Florida and consulted the most interesting souls I had met in travels around the globe.
We talked about “The Hidden Remnant,” a book by Gerald Sykes that postulated that whenever society was in great peril, there were gatherings of souls who came together to pick up the pieces and rekindle what seems best and brightest. A Sykes line has always haunted me: he said we would “know each other by our shipwrecked eyes.” When I moved to my quenencia, people told me about similar books written in the 1920s that predicted “La Raza Cosmica” would meet in these Borderlands.
It was the consensus of a motley group contacted at the end of the 20th century that Las Cruces is a place where great souls have decided to gather, circle their wagons, pitch their tents and make their last great American Stand.
Bob Diven wrote a moving piece of music about this last roundup which debuted at the Rio Grande Theatre’s grand opening, sung by NMSU’s Masterworks Chorus.
I thought about all this, and 13 years in my quenencia, when I went to name my blog. What about Last Roundup? Hidden Remnant? La Raza Cosmica?
Those all seem a lot less optimistic than I feel in a place where I have seen dramatic changes for the better, a place where, as former library director Don Dresp once told me, “You should remember that everything you do can make a difference.”
How about Querencia Visions? (A querencia, for those of you new to the Land of Enchantment and this column, is about a special relationship between a person and a place, similar to the soul mate relationship between profoundly bonded persons.)
But I still like Las Cruces Style. It’s not just what we wear, or what we spice with chiles, or how we decorate our homes and plazas or the plays or the fiestas and music and art we create and appreciate.
It’s about the four As: a unique blend of art, academics, and agriculture with a few astronauts thrown in, from the dawn of the space age to the X prize and new spaceport.
It’s how we treat each other, with more sweetness than I’ve found any other place on the planet, how we feel about the mountains and the lapis sky and the rosy adobe, about our willingness to accept new people, places and things and blend them gracefully into a rich culture.
It’s about the way we live, and plan and pray and party and do things, with Las Cruces style.
Join in the dialog about where we’ve come from, where we’ve been and where we’re going...and ways we might offer some hope to the rest of the planet.
Access my blog by going to www.lcsun-news.com and clicking on my blogzone and the Las Cruces Style icon or search with lascrucesstyle.blogspot.com

S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com

QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
Is Las Cruces growing gracefully? If so, what do you thing we're doing well? If not, where are we falling down on the job?