By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — February may be the shortest month, but it will be packed with artistic activities. during For the Love of Art Month (FLAM).
Even those who don’t consider themselves culture vultures are likely to find some irresistible attractions and arts aficionados should be prepared to go into full-tilt fiesta mode.
Every year, there are more reminders of just how much the Mesilla Valley has to offer, with world-class artists and more venues and events that showcase just how rich our cultural community is, from theatrical performances and poetry readings to music, dance and visual arts in a variety of media.
ArtForms professional artists founders Kelley S. Hestir, Myriam Lozada Jarvis and others, deserve a lot of praise for coming up with the concept at a Mesilla Park backyard brainstorming session in the 1990s.
I sat in on those first sessions and have been pleased to see how FLAM has grown from a hopeful seed into a blooming, month-long fiesta that involves artistic souls from tots to seniors, all getting down with their artistic selves.
It’s always been clear to me that we’re a creative city that thinks outside the box, and during February, we always manage to outdo ourselves.
It’s become a Herculean task to organize and chronicle all the venues in time to put out an official directory of events and maps of artists’ studio tour sites. Kudos to Cheryl Fallstead and all the ArtForms volunteers and artists who make the event possible.
In true artistic spirit, the month is always full of surprises and some last-minute events that don’t make the officially-sanctioned guide.
This year, I’m especially looking forward to a first- time event organized by Jerry Ann Alt which will bring together singers from all over the community to the Las Cruces Museum of Art for some song among the sculptures on Feb. 26.
I hope you’ll feel free to burst into song whenever the spirit moves you before and after the event.
Mesilla artists have had their own little event on the Mesilla Plaza in recent years.
It’s never in the official guide, which is one reason I’ve decided to attach my own unofficial FLAM event to the date they choose.
So be on notice and save the date: For the Love of Art Month Wearable Art Promenade and Parade (FLAM WAPP), now in its second year, will again start out the morning of Feb. 12 at the Saturday Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market on the Downtown Mall, and then will move to the annual Mesilla For the Love of Art Celebration from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Mesilla Plaza.
Your job is to don your favorite wearable art wardrobe items and strut your stuff on our favorite public plazas.
This gives you almost two weeks to get out your art supplies and sewing boxes and whip up something new to accent favorites from your closets and jewelry boxes.
Or get out their and discover some new artistic treasures for yourself and your Valentine.
I’m also issuing my annual reminder that there are a lot of talented artists our there, and they’re dealing.
I’ve lived in artists’ communities in good times and bad, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a single artist who was unwilling to negotiate with a fan who has fallen madly in love with his or her work.
I have it on good authority that the late, great R.C. Gorman once traded a fresh-caught Pacific salmon for an original painting and I know art-loving school kids in Santa Fe and Silver City who’ve acquired masterpieces by sweeping studios, engineering creative swaps or arranging very generous layaway plans.
Maybe you can strike a deal to acquire a treasure of your own. In the meantime, get out there and admire our visual and performing artists. Happy FLAM.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
Friday, January 28, 2011
"Beatlick Joe has left the building"
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — “Beatlick” Joe Speer, writer and editor of a poetry journal that attracted a worldwide fan base, died Tuesday in hospice care in Albuquerque. He was 62.
Speer, who, with Wayne Crawford, was profiled in a Jan. 23 SunLife feature about poets’ courageous and creative attitudes in the face of catastrophic illness, was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer on Nov. 19.
“Beatlick Joe has left the building. He went out with style and panache,” said Pamela Hirst, coeditor of the Beatlick News and Speer’s longtime “soulmate and life partner.”
In a mid-January phone interview, Speer was philosophical about his life journey.
“I’m not upset. It’s not really for me to decide when I come and go. Those decisions are made by some other forces and it’s out of my control. You never know how long you have, how many miles you’re going to log on this road trip. When you’re ripe, they pluck you,” Speer said.
“I’d hoped Joe would have lived long enough to hold a copy of his new book in his hands,” Hirst said.
The compilation of Speer’s writings, “Backpack Trekker: A 60s Flashback,” went to the printer this week and will soon be available on amazon.com, Hirst said.
She expressed gratitude that “so many people are coming together to honor Joe. I know how loved he is. I am the lucky woman who got to live with him for 22 years."
Speer, a New Mexico State University graduate, was born Oct. 24, 1948, in Albuquerque. He and Hirst have largely been based in Las Cruces in recent years, but also lived in Tennessee, helping Hirst’s mother in the last days of her life, and have spent a lot of time on the road and house sitting for friends.
They’ve continued to distribute print and online versions of their poetry and arts newsletter, “Beatlick News,” and until recently were taking part in poetry readings and literary events throughout the United States.
His poetry journal, Speer said this month, “was what we really enjoyed doing. It really connected me with a lot of writers.”
Chronicles of Speer’s final months, “Pamela’s Journal,” updates on Speer’s book and what Hirst said will be the last edition of the Beatlick News are accessible at www.beatlick.com.
Hirst said a tribute to Speer is planned at a Downtown Ramble Open Mic session at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Rio Grande Theatre on the Downtown Mall. A memorial is also planned at New Mexico State University Library at a date to be announced. Contributions in Speer’s memory may be sent to Hospice.
In addition to Hirst, Speer’s survivors include his brother, Paul A. Speer, and a nephew, Aaron Avery, both of Nashville.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — “Beatlick” Joe Speer, writer and editor of a poetry journal that attracted a worldwide fan base, died Tuesday in hospice care in Albuquerque. He was 62.
Speer, who, with Wayne Crawford, was profiled in a Jan. 23 SunLife feature about poets’ courageous and creative attitudes in the face of catastrophic illness, was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer on Nov. 19.
“Beatlick Joe has left the building. He went out with style and panache,” said Pamela Hirst, coeditor of the Beatlick News and Speer’s longtime “soulmate and life partner.”
In a mid-January phone interview, Speer was philosophical about his life journey.
“I’m not upset. It’s not really for me to decide when I come and go. Those decisions are made by some other forces and it’s out of my control. You never know how long you have, how many miles you’re going to log on this road trip. When you’re ripe, they pluck you,” Speer said.
“I’d hoped Joe would have lived long enough to hold a copy of his new book in his hands,” Hirst said.
The compilation of Speer’s writings, “Backpack Trekker: A 60s Flashback,” went to the printer this week and will soon be available on amazon.com, Hirst said.
She expressed gratitude that “so many people are coming together to honor Joe. I know how loved he is. I am the lucky woman who got to live with him for 22 years."
Speer, a New Mexico State University graduate, was born Oct. 24, 1948, in Albuquerque. He and Hirst have largely been based in Las Cruces in recent years, but also lived in Tennessee, helping Hirst’s mother in the last days of her life, and have spent a lot of time on the road and house sitting for friends.
They’ve continued to distribute print and online versions of their poetry and arts newsletter, “Beatlick News,” and until recently were taking part in poetry readings and literary events throughout the United States.
His poetry journal, Speer said this month, “was what we really enjoyed doing. It really connected me with a lot of writers.”
Chronicles of Speer’s final months, “Pamela’s Journal,” updates on Speer’s book and what Hirst said will be the last edition of the Beatlick News are accessible at www.beatlick.com.
Hirst said a tribute to Speer is planned at a Downtown Ramble Open Mic session at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Rio Grande Theatre on the Downtown Mall. A memorial is also planned at New Mexico State University Library at a date to be announced. Contributions in Speer’s memory may be sent to Hospice.
In addition to Hirst, Speer’s survivors include his brother, Paul A. Speer, and a nephew, Aaron Avery, both of Nashville.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
Creative life cycles Two poets and their partners explore life's final frontiers
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — It could be said that the job of a poet is to offer fresh, creative insights on life and all its cycles.
That's a life mission for two Las Cruces-based poets, Wayne Crawford and "Beatlick" Joe Speer, who were each diagnosed last fall with pancreatic and liver cancer.
Both have praised their friends and partners. Speers, and his "life partner and soulmate of 22 years," poet Pamela Hirst and Crawford and his "creative and collaborative partner," singer-songwriter-poet and musician Randy Granger, have been explording life's final frontiers with courage, creativity, and sometimes enthusiastic dollops of wit and wisdom.
For each, the diagnosis was a surprise.
Crawford has been traveling to Houston regularly for treatment.
He said he has been working for a balance "between pain control and cognitive ability. I've lived pretty much an intellectual life and that's how I'm going out."
All the poets are on the move in this life. Crawford and Granger decided to downsize and moved from their Rio Grande riverfront home to a townhouse in Las Cruces this week.
Spees and Hirst have largely been based in Las Cruces in recent years, but also lived in Tennessee, helping Hirst's mother in the last days of her life, and have spent a lot of time on the road and house sitting for friends.
They've continued to distribute print and online versions of their poetry journal “Beatlick News” and until recently were taking part in poetry readings throughout the country. Currently, they are making their home base with friends in Albuquerque to be near Joe's doctors and friends, some of whom will join in a "pass-the-hat" benefit for Speers on Thursday at the Source month poetry reading in Northern New Mexico. Those who would like to send him cards or help him with medical costs can send a check to Beatlick Joe Speer, care of Malpais Review, .P.O. Box 339, Placitas, NM 87043.
"We saw another oncologist here in Albuquerque and with each doctor we receive less hope, less time. The Albuquerque doctor said that without treatment, from diagnosis to death is three months. I can hardly do the math. But let it suffice to say that Joe's decline is extremely rapid," Hirst said, who has sent regular bulletins lauding friends and hospice personnel.
"This isn't cheerful or optimistic. I didn't know what to expect and I haven't expected things to go downhill so rapidly," Hirst said last week, bemoaning the impossibility of some travels on Joe's bucket list. "So many people are coming together to honor Joe, I know how loved he is. I am the lucky woman who got to live with him for 22 years."
Crawford has planned a more aggressive treatment program and said he tends to disregard time predictions.
When he was given 12 weeks to live and the chemotherapy was particularly rough, he thought about throwing in the towel. "But then, I get to the 11th week and decided to sign on for another 12 weeks."
Both have kept in close touch with friends and family through high-tech sources and said supporting messages and visits from friends have been a great comfort.
Speer, a New Mexico State University graduate, has enjoyed hearing from friends all over the world.
Among Crawford's recent contacts in one of his former journalism students who won a Pulitzer Prize in photography. Crawford holds a Ph.D. and attended Columbia College in Chicago and illinois State University. He has taught everything from English to journalism, on the high school and university level and edited the online poetry site Lunarosity.
In the meantime, life — and poetry — go on.
"Anyone can go online and post some thoughts on Joe," said Hirst, by entering "Beatlick Joe Speer" on Facebook.
His new book,"Backpack Trekker: A 60s Flashback," is ready to go.
"Five proofs of Joe's book are on the way," Hirst said. "Joe needs to have some wits about him to write the author's note for the book and to do his reviews for the next newsletter. I thought he was a lot better today, more alert and he is sitting up and holding court with many visitors. I am encouraged that he can get the book finished."
The book will soon be available at Amazon.com.
"I pray Joe will live to hold his own book in his hand. I have edited 600 pages, worked 15 hours a day, all week. Next I am rebuilding beatlick.com to present all the wonderful responses Joe has received from around the country and the world,
Crawford recently collaborated on the title track of Granger's latest CD, "Pura Vida" (Pure Life) and is working on an anthology of his own poetry, "Dancing Skin," with Granger's help.
"Will I finish it? I hope so. The creative impulse is still there," Crawford said.
He described a rewarding Thanksgiving celebration with friends and family here and said he is looking forward to spending time with his two grown children and three grandchildren.
"I find poetry is less important than real people. I'd rather spend time with the people I care about," said Illinois native Crawford, who has been a guiding force in open mikes, poetry journals and Poetry Month celebrations here.
Speers said he is philosophical about the ways things turned and does not fear the future.
Crawford agrees. "I always wake up and believe today would be a good day. I'm optimistic and I'm not afraid. I've never felt resentful. There are some really good things in my life," he said.
S.Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — It could be said that the job of a poet is to offer fresh, creative insights on life and all its cycles.
That's a life mission for two Las Cruces-based poets, Wayne Crawford and "Beatlick" Joe Speer, who were each diagnosed last fall with pancreatic and liver cancer.
Both have praised their friends and partners. Speers, and his "life partner and soulmate of 22 years," poet Pamela Hirst and Crawford and his "creative and collaborative partner," singer-songwriter-poet and musician Randy Granger, have been explording life's final frontiers with courage, creativity, and sometimes enthusiastic dollops of wit and wisdom.
For each, the diagnosis was a surprise.
Crawford has been traveling to Houston regularly for treatment.
He said he has been working for a balance "between pain control and cognitive ability. I've lived pretty much an intellectual life and that's how I'm going out."
All the poets are on the move in this life. Crawford and Granger decided to downsize and moved from their Rio Grande riverfront home to a townhouse in Las Cruces this week.
Spees and Hirst have largely been based in Las Cruces in recent years, but also lived in Tennessee, helping Hirst's mother in the last days of her life, and have spent a lot of time on the road and house sitting for friends.
They've continued to distribute print and online versions of their poetry journal “Beatlick News” and until recently were taking part in poetry readings throughout the country. Currently, they are making their home base with friends in Albuquerque to be near Joe's doctors and friends, some of whom will join in a "pass-the-hat" benefit for Speers on Thursday at the Source month poetry reading in Northern New Mexico. Those who would like to send him cards or help him with medical costs can send a check to Beatlick Joe Speer, care of Malpais Review, .P.O. Box 339, Placitas, NM 87043.
"We saw another oncologist here in Albuquerque and with each doctor we receive less hope, less time. The Albuquerque doctor said that without treatment, from diagnosis to death is three months. I can hardly do the math. But let it suffice to say that Joe's decline is extremely rapid," Hirst said, who has sent regular bulletins lauding friends and hospice personnel.
"This isn't cheerful or optimistic. I didn't know what to expect and I haven't expected things to go downhill so rapidly," Hirst said last week, bemoaning the impossibility of some travels on Joe's bucket list. "So many people are coming together to honor Joe, I know how loved he is. I am the lucky woman who got to live with him for 22 years."
Crawford has planned a more aggressive treatment program and said he tends to disregard time predictions.
When he was given 12 weeks to live and the chemotherapy was particularly rough, he thought about throwing in the towel. "But then, I get to the 11th week and decided to sign on for another 12 weeks."
Both have kept in close touch with friends and family through high-tech sources and said supporting messages and visits from friends have been a great comfort.
Speer, a New Mexico State University graduate, has enjoyed hearing from friends all over the world.
Among Crawford's recent contacts in one of his former journalism students who won a Pulitzer Prize in photography. Crawford holds a Ph.D. and attended Columbia College in Chicago and illinois State University. He has taught everything from English to journalism, on the high school and university level and edited the online poetry site Lunarosity.
In the meantime, life — and poetry — go on.
"Anyone can go online and post some thoughts on Joe," said Hirst, by entering "Beatlick Joe Speer" on Facebook.
His new book,"Backpack Trekker: A 60s Flashback," is ready to go.
"Five proofs of Joe's book are on the way," Hirst said. "Joe needs to have some wits about him to write the author's note for the book and to do his reviews for the next newsletter. I thought he was a lot better today, more alert and he is sitting up and holding court with many visitors. I am encouraged that he can get the book finished."
The book will soon be available at Amazon.com.
"I pray Joe will live to hold his own book in his hand. I have edited 600 pages, worked 15 hours a day, all week. Next I am rebuilding beatlick.com to present all the wonderful responses Joe has received from around the country and the world,
Crawford recently collaborated on the title track of Granger's latest CD, "Pura Vida" (Pure Life) and is working on an anthology of his own poetry, "Dancing Skin," with Granger's help.
"Will I finish it? I hope so. The creative impulse is still there," Crawford said.
He described a rewarding Thanksgiving celebration with friends and family here and said he is looking forward to spending time with his two grown children and three grandchildren.
"I find poetry is less important than real people. I'd rather spend time with the people I care about," said Illinois native Crawford, who has been a guiding force in open mikes, poetry journals and Poetry Month celebrations here.
Speers said he is philosophical about the ways things turned and does not fear the future.
Crawford agrees. "I always wake up and believe today would be a good day. I'm optimistic and I'm not afraid. I've never felt resentful. There are some really good things in my life," he said.
S.Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450.
About the fire...
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES ˜ En route to the Saturday Farmers & Crafts Market, I noticed the artistic creations on the old whitewashed Sun-News storage building. There was a colorful Sesame Street Big Bird making a balloon comment about standardized testing, next to a giant turtle with a scrawled statement about the state of the environment. I saw some blank white panels and thought it might be nice to see if we could get some young artists to paint something interesting and colorful.
But that ship has sailed. Or that barn has burned, to coin a cliché a little closer to the mark. Less than 24 hours later, those enticing, potential-filled white panels had gone up in flames, along with most of the building behind them.
The calls started coming from amigos in my downtown 'hood shortly after 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Just minutes before, city editor Brenda Masengill, the only person in the building early on Sunday, had been alerted by a passing good Samaritan who banged on the door. She managed to file an online story just before firefighters carried her out bodily, still streaming updates on our website.
Heather Pollard, who lives right around the corner, gave me a count of firetrucks as they battled the blaze. And she told me about the ambulances, which, mercifully, turned out to be unnecessary.
Long-time Las Crucen Pollard, and later, Sylvia Camunez and Irene Oliver-Lewis, both Mesilla Valley natives, told me about the days when the building had housed a dry cleaning business. Though we in the newsroom have been regaled with many stories about the days when the brick Las Cruces Sun-News building was a supermarket, so far, no one has come up with any heart-warming dry-cleaning anecdotes.
By Monday, there was still no official word on the cause of the fire, though there seemed to be a lot of discussion around town.
"I wonder if it's going to be one of those big unsolved Las Cruces mysteries, like the three 2010 murders or that house that blew up," I overheard someone musing at the Tom Young pool.
I wonder, too. No terrorists have claimed credit for the fire. Here at our interim newsroom at the Ramada Palms, theories abound.
"Maybe a mouse spontaneously combusted," mused Sun-News business editor Brook Stockberger.
We were lucky. No one was hurt. Personally, I'd procrastinated about storing a decade's worth of negatives there, so my vintage photos are still safe and sound, if barbecue-scented in my newsroom work area.
It all could have been so much worse. I doubt that the old building was on anyone's top-ranked historical preservation list.
But it was my first personal experience with a fire, if you don't count volcanoes. And Mount St. Helens just dropped a few inches of ash, but no flames, in our backyards. We're displaced persons, if only for a few days, and we miss our desks and filing systems and spellcheck.
Still, we've all been touched by the offers of help and support, by those of you who called and e-mailed, people who came in on a national holiday to help us get settled, by those of you at our sister newspapers in New Mexico who rallied to help us continue to get the paper out every day, by friends and colleagues from Oregon and Santa Fe to Maine and Florida who've contacted us to express their concern and sympathy.
And, of course, we're grateful to those firefighters who worked so hard and skillfully to contain the fire.
It's great to know you have our back. We appreciate it.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES ˜ En route to the Saturday Farmers & Crafts Market, I noticed the artistic creations on the old whitewashed Sun-News storage building. There was a colorful Sesame Street Big Bird making a balloon comment about standardized testing, next to a giant turtle with a scrawled statement about the state of the environment. I saw some blank white panels and thought it might be nice to see if we could get some young artists to paint something interesting and colorful.
But that ship has sailed. Or that barn has burned, to coin a cliché a little closer to the mark. Less than 24 hours later, those enticing, potential-filled white panels had gone up in flames, along with most of the building behind them.
The calls started coming from amigos in my downtown 'hood shortly after 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Just minutes before, city editor Brenda Masengill, the only person in the building early on Sunday, had been alerted by a passing good Samaritan who banged on the door. She managed to file an online story just before firefighters carried her out bodily, still streaming updates on our website.
Heather Pollard, who lives right around the corner, gave me a count of firetrucks as they battled the blaze. And she told me about the ambulances, which, mercifully, turned out to be unnecessary.
Long-time Las Crucen Pollard, and later, Sylvia Camunez and Irene Oliver-Lewis, both Mesilla Valley natives, told me about the days when the building had housed a dry cleaning business. Though we in the newsroom have been regaled with many stories about the days when the brick Las Cruces Sun-News building was a supermarket, so far, no one has come up with any heart-warming dry-cleaning anecdotes.
By Monday, there was still no official word on the cause of the fire, though there seemed to be a lot of discussion around town.
"I wonder if it's going to be one of those big unsolved Las Cruces mysteries, like the three 2010 murders or that house that blew up," I overheard someone musing at the Tom Young pool.
I wonder, too. No terrorists have claimed credit for the fire. Here at our interim newsroom at the Ramada Palms, theories abound.
"Maybe a mouse spontaneously combusted," mused Sun-News business editor Brook Stockberger.
We were lucky. No one was hurt. Personally, I'd procrastinated about storing a decade's worth of negatives there, so my vintage photos are still safe and sound, if barbecue-scented in my newsroom work area.
It all could have been so much worse. I doubt that the old building was on anyone's top-ranked historical preservation list.
But it was my first personal experience with a fire, if you don't count volcanoes. And Mount St. Helens just dropped a few inches of ash, but no flames, in our backyards. We're displaced persons, if only for a few days, and we miss our desks and filing systems and spellcheck.
Still, we've all been touched by the offers of help and support, by those of you who called and e-mailed, people who came in on a national holiday to help us get settled, by those of you at our sister newspapers in New Mexico who rallied to help us continue to get the paper out every day, by friends and colleagues from Oregon and Santa Fe to Maine and Florida who've contacted us to express their concern and sympathy.
And, of course, we're grateful to those firefighters who worked so hard and skillfully to contain the fire.
It's great to know you have our back. We appreciate it.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Poets teach us about creative transitions
By S. Derrickson Moore (with column sig)
Even though I expected something exceptional from the creative souls profiled on this page today, I was surprised at what an upper it turned out to be to talk with “Beatlick” Joe Speers, Pamela Hirst, Wayne Crawford and Randy Granger.
After years of interviews and lots of shared performances and special events, all four seem more like amigos than just sources and I came to know them all better after following. though their e-mails, newsletters and blogs, their triumphs and in recent months, some very tough times.
I’ve been so impressed, inspired and sometimes even amused by their grace under pressure, that I asked if they’d be willing to share their insights and experiences.
It’s rare that such sensitive and talented people are willing to so articulately share what it’s like to face a diagnosis like pancreatic and liver cancer.
In America, in general, and even in the open and creative land of Dia de los Muertos celebrations, we don’t often talk frankly, let alone poetically and with wit and wisdom, about what it’s like to face that final frontier — what my philosopher-physician friend Dr. William Sheldon once termed “the potentially pleasant adventure of dying.”
Chronicling the poetic pioneers on their third act adventures as they blaze a vital trail for we Baby Boomers is turning out to be a story about living, rather than dying.
After several decades as what my relatives call “the family death midwife,” I’ve been through a lot of transitions with those nearest and dearest to me.
The older I get, the more similarities I see between childbirth and the experience we journalists are taught to call “death,” though my own experiences have led me to believe that what I once thought of as polite and comforting euphemisms like “passing,” “crossing over” and “transitions,” may well be more accurate description of what really happens.
Like childbirth, there’s a lot of labor involved, and unless you go quickly, “with your boots on” as we used to say in the Wild West, there can be quite a lot of work involved, for the one making the journey and also those helping with the travel plans and accommodations. There are umbilical chords on both ends of the life process, from medical apparatus to the biological and soul ties that bind.
There is great sadness involved, but as with all profound life experiences, there can also be great love and joy.
In Las Cruces, I went through this journey with two of my best friends, photographer-philosopher and community educator and activist Cecilia Lewis and her husband, Alexis Bespaloff, who wrote some of the best selling wine guides of all time and was a columnist for New York Magazine and other national pubs.
A later-in-life merger of two very independent people who’d survived incredibly difficult childhoods became a profound bonding of soulmates. They personified Cecilia’s family motto: “Never postpone joy.”
After he was given only a few months to live, feisty Alexis managed to carry on and delighted us with his local presence for nearly a decade. And for most of that time, he and Cecilia agreed, life was pretty darn good.
I loved Wayne’s attitude about life expectancy pronouncements.
“I was given 12 weeks to live, and about the 11th week, I decided I’d go for another 12,” he quipped.
I hope both Joe and Wayne keep renewing their earthly subscriptions.
Their friends, fans and family members will be grateful for as much local time as possible with these extraordinary souls.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450 or dmoore@lcsun-news.com
Even though I expected something exceptional from the creative souls profiled on this page today, I was surprised at what an upper it turned out to be to talk with “Beatlick” Joe Speers, Pamela Hirst, Wayne Crawford and Randy Granger.
After years of interviews and lots of shared performances and special events, all four seem more like amigos than just sources and I came to know them all better after following. though their e-mails, newsletters and blogs, their triumphs and in recent months, some very tough times.
I’ve been so impressed, inspired and sometimes even amused by their grace under pressure, that I asked if they’d be willing to share their insights and experiences.
It’s rare that such sensitive and talented people are willing to so articulately share what it’s like to face a diagnosis like pancreatic and liver cancer.
In America, in general, and even in the open and creative land of Dia de los Muertos celebrations, we don’t often talk frankly, let alone poetically and with wit and wisdom, about what it’s like to face that final frontier — what my philosopher-physician friend Dr. William Sheldon once termed “the potentially pleasant adventure of dying.”
Chronicling the poetic pioneers on their third act adventures as they blaze a vital trail for we Baby Boomers is turning out to be a story about living, rather than dying.
After several decades as what my relatives call “the family death midwife,” I’ve been through a lot of transitions with those nearest and dearest to me.
The older I get, the more similarities I see between childbirth and the experience we journalists are taught to call “death,” though my own experiences have led me to believe that what I once thought of as polite and comforting euphemisms like “passing,” “crossing over” and “transitions,” may well be more accurate description of what really happens.
Like childbirth, there’s a lot of labor involved, and unless you go quickly, “with your boots on” as we used to say in the Wild West, there can be quite a lot of work involved, for the one making the journey and also those helping with the travel plans and accommodations. There are umbilical chords on both ends of the life process, from medical apparatus to the biological and soul ties that bind.
There is great sadness involved, but as with all profound life experiences, there can also be great love and joy.
In Las Cruces, I went through this journey with two of my best friends, photographer-philosopher and community educator and activist Cecilia Lewis and her husband, Alexis Bespaloff, who wrote some of the best selling wine guides of all time and was a columnist for New York Magazine and other national pubs.
A later-in-life merger of two very independent people who’d survived incredibly difficult childhoods became a profound bonding of soulmates. They personified Cecilia’s family motto: “Never postpone joy.”
After he was given only a few months to live, feisty Alexis managed to carry on and delighted us with his local presence for nearly a decade. And for most of that time, he and Cecilia agreed, life was pretty darn good.
I loved Wayne’s attitude about life expectancy pronouncements.
“I was given 12 weeks to live, and about the 11th week, I decided I’d go for another 12,” he quipped.
I hope both Joe and Wayne keep renewing their earthly subscriptions.
Their friends, fans and family members will be grateful for as much local time as possible with these extraordinary souls.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450 or dmoore@lcsun-news.com
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The world needs love songs
I heard from some enthusiastic singers in response to a recent column suggesting we starting tuning up to prepare to spend February For the Love of Art month breaking into spontaneous song. (In the shower, the supermarket, at the office, in the park, etc.) I’ll keep you posted on community sing ops.
But there are always the naysayers.
This manifesto was e-mailed to me: “The Donnybrook Writing Academy, in partnership with Empty Reviews, decrees the following songs never to be played on the radio ever again. They shall never be played live again. They shall never be sung in the shower again. We’re monitoring the airwaves; we’re going through your iPods; we’re peeking in your bathroom windows. And best believe, we will be handing out citations for any violations.”
I checked things out at godonnybrook.com and found a lot of my faves on the list, golden oldies from Elvis to the Boss.
We Baby Boomers are ever more prone to getting a random song stuck with peanut butter tenacity to the roof of our palates and the corners of our brains and sometimes the only way to get it unstuck and make room for vital things, like where we put our car keys, is to give up and sing it all day long.
Further investigation revealed that the ban was hatched, not in a think tank, but in a Colorado bar by members of Donnybrook Writing Academy, described as an “elite institution for cultural advancement, founded in 2007. Its writers publish an online magazine devoted to music, culture and the arts.”
I e-mailed a protest and got a prompt reply.
“We love the classics! In fact, we were just watching the ‘Last Waltz’ last night. That’s how songs get on our list — by being so classic, people overplay them so much that we can recite them from memory. At that point, it’s time to discover the new classics — by different artists, or even the same ones, on the B-sides. At any rate, that’s how we feel about it all,” said an academy member who identified herself as Angora.
There was also a picture of what I presume to be seven members of the group, dressed in what could be tennis whites, or maybe their underwear. There are a couple of rackets in the picture, but there’s also a picnic basket and what looks like a champagne bottle and a squash. Maybe it started out to be a tennis (or squash) match. but the champagne diverted the group to a picnic, a pumpkin patch and other pursuits.
They look like nice kids, but I’m not willing to give up “American Pie,” “Bad to the Bone” and “Born in the U.S.A.” to support their cause. And that’s just the top of the list. No one who has done hard time in Florida should be asked to sacrifice “Margaritaville.” And frankly, (here’s that old Boomer thing again), I’ve just recently learned all the words to “Poker Face.”
I’m not sure I’ll ever lose my affection for the Righteous Brothers’ soulful “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” and Elvis’ classic, “I Can’t Help Falling in Love.” If so, it sure won’t be during For the Love of Art Month.
And they’re asking us to ban “Light My Fire,” “In the Air Tonight” and “Born to be Wild” from our hearts, minds, airwaves and corner doo-wop groups forever?
I don’t think so.
In the words of “The Gambler,” which the group also wants to ban, you gotta know when to fold ‘em.
Give it up, dudes.
Abandon this ill-conceived crusade and abort all plans to return to that bar and trash talk about more tunes we all know and love. Why don’t you skip the drunk part, save some brain cells and write some songs of your own that might be worthy of classic status? At worst, it’d keep you off the streets, out of the bars and at best you might slip from destructive/crabby mode into creative hyperspace.
Of course, if “The Little Drummer Boy” had been on your list, I might have been tempted to join your crusade.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
But there are always the naysayers.
This manifesto was e-mailed to me: “The Donnybrook Writing Academy, in partnership with Empty Reviews, decrees the following songs never to be played on the radio ever again. They shall never be played live again. They shall never be sung in the shower again. We’re monitoring the airwaves; we’re going through your iPods; we’re peeking in your bathroom windows. And best believe, we will be handing out citations for any violations.”
I checked things out at godonnybrook.com and found a lot of my faves on the list, golden oldies from Elvis to the Boss.
We Baby Boomers are ever more prone to getting a random song stuck with peanut butter tenacity to the roof of our palates and the corners of our brains and sometimes the only way to get it unstuck and make room for vital things, like where we put our car keys, is to give up and sing it all day long.
Further investigation revealed that the ban was hatched, not in a think tank, but in a Colorado bar by members of Donnybrook Writing Academy, described as an “elite institution for cultural advancement, founded in 2007. Its writers publish an online magazine devoted to music, culture and the arts.”
I e-mailed a protest and got a prompt reply.
“We love the classics! In fact, we were just watching the ‘Last Waltz’ last night. That’s how songs get on our list — by being so classic, people overplay them so much that we can recite them from memory. At that point, it’s time to discover the new classics — by different artists, or even the same ones, on the B-sides. At any rate, that’s how we feel about it all,” said an academy member who identified herself as Angora.
There was also a picture of what I presume to be seven members of the group, dressed in what could be tennis whites, or maybe their underwear. There are a couple of rackets in the picture, but there’s also a picnic basket and what looks like a champagne bottle and a squash. Maybe it started out to be a tennis (or squash) match. but the champagne diverted the group to a picnic, a pumpkin patch and other pursuits.
They look like nice kids, but I’m not willing to give up “American Pie,” “Bad to the Bone” and “Born in the U.S.A.” to support their cause. And that’s just the top of the list. No one who has done hard time in Florida should be asked to sacrifice “Margaritaville.” And frankly, (here’s that old Boomer thing again), I’ve just recently learned all the words to “Poker Face.”
I’m not sure I’ll ever lose my affection for the Righteous Brothers’ soulful “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” and Elvis’ classic, “I Can’t Help Falling in Love.” If so, it sure won’t be during For the Love of Art Month.
And they’re asking us to ban “Light My Fire,” “In the Air Tonight” and “Born to be Wild” from our hearts, minds, airwaves and corner doo-wop groups forever?
I don’t think so.
In the words of “The Gambler,” which the group also wants to ban, you gotta know when to fold ‘em.
Give it up, dudes.
Abandon this ill-conceived crusade and abort all plans to return to that bar and trash talk about more tunes we all know and love. Why don’t you skip the drunk part, save some brain cells and write some songs of your own that might be worthy of classic status? At worst, it’d keep you off the streets, out of the bars and at best you might slip from destructive/crabby mode into creative hyperspace.
Of course, if “The Little Drummer Boy” had been on your list, I might have been tempted to join your crusade.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Sing in the New Year
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — Internationally, they’re known as “flash mobs,” and sometimes characterized as part of the “random acts of culture” movement.
Groups have sprung up (sometimes in disguise as cell phone addicts or cleaning personnel) to sing renditions of the “Hallelujah Chorus” in shopping malls, pop tunes with the Black Eyed Peas in Chicago, or show tunes in theater district neighborhoods.
Since we may have more talented singers and musicians per capita than most any place on the planet, I’d like to start encouraging some random acts of love-theme tunes anytime, anywhere — and especially during February for the Love of Art Month.
Frankly, despite some very impressive festivals and accomplishments, 2010 was sometimes kind of a touchy year for the arts community. There was more evidence of discontent, dissing, free-form crabbiness and grousing than I’ve ever seen here before, triggered, I suspect, by tough times, fear and short funding.
But don’t panic. Compare to other arts communities, we are still artistic goodwill heaven. Las Cruces is filled with enlightened souls who understand that art and artistic expression is not a luxury, but a necessity for personal — and societal — mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health and happiness.
As the Beatles informed us in 1967, all we need is love … and increasingly effective ways to generate some of the global attention we now rate.
Feel free to sing along with me now as you read this column. All you need is love … dut-dut-dut-dah-dut ……
Let’s get the performing artists in on this. We might even dub ourselves the burgeoning capital of “Glee” with the growing number of choirs and singing groups.
There are award-winning groups at area high schools and children’s groups featuring local elementary and middle school kids. NMSU’s choral department has added a gospel choir and smaller groups to its students’ and community choirs.
There are several thriving community singing groups specializing in everything from golden oldies to classical, patriotic and contemporary pop tunes. There are church choirs and mariachi groups with stunning solo and group vocalists.
There are individuals who put on one-person stage and cabaret shows that include original tunes, and tributes to icons such as Gilbert & Sullivan and Patsy Kline.
And all this is just the tip of the melodic iceberg. Experience has taught me that music runs in the DNA. For every talent warbling on stage, I figure, there must be anywhere from one to several dozen local relatives who are able to carry a tune, but maybe just have not had the time or opportunity.
If you need an excuse, February is the time and the place can be anywhere in the Mesilla Valley during For the Love of Art month, so start exercising those vocal chords and get ready. The good news is that music is the ultimate multitasking option. Whistle while you work. Sing in the shower. Shower with a friend and save water and develop duets. Start your favorite show tune in a supermarket line and see if you can recruit others to join in.
Sing in the office, at indoor and outdoor malls, in the hood when you’re walking your dog. Sing with the coyotes on desert full moon nights. At open mikes and jams around town. With street performers at the Farmers & Crafts Market.
Sing your favorite love songs. Need inspiration? Go to www.bobborst.com/popculture/love-songs/for a handy list of love songs that topped the pop the charts, from Benny Goodman’s 1943 upbeat “Taking A Chance On Love” to the 2010 Drake hit “Find Your Love.”
It’s looking like 2011 could be the best ever for our burgeoning Las Cruces artistic community. All we need is love and talent, and we are blessed to have a lot of both, here in the City of the Crosses.
It’s something to sing about. Let’s get to it.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — Internationally, they’re known as “flash mobs,” and sometimes characterized as part of the “random acts of culture” movement.
Groups have sprung up (sometimes in disguise as cell phone addicts or cleaning personnel) to sing renditions of the “Hallelujah Chorus” in shopping malls, pop tunes with the Black Eyed Peas in Chicago, or show tunes in theater district neighborhoods.
Since we may have more talented singers and musicians per capita than most any place on the planet, I’d like to start encouraging some random acts of love-theme tunes anytime, anywhere — and especially during February for the Love of Art Month.
Frankly, despite some very impressive festivals and accomplishments, 2010 was sometimes kind of a touchy year for the arts community. There was more evidence of discontent, dissing, free-form crabbiness and grousing than I’ve ever seen here before, triggered, I suspect, by tough times, fear and short funding.
But don’t panic. Compare to other arts communities, we are still artistic goodwill heaven. Las Cruces is filled with enlightened souls who understand that art and artistic expression is not a luxury, but a necessity for personal — and societal — mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health and happiness.
As the Beatles informed us in 1967, all we need is love … and increasingly effective ways to generate some of the global attention we now rate.
Feel free to sing along with me now as you read this column. All you need is love … dut-dut-dut-dah-dut ……
Let’s get the performing artists in on this. We might even dub ourselves the burgeoning capital of “Glee” with the growing number of choirs and singing groups.
There are award-winning groups at area high schools and children’s groups featuring local elementary and middle school kids. NMSU’s choral department has added a gospel choir and smaller groups to its students’ and community choirs.
There are several thriving community singing groups specializing in everything from golden oldies to classical, patriotic and contemporary pop tunes. There are church choirs and mariachi groups with stunning solo and group vocalists.
There are individuals who put on one-person stage and cabaret shows that include original tunes, and tributes to icons such as Gilbert & Sullivan and Patsy Kline.
And all this is just the tip of the melodic iceberg. Experience has taught me that music runs in the DNA. For every talent warbling on stage, I figure, there must be anywhere from one to several dozen local relatives who are able to carry a tune, but maybe just have not had the time or opportunity.
If you need an excuse, February is the time and the place can be anywhere in the Mesilla Valley during For the Love of Art month, so start exercising those vocal chords and get ready. The good news is that music is the ultimate multitasking option. Whistle while you work. Sing in the shower. Shower with a friend and save water and develop duets. Start your favorite show tune in a supermarket line and see if you can recruit others to join in.
Sing in the office, at indoor and outdoor malls, in the hood when you’re walking your dog. Sing with the coyotes on desert full moon nights. At open mikes and jams around town. With street performers at the Farmers & Crafts Market.
Sing your favorite love songs. Need inspiration? Go to www.bobborst.com/popculture/love-songs/for a handy list of love songs that topped the pop the charts, from Benny Goodman’s 1943 upbeat “Taking A Chance On Love” to the 2010 Drake hit “Find Your Love.”
It’s looking like 2011 could be the best ever for our burgeoning Las Cruces artistic community. All we need is love and talent, and we are blessed to have a lot of both, here in the City of the Crosses.
It’s something to sing about. Let’s get to it.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
Going Angel Zen for 2011
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — There are angel wings on my living room wall and halos on my lampshades.
And now I see three angels every time I hit the garage door remote.
There was just one, until I undecked my halls last week, a remarkably easy task this year.
Since I created the newsroom tree and helped decorate a large tree for the Sun-News lobby, I decided I’d given at the office this year and that would be sufficient.
My plans for a holiday open house never got off the ground, somehow, and when work schedules didn’t allow family gatherings, I figured I’d curb my chronic holiday decor enthusiasms and just skip it this year. I flung a pre-decorated wreath on the front door and called it a day, especially after I took a gander around the house and realized it looks like it’s decorated for the holidays year-round anyway.
I have a Charlie Carrillo-carved nativity scene hanging by the fireplace. My collections of festive crosses and bultos of assorted saints and images of Our Lady of Guadalupe adorn my living room, home office, guest rooms and both baths.
And yes, I do have that outsized pair of angel wings hanging on my living room year-round now, because they don’t fit in my Full-Tilt Fiesta Season all-purpose costume closet.
It was all part of my resolution to go Zen and simplify my life. I’ve decided to wear angel outfits for all occasions requiring costumes and invest only in new halos, which don’t take up much space and look rather ethereal and lovely topping my lamp shades when they aren’t in use.
This was the year I’d planned to thoroughly clean out all my costume and gift closets and pack up everything not likely to be used by, or given to, loved ones and donate it all to a worthy charity.
I’ve also considered skipping my 2011 Christmas shopping season, which usually starts about now with the best of the post-season sales and ends by July. Wouldn’t everyone really have cash, anyway?
Well, maybe not.
A lot of us get the blues this time of year and good books, warm scarves, entertaining CDs and DVDs and sweet and silly little gifts do a lot to cheer us up through the pre- and post-holiday doldrums.
And when I went to put away the few Christmas decorations I couldn’t resist, I came across the next seasonal stash of decor items for Valentine’s Day, one of my favorite holidays.
I’ve decided some compromises and transitional strategies are in order, before I really try to go full-tilt cold turkey Zen.
I’m going to recycle some of my Christmas package boxes and pack up some of those long-stored spectacular holiday tableaus and lights so they’ll be all ready to send to Alexander the Great and my son and daughter-in-law next year. I figure they’re still a few decades from simple Zen longings.
And I’m going to hover awhile and keep moving toward my simplify-simplify goals with a Zen angel decor strategy.
I’ll fling a heart ornament or two on the living room wings and think cupid.
I’ll bend the halos into heart shapes for Valentine’s Day and transform them into shamrock configurations for St. Patrick’s Day.
The two wrought-iron angels an amiga gave me for Christmas wouldn’t fit into any of my Christmas storage boxes, so they are now ornamenting the shelves over my garage back door entrance, along with a large lighted glass angel, another gift too big for the closets. Maybe I’ll move them to the patio after the spring windy season is over.
In the meantime, they’re an inspiring sight when I hit the garage door remote and pull into home base after a long day.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — There are angel wings on my living room wall and halos on my lampshades.
And now I see three angels every time I hit the garage door remote.
There was just one, until I undecked my halls last week, a remarkably easy task this year.
Since I created the newsroom tree and helped decorate a large tree for the Sun-News lobby, I decided I’d given at the office this year and that would be sufficient.
My plans for a holiday open house never got off the ground, somehow, and when work schedules didn’t allow family gatherings, I figured I’d curb my chronic holiday decor enthusiasms and just skip it this year. I flung a pre-decorated wreath on the front door and called it a day, especially after I took a gander around the house and realized it looks like it’s decorated for the holidays year-round anyway.
I have a Charlie Carrillo-carved nativity scene hanging by the fireplace. My collections of festive crosses and bultos of assorted saints and images of Our Lady of Guadalupe adorn my living room, home office, guest rooms and both baths.
And yes, I do have that outsized pair of angel wings hanging on my living room year-round now, because they don’t fit in my Full-Tilt Fiesta Season all-purpose costume closet.
It was all part of my resolution to go Zen and simplify my life. I’ve decided to wear angel outfits for all occasions requiring costumes and invest only in new halos, which don’t take up much space and look rather ethereal and lovely topping my lamp shades when they aren’t in use.
This was the year I’d planned to thoroughly clean out all my costume and gift closets and pack up everything not likely to be used by, or given to, loved ones and donate it all to a worthy charity.
I’ve also considered skipping my 2011 Christmas shopping season, which usually starts about now with the best of the post-season sales and ends by July. Wouldn’t everyone really have cash, anyway?
Well, maybe not.
A lot of us get the blues this time of year and good books, warm scarves, entertaining CDs and DVDs and sweet and silly little gifts do a lot to cheer us up through the pre- and post-holiday doldrums.
And when I went to put away the few Christmas decorations I couldn’t resist, I came across the next seasonal stash of decor items for Valentine’s Day, one of my favorite holidays.
I’ve decided some compromises and transitional strategies are in order, before I really try to go full-tilt cold turkey Zen.
I’m going to recycle some of my Christmas package boxes and pack up some of those long-stored spectacular holiday tableaus and lights so they’ll be all ready to send to Alexander the Great and my son and daughter-in-law next year. I figure they’re still a few decades from simple Zen longings.
And I’m going to hover awhile and keep moving toward my simplify-simplify goals with a Zen angel decor strategy.
I’ll fling a heart ornament or two on the living room wings and think cupid.
I’ll bend the halos into heart shapes for Valentine’s Day and transform them into shamrock configurations for St. Patrick’s Day.
The two wrought-iron angels an amiga gave me for Christmas wouldn’t fit into any of my Christmas storage boxes, so they are now ornamenting the shelves over my garage back door entrance, along with a large lighted glass angel, another gift too big for the closets. Maybe I’ll move them to the patio after the spring windy season is over.
In the meantime, they’re an inspiring sight when I hit the garage door remote and pull into home base after a long day.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
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