tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6500888501820701022024-03-16T00:08:21.128-07:00Las Cruces StyleMy blog will focus on what you love and hate about Las Cruces, collectors, A & E, prophecies and predictions, desert happenings and much more. What do you want? Mi blog es su blog.Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.comBlogger488125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-80250738249717672062016-09-30T16:01:00.002-07:002016-09-30T16:01:26.043-07:00Tough to say goodbyeThis is it, my last day at a place I've worked for going on 23 years. The packing never ends, but am glad to see good friends and be hanging out in my querencia. My son is moving here from Portland, Oregon next week.Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-91172446292933974212016-09-24T14:02:00.005-07:002016-09-24T14:02:46.891-07:00Not adios but hasta la vista <div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve worked with hundreds of reporters and
editors. I’ve interviewed thousands of artists (more than 1,200 of you have
been Artists of the Week, not counting all the groups, spouses and parent-child
duos) and I’ve shared fiestas, plays, concerts, and other special events and
life-changing historical events with millions of you in the Borderlands and
beyond.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve been with the Las Cruces Sun-News since 1994, in old
and new buildings at the corner of Alameda and Las Cruces Avenue, and in a
hotel ballroom and temporary quarters on Idaho Street, after the 2011 fire. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My youngest current newsroom colleague was a little baby when
then-editor Harold Cousland called me in Florida and suggested it was time to
move back to New Mexico, this time to the Southern part of the state. Grandson
Alexander the Great wasn’t even a gleam in the eyes of his parents, who had not
yet met. He just turned 20 and now lives in the Pacific Northwest, but on
Facebook, he still lists Las Cruces, where he spent many of his fun formative
years, as his hometown. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve known for a while, but it still hasn’t quite sunk in
yet. As I pack up the art and artifacts, and photo discs and lots and lots of
newspapers, I wonder how my little corner cubicle can hold so many memories. And
so much stuff.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It could have been a lot worse. I salvaged what I could
after the fire put an end to the old brick building and urban wildlife preserve
that was my funky home base for so many years. Those vats and cartons are
occupying a corner of my garage. I’m still hoping to find a suitable home for
boxes of 35mm negatives of my first ten years, reporting on life in Las Cruces.
I’d like to work with a local institution to do an artist of the week
retrospective exhibit, or maybe even a book. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are lots of plans in the works. I want to do a new
edition of my first book, “Tenny Hale: American Prophet,” with some updates on
the still-unfolding, remarkably accurate prognostications of the most
extraordinary individual I’ve ever met. And maybe, work on a play or movie
script based on the true life adventures of a skeptical, then-20-something
newspaper city editor encountering a source who had predicted the Watergate
scandals, by name, four decades before the actual break-ins changed our nation.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have plans for two works of fiction I’ve written, too. And
I’d like to find new ways to share tales of my querencia, Las Cruces. When my
amigos, some of the most astute people on the planet, conferred back in the
mid-1990s, the consensus was that, “Las Cruces is the place where the remnant,
la raza cosmica, the great souls of the planet, have decided to gather, pitch
their tents and make their last American stand.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They were right, I believe. I’ve met and interviewed many of
those great souls, including visitors, transplants and remarkable New Mexico
natives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve been fortunate to see a lot of the world and live in
many exotic places. I’ve never come close to finding any place I’ve loved as
much as Las Cruces. There is sweetness, spirituality, artistic talent, judiciously
applied brain power, and a spirit of adventure, caring, compassion, patience and
creativity that can bring out the best in us all. Las Crucens know how to make
dreams come true, sometimes with what seem like impossibly limited resources.
We work hard and want the best for new generations. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s something very special about Las Cruces and its
people. I wonder if its magic can be captured in a book, or a TV series. I’d
like to try. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the meantime, mil gracias to you for sharing so much with
me: your stories, your fiestas, your history and culture, your visual and
performing artistry, your paintings, sculptures, books, poems, plays, movies
and visions, your triumphs and tragedies (and your triumphs over tragedy and
adversity) and helping me tell the world about your creativity and your
stainless steel souls. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve made some of the best friends of my lifetime here, and
the soulmates I came in with have come to love Las Cruces as much as I do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sept. 30 will be my last day at the Sun-News, at a job I’ve
loved and held longer than any other in my life. It was time for what some call
retirement, but I prefer to think of as a change of venue. I’m looking forward
to volunteering to support some of my favorite causes, spending time with
friends and family and sharing life lessons learned, strategies to help us be
our best selves in what can be a tough and challenging world. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God willing, we’ll have many more adventures here together.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at @derricksonmoore on Twitter and <a href="http://www.lascrucesstyle.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">lascrucesstyle.blogspot.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-10814283938035174842016-09-24T14:00:00.002-07:002016-09-24T14:00:53.192-07:00Dead Day 101: Traditions we love<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">We think it was around 1995 and we think there were about six of
us: Preciliana Sandoval, Irene Oliver-Lewis, Jean McDonnell, Debbie Pinkerton,
Sherry Doil-Carter and me. We all stood on the Mesilla Plaza and decided it was
time to have a Día de Los Muertos gathering there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">We were all influenced by a lot of what was going on. Lalo
Natividad and the late Richard Weeks had formed El Grupo Cultural, bringing
traditional borderland festivals and celebrations back to Mesilla. Phyllis
Franzoy and Erlinda Portillo founded the Las Cruces International Mariachi
Conference. Santiago and Zandra Santanova had Dead Day exhibits at their
galleries. José Tena built traditional altars and hosted a posole party every
year, first at the Branigan Cultural Center and later at Academia de Dolores
Huerta. There are been many who have been in it from the beginning and have
kept the spirit of Dead alive in Mesilla since: Peggy King, Barbara Shaffer and
Blanca Araujo with the Calavera Coalition, the late Miguel Silva, and later,
Kirstie Robles with the Backyard Bones Brigade. Denise Chavez had some Book
Festival Dead Day events in Mesilla and Las Cruces. Galleries and museums
throughout the Mesilla Valley started hosting Dia de los Muertos exhibits and
special events. (Please forgive us for not mentioning all of you who’ve
contributed to the rebirth and expansion of traditions. Archives have been lost
and many of us are viejas and viejos now.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Some of us believe los difuntos, our dear departed souls,
encouraged us, too, to find more creative ways to honor their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
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and share this little guide to Días de los Muertos, a tradition continuing one
more time after my departure (from the Sun-News, but not the planet). Here it
is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Día de los Muertos has been called “a day when heaven and earth
meet” and “a celebration of lives well-lived.” In Las Cruces, it has become a
beloved tradition, a time when Borderland cultures blend, showcasing and
sometimes creatively combining Spanish, Mexican, American Indian and Anglo
customs and beliefs.<br />
Día De Los Muertos “is not a morbid holiday but a festive remembrance of Los
Angelitos (children) and all souls (Los Difuntos),” according to a statement
from the Calavera Coalition of Mesilla. “This celebration originated with the
indigenous people of the American continent, the Aztec, Mayan, Toltec and the
Inca. Now, many of the festivities have been transformed from their original
pre-Hispanic origins. It is still celebrated throughout North America among
Native American tribes. The Spanish arrived and they altered the celebration to
coincide with the Catholic celebrations of All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All
Souls Day (Nov. 2).”<br />
Here is a guide to some important terms and concepts relating to Day of the
Dead celebrations, collected during more than 20 years of commemorations here.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>alfeñique:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Molded
sugar figures used in altars for the dead.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>ancianos:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Grandparents
or elderly friends or relatives who have died; ancestors honored during the
first (north) part of processions for Day of the Dead.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>angelitos:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Literally
“little angels,” refers to departed children and babies, traditionally honored
during the first day of celebrations, Nov. 1, and the third (south) part of
processions honoring the dead.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>anima sola:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>A
lonely soul or spirit who died far from home or who is without amigos or
relatives to take responsibility for its care.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>calascas:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Handmade
skeleton figurines which display an active and joyful afterlife, such as
musicians or skeleton brides and grooms in wedding finery.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>calaveras:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Skeletons,
used in many ways for celebrations: bread and candies in the shape of skeletons
are traditional, along with everything from small and large figures and
decorations, skeleton head rattles, candles, masks, jewelry and T-shirts. It’s
also the term for skull masks, often painted with bright colors and flowers and
used in displays and worn in Day of the Dead processions.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>literary calaveras:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Poetic
tributes written for departed loved ones or things mourned and/or as mock
epitaphs.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>Catrin and Catrina:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Formally
dressed couple, or bride and groom skeletons, popularized by renowned Mexican
graphic artist and political cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada (1851-1913). In
modern celebrations, Catrina is particularly popular and appears in many
stylish outfits.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>copal:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>A
fragrant resin from a Mexican tree used as incense, burned alone or mixed with
sage in processions in honor of the dead.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><strong>Días de los Muertos:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Days of the Dead, usually celebrated
on Oct. 31 through Nov. 2 (the official date for Day of the Dead) in
conjunction with All Souls Days or Todos Santos, the Catholic Feast of All
Saints. Various Borderland communities, including Las Cruces, have their own
celebration schedules in October and November. Look for altars and art exhibits
around the Mesilla Valley, and our largest area celebration Oct. 29 and 30 on
the Mesilla Plaza, also the site of a procession beginning at dusk Nov. 2.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>Difunto:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Deceased
soul, corpse, cadaver.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><strong>La Flaca:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Nickname for the female death figure,
also known as<span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><strong>La Muerte.</strong><br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>Frida Kahlo:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Mexican
artist who collected objects related to the Day of the Dead. Her photo often
appears in Día de los Muertos shrines or retablos.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Los Guerreros:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Literally, “the warriors,” are dead
fathers, husbands, brothers and sons honored in the final (east) stop in Día De
Los Muertos processions.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>marigolds:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In
Mexico, marigolds or “cempasuchil” are officially known as the “flower of the
dead.” The flowers are added to processional wreaths at each stop, with one
blossom representing each departed soul being honored. Sometimes marigold
pedals are strewn from the cemetery to a house. Their pungent fragrance is said
to help the spirits find their way back home. Mums and paper flowers are also
used.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>mariposas:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Butterflies,
and sometimes hummingbirds, appear with skeletons to symbolize the flight of
the soul from the body to heaven.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>masks:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Carried
or worn during processions and other activities, masks can range from white
face paint to simple molded plaster or papier-maché creations or elaborate
painted or carved versions that become family heirlooms.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>Las Mujeres:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>The
women who have died are honored during the second (west) stop of Day of the
Dead processions. After names of dead mothers, daughters, sisters and friends
are called and honored, it is traditional for the crowd to sing a song for the
Virgin of Guadalupe.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>Náhuatl poetry:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span>Traditional
odes dedicated to the subject of death, dating back to the pre-Columbian era.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>ofrenda:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span>Traditional
altar where offerings such as flowers, clothing, food, photographs and objects
loved by the departed are placed. The ofrenda may be constructed in the home,
usually in the dining room, at a cemetery, or may be carried in a procession.
The ofrenda base is often an arch made of bent reeds. It is ornamented with
special decorations, sometimes with heirlooms collected by families, much like
Christmas ornaments. Decorations may include skeleton figures, toys and musical
instruments in addition to offerings for a specific loved one.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>pan de muertos:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Literally,
“bread of the dead.” It is traditionally baked in the shape of a skull, or
calavera, and dusted with pink sugar. Here, local bakeries sometimes include
red and green chile decorations.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>papel picado:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Decorations
made of colored paper cut in intricate patterns.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>Posada:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>José
Guadalupe Posada, (1852-1913), the self-taught “printmaker to the people” and
caricaturist was known for his whimsical calaveras, or skeletons, depicted
wearing dapper clothes, playing instruments and otherwise nonchalantly
conducting their everyday activities, sometimes riding on horse skeletons.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>veladores:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Professional
mourners who help in the grief process in several ways, including candlelight
vigils, prayers and with dramatic weeping and wailing.<br />
•<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><strong>Xolotlitzcuintle:</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Monster
dog, sometimes depicted as a canine skeleton, sometimes as a Mexican hairless
breed. Since pre-Columbian times, this Día de los Muertos doggy has, according
to legend, been the departed’s friend, helping with the tests of the perilous
crossing of the River Chiconauapan to Mictlan, the land of the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">S. Derrickson Moore may be reached @derricksonmoore on Twitter
or Sandra Derrickson Moore on Facebook.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-49906624729451793772016-09-24T13:59:00.002-07:002016-09-24T13:59:10.480-07:00What's happening for Dia de los Muertos<div class="MsoNormal">
– Special events and commemorations will bring new life to
Day of the Dead celebrations this month, throughout the Mesilla Valley, which
also hosts the region’s largest Día de los Muertos festival in late October and
early November on the Mesilla Plaza. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The new additions will help you learn more about history and
ancient Borderland traditions, honor loved ones at altars in Las Cruces’
historic Mesquite District, and even learn how to bake Day of the Dead bread.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First up will be “<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Día de los Muertos: Journey of Ancestral
Remembrance,” part of the Latino Americans History Notes Lecture Series at 1
p.m. Oct. 13 at the Branigan Cultural Center, 501 N. Main St. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Irene-Oliver Lewis, who has been creating Day of the Dead altars
(ofrendas) since 1981, will show examples of altars from throughout Mexico and
New Mexico, explain the significance of the celebration and the artifacts and
elements that are part of a traditional altar and discuss traditions that date
back more than 3,000 years to the Aztecs. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Oliver-Lewis is one of
the founders of the current annual Día de los Muertos celebration in Mesilla.
Last year she and her sister, Sylvia Camuñez, curated an exhibit at the
Branigan Cultural Center that honored the ancestors of four founding families
from the village of Doña Ana.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Also new this year, Las Esperanzas, Inc. will host a Día de los
Muertos event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 29</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">, at Klein Park, on the corner
of Mesquite and Griggs streets in Las Cruces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">“Dario Silva, the brother of former Las Cruces City Councillor
Miguel Silva, who died in January, told me the the family would to like to
build an altar in his memory under ‘Miguel’s Tree’ at Klein Park and also
wanted to honor the memory of another beloved brother, the late Andres Silva, pastor
of Living Word Family Church and former Mayor of Deming, who died from cancer
in 2014. Silva’s brother in-law, Pastor Jeff Sutton, will open the event with a
prayer,” said Dolores Archuleta, president of Las Esperanzas, Inc., a
neighborhood organization based in Las Cruces’ historic Mesquite District.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">“Momentum on the event has picked up by word of mouth and family
members of deceased members of Las Esperanzas plan to build altars for Vivien
Enriquez Wolfe, Stella Melendrez and Estella Sanchez. We also welcome relatives
and friends who have lost children (Angelitos), especially those who died from
abuse and neglect, to consider building altars for them with their pictures,
flowers, candles, and favorite toys. Miguel, who took his own life, continues
to bring family, friends together under Miguel’s tree, and the family invites
the survivors of family members who committed suicide to participate in this
event as well,” said Archuleta.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">There is no fee to build an altar, but registration is required.
Contact Archuleta at darchuleta611412@aol.com, 575 524-7873. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
José Tena, internationally known folklorico dancer, teacher
and historian, and his students will once again create an altar featuring
traditional Day of the Dead items at La Academia de Dolores Huerta <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Middle
School, 1480 N. Main St. The altar is constructed in October and features
tributes to well-known and celebrity difuntos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">“This year, we’ll do tributes to the star John Sebastian, and
for Juan Gabriel, a genius composer in many different styles (the singer
songwriter sold more 100 million albums worldwide) and to Pepe Martinez,
musical director of Mariachi Vargas, a great composer and wonderful musician
who did so much for folklorico dancing and the Las Cruces Mariachi conference
here,” Tena said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The academy school will host an open house from 10 a.m. to 1
p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29. For information, call the school at 575-526-2984.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="xmsonormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #212121;">Join Heritage Cooking instructor Dave Harkness and learn
to make and bake sweet, rich, pan de muerto, in the shapes of bones and skulls,
in an 1890s wood-burning cook stove, from 9 a.m. to noon Oct. 29 at the New
Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, 4100 Dripping Springs Road. The $5 fee
(free for age 5 and under), in addition to regular museum admission fees,
includes bread to take home with you. For information, call 575-522-4100 </span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="http://www.nmfarmandranchmuseum.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">www.nmfarmandranchmuseum.org</span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Creative altars honoring the dearly departed, a colorful
marketplace with arts and crafts vendors, traditional food treats, face
painting, live entertainment and a closing cemetery procession will all be part
the region's largest Día de los Muertos celebration Oct. 28 through Nov. 2 on
and around the Mesiila Plaza. It’s hosted by the Calavera Coalition, a
nonprofit group founded in 1998 to present Día de los Muertos activities in
Mesilla. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Tributes to difuntos (the departed) traditionally include Day
of the Dead bread, photos, sugar skulls, flowers and displays that represent
favorite pastimes and items of loved ones. Those honored usually include
relatives, celebrities, pets and special causes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Altar building begins at 9 a.m. Friday morning Oct. 28 and
continues throughout the weekend, according to members of the Calavera
Coalition, which provides overnight security during the event. It’s free, but those
building altars are asked to donate five cans of food which will be given to
area food banks. Festival hours are noon to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28
and 29, and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 30.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The annual Day of the Dead procession gathers at 6 p.m. Nov. 2
and leaves at 6:15 p.m. from Mesilla Plaza, traveling along Calle de Guadalupe
to San Albino Cemetery and returning to the plaza for beverages and pan de
muerto. It’s traditional to wear black and white costumes or makeup that
include skull masks or skeleton motifs. Those on the procession often carry
candles and bring musical instruments, noisemakers, incense and flowers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">For information, or to volunteer to help with Calavera Coalition
events and projects, email <a href="mailto:calaveracoalition@q.com"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">calaveracoalition@q.com</span></a>,
or phone Peggy King at 575-639-1385.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Also in Mesilla, the Backyard Bones Brigade will feature
additional displays and booths of Día de Los Muertos artisans and crafters on
Calle de Guadalupe, the street that runs in front of the entrance to the
Fountain Theatre and San Pasqual Hair & Body Shop, 2488 Calle de Guadalupe.
The shop’s owner Kirstie Robles, founder of the brigade, said hours will be 8
a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 29 and 30. For information, call
Robles at 575-527-1910. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-18824419922417066992016-09-24T13:57:00.000-07:002016-09-24T13:57:03.795-07:00Tips for arts marketing Sept. 18, 2016<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – In the olden days, we called it mass media. For
some time, the cool kids have been into multiplatform everything: marketing,
promotion and communication in general. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve been in the thick of it, one way or another, since the
middle of the last century, and however the forms or venues change, it boils
down to the same basic concept: get your story out and let people know what you
do. This is true whether you’re a visual or performing artist, and if you’re
also attempting to make a living with what you do, it can get a lot more
complex.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once you’ve got something to show, showcase it in the best,
most professional way you can manage. A portfolio used to be enough for many in
the arts. Now you need terrific photos of you and your work, a dynamic
non-gibberistic artist’s statement, and maybe (or definitely for performance
artists) a boffo video of you at work doing what you do, along with rave
reviews from those respected in your field and a biography that’s as impressive
as you can make it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All that may help open some doors. Go through as many as you
can. Visit art galleries and museums (many are surprised to discover that all
our city and state museums feature art shows and exhibits) and check out
private museums and school and municipal buildings which sometimes feature
exhibits or would be amenable to trying something new. In our artsy state,
hospitals, restaurants, hotels, offices (particularly physician’s offices),
airports and even plumbing companies have art collections and exhibits.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And don’t forget special events, holiday celebrations and
fiestas.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You may have to donate your services, or risk losing a piece
on consignment, and only you can decide if it’s a risk worth taking.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have lots of organizations for both visual and performing
artists. Join as many as you can, especially here, where we have a remarkably
supportive community willing to share tips on everything from technique to
marketing, and many have their own shows or band together to organize group
shows at top venues. ArtForms Artists Association of New Mexico <a href="http://www.artformsnm.org/"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">www.artformsnm.org</span></a>
has been especially generous in developing venues during February for the Love
of Art Month.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are lots of contests around, too. Do online searches
and enter as many as possible, especially the free or low-entry fee
competitions. You may be surprised at some of the contests and the quality of
entries. Both the New Mexico State Fair and the Southern New Mexico State Fair
have contests for photography and several categories and mediums of art. There
are competitions and showcases for dancers, too, and playwrights, singers,
poets, songwriters, storytellers and musicians. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Get out there. Especially if you’re a new artist or new in
the territory. Sing and play or apply for a booth at the Las Cruces Farmers
& Crafts Market. Start a blog and a website and consider strutting your
stuff via Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Etsy and whatever other vital
forums that have popped up since I started this paragraph. Consider seeking
professional help to develop and link your platforms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While cybershowcases have an important place, I always
remember artist and gallery owner Carolyn Bunch’s statement that it’s hard to
see the hand of the artist online. I believe close encounters between artists
and art lovers can be beneficial to everyone. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And you thought creating great art was the hard part. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’d like to make it a little easier.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once you’ve got something to show and a place to show it,
help get the word out to the media. You’ll have the best shot if you send us
clear concise information about the artist and the event: who, where, what,
when, why (if there is a why: a benefit, special fiesta or occasion). Email clear,
high-resolution photos (identify everybody, left to right) and links to short
videos if available. Do all this as soon as possible and at least two weeks
before you’d like the word to get out. If you feel overwhelmed by it all, look
for and study the kind of print, online or broadcast stories you’d like to see
about yourself or your group or event. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="xmsonormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
At
the Sun-News, we’ve long held the philosophy that art can sometimes be big news
in a city like ours with such a vibrant and creative arts community. The place
for your story could be in breaking news, features, Pulse and Things to Do
(print and online) and even our business section. A good place to start: submit
items to <span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="mailto:news.desk@newsdesk.com" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">news.desk@newsdesk.com</span></a> or<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="xmsonormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="mailto:calendar@lcsun-news.com" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">calendar@lcsun-news.com</span></a> </span>and be sure to include
as much contact information as possible: name, organization, email and phone
number. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where to start at the Las Cruces Sun-News <a href="http://www.lcsun-news.com/"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">www.lcsun-news.com</span></a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lucas Peerman, director of content, <a href="mailto:lpeerman@lcsun-news.com"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">lpeerman@lcsun-news.com</span></a>,
575-541-5446: Assigns online and print coverage of breaking news events,
including photo and reporter assignments covering festivals, arts and cultural
breaking news, etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Brenda Masengill, features editor, <a href="mailto:bmasengill@lcsun-news.com"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">bmasengill@lcsun-news.com</span></a>,
575-541-5439: Assigns in-depth feature coverage of arts, cultural, social
trends, etc. for Friday and Sunday SunLife sections and Healthy U monthly
magazine and Wednesday health features.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lorena Sanchez, Pulse editor, <a href="mailto:lsanchez@lcsun-news.com"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">lsanchez@lcsun-news.com</span></a>,
575-541-5464: Advance arts & entertainment news and features, A & E
profiles, restaurant reviews, etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Frances Silva, community editor, <a href="mailto:fsilva@lcsun-news.com"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">fsilva@lcsun-news.com</span></a>
575-541-5456: Print and online events calendars, community briefs, arts briefs<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jason Gibbs, business editor, <a href="mailto:jgibbs@lcsun-news.com"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">jgibbs@lcsun-news.com</span></a>:
575-541-5451: Business news and features. (Galleries, artists, and A & E
related programs are sometimes featured in the Sunday business magazine’s
profile pieces, plus opening of new businesses in business briefs. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-20027929362374543672016-09-24T13:54:00.002-07:002016-09-24T13:54:52.647-07:00Plaza de Las Cruces: New corazon for City of CrossesSept. 11, 2016<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – When I saw the Organ Mountains, I knew I was
home. When I saw their mysterious, craggy peaks from the crumbling ruins of
what was then the Downtown Mall, I wondered what I’d gotten into.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even at high noon on a weekday, it could be a little scary
to navigate the downtown urban blight. When I worked very early or very late,
as I often did in the 1990s, I did my best to scoot in and out of the Sun-News
parking lot as quickly as possible. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But even then, there were echoes of what was once the
corazon of Las Cruces. Our heart, through broken, had potential. I loved the
Las Cruces Farmers & Crafts Market and even spent a few months peddling my
own strange creations there and getting to know the market venders and the
Downtown Mall.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We shared ideas: painting the ugly arches adobe colors and
festooning them with Mimbres or petroglyph designs, or painting all the old
buildings adobe white to match the Branigan Cultural Center. Other exotic
colors were discussed. Perhaps we could achieve fame as the only lapis blue or
purple adobe mall in the world? We thought it would be cool with the yellow
brick road, which most of us liked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From my first Las Cruces Style column in 1994, I pitched
renovation ideas. Several readers expressed enthusiasm for changes, and there
were offers of government support. I heard from Steve Newby, the torch carrier
through it all, and then-Mayor Rubén Smith suggested we meet with city planners.
The Las Cruces Community Theatre offered a space for meetings. Artists,
including the late, great Alice Peden, got involved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was tough going. There were studies and evaluations and
blue ribbon committees. Things fizzled. Strides were made.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Street lights and architectural accents were added along
with monuments: a skeletal homage to beloved St. Genevieve’s Church, Tony Pennock’s
“La Entrada,” a beautiful historical piece with columns and murals. Both were
eventually removed for the reconstruction of Main Street and the new plaza.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of my Sun-News colleagues, whose name now escapes me,
referred to our downtown as “the graveyard of high hopes.” Bob Diven came up
with a design for a giant Billy the Kid downtown building, with a revolving
restaurant in Billy’s sombrero and a kiva fireplace in the outlaw’s derriere. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alice Peden kept sweetly but firmly bugging people about
sprucing up our querencia. I wrote an April Fool’s Day fantasy column “reporting”
that Ted Turner and his then-wife Jane Fonda had committed millions to
transform the mall and Heather Pollard, who had left her post as head of the
Doña Ana Arts Council, had decided to come out of retirement to save and
beautify the mall. Ted and Jane never weighed in, but Heather did, in fact, decide
to eschew retirement to lead the Las Cruces Downtown Partnership. Her efforts
led to several transformative efforts, from renovation of the Rio Grande Theatre
to several cooperative efforts like involvement in Project Main Street.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rubén and subsequent mayors Bill Mattiace and Ken
Miyagishima kept plugging. The street reopened. We drove down it and cheered.
The farmers market got bigger and better and was named tops in the state and
then the nation in online polls. The Downtown Ramble the first Friday of each
month demonstrated what our city could be: a delight.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It dawned on us that we had pretty streets, three theaters
staging entertaining productions, two lovely new museums, some fun galleries
and restaurants, one of the best bookstores in the west, (in those early years,
Coas was one of the few reasons many of us came downtown on non-market days) and
other promising activities and enterprises.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And now, finally, we have what so many of us had been
missing for so long, that central corazon that we loved in so many New Mexico
communities from Taos and Santa Fe to Tularosa and Mesilla: Our very own plaza.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-70924703604968392662016-09-24T13:52:00.000-07:002016-09-24T13:52:19.767-07:00Your thoughtful reactions to football/boxing protests <div class="MsoNormal">
Gregory Smith <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I suspect you will hear
positive and negative feedback from today's article, but I for one appreciate
your courage in writing it. Hopefully, it will give some of us pause as we go
into another football season to yell, "Kill" or "Sack the quarterback!"
or before we encourage our young men to participate in such sports.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ms. Moore,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I just read your
article in the SunLife section of today's newspaper. I agree with you,
and more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I have been disgusted
by violent sports since I was a teenager. I witnessed an athlete from my
high school get severely and permanently injured during a football game, after
he had previously suffered two similar injuries in prior games (yes, they kept
playing him after he had already been injured). It sickened me to see him
on the field with his body jerking uncontrollably. He was a junior at the
time. That was 43 years ago and the image is still clear in my mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I think the interest
in blood lust sports is a masculine thing. There are plenty of athletic
contests out there that don't require beating the other participants up in
order to win, but for some reason football and boxing pull BIG money out of the
fan base. Money is the bottom line.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are other
violent sports that don't get as much attention for their cruelty, but the
inhumanity of them is beyond the pale. Rodeo, horse racing and all forms
of horse competitions, dog fighting, cock fighting, bull fighting, etc.
These are all <b>extremely cruel</b> forms of entertainment where the
whole intent is to entertain people who may think and believe these activities
are normal to the animals' behavior.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don't think the
cruel, violent, inhumane sports will stop until people like you lead the outcry
against them. As more and more people join the outcry, there will
eventually come a tipping point where its totally uncool to support the
violence. Changing the public attitude towards violent sports would be
similar to how it used to be cool to smoke cigarettes and now it's not, or it
used to be okay to refer to people of color using racist language and now it's
not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br clear="all" />
</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Your article was a
brave first step.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">-- </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dolores DeMers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">575-496-5342 mobile<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Hello, <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br />
<br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">I just finished your column in today's paper,
and contrary to my habits, wanted to reach out and thank you so much for having
the courage to speak truth to power about the negative and senseless
acceptance, if not glorification of violence inherent in football and boxing.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">All the best,</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Neal<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Neal Bowen </span><a href="mailto:neal.bowen@icloud.com"><span style="font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">neal.bowen@icloud.com</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Flo Hosa Dougherty
<bluegateflodoc aol.com=""><o:p></o:p></bluegateflodoc></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Segoe UI Semilight",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yesterday, 8:59 AM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Derrickson Moore, Sandra</span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #666666; font-family: "Segoe UI Semilight",sans-serif; font-size: 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dear Derrickson,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In reference to your
comment on violent sports:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">For a long time I have
referred to contact sports more aptly as COMBAT SPORTS as you proved ! </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Flo Hosa
Dougherty <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chickie Ferguson
<john-ferguson sbcglobal.net=""><o:p></o:p></john-ferguson></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a6a6a6; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">|</span><span style="font-family: "Segoe UI", sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Segoe UI Semilight",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today, 9:04 AM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Derrickson Moore, Sandra</span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #666666; font-family: "Segoe UI Semilight",sans-serif; font-size: 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Congratulations to you for writing “TIME TO TAKE A FRESH
LOOK AT VIOLENT SPORTS”……………….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Know you will have folks who disagree with you, but more and
more, I think people are taking an honest look at this subject.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Last night, the Notre Dame vs UT game was a perfect example of
how brutal football games are becoming. And these are our young men, who
are NOT getting paid BIG bucks, and having their young lives messed up before
they even reach the “golden years”. This was the first game of the
season, and it involved bad sportsmanship during the game and a list of
injuries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I always enjoy your column. Keep writing!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marie Ferguson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Las Cruces Sun subscriber and an ex-employee of The Sun
newspaper (in San Bernardino, CA)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kay L Lincoln
<kllinc me.com=""><o:p></o:p></kllinc></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Segoe UI", sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Reply all</span><span style="color: #a6a6a6; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">|</span><span style="font-family: "Segoe UI", sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Segoe UI Semilight",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today, 3:03 PM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Derrickson Moore, Sandra</span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #666666; font-family: "Segoe UI Semilight",sans-serif; font-size: 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I just wanted to thank
you for your Las Cruces Style column of Sunday, Sept. 4th about taking a fresh
look at violent sports. It is so counter to our so-called social norms
that I suspect it may not win you any popularity votes. <br />
<br />
But I am so relieved that you gave voice to some deep feelings I have about sports.
I was beginning to think I was “weird” for thinking modern sports seem to be
just a continuation of the gladiator fight to the death or the lions eating the
Christians in the Roman Forum (which we consider and label
barbaric). <br />
<br />
The only sport I have enjoyed watching is baseball because of the cooperative
strategy and skill it requires. However, I get no pleasure now because of
the millions of dollars that get invested in baseball salaries and the enormous
stadiums, not to mention the violent reactions fans have that result in injury
and possible death to fans of opposing teams. Even in the seemingly less
violent sport of baseball, players endure irreparable damage to their bodies
and will undergo numerous reparative surgeries in order to keep playing as long
as they possibly can and we certainly want them to.<br />
<br />
In the more violent sports you mention, football and boxing, there is even more
spillover of violence and even more bodily damage to players. <br />
<br />
Instead of modeling the cooperative, collaborative nature of indigenous
societies, we are perpetuating the competitive, victory/defeat society of the
Roman Forum. <br />
<br />
And to think of all those millions we spend on our lust for competition,
victory or defeat, and violence in sports, and how much could be done toward
humanitarian needs if we spent that money on meeting those needs! Yes, we
should be ashamed of ourselves. <br />
<br />
In gratitude,<br />
KLL</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-43432947782295156012016-09-24T13:50:00.003-07:002016-09-24T13:50:50.620-07:00'We pay millions for things they'd be arrested or doing outside the football stadium or boxing ring'<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – It’s not that I’m a sore loser. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My high school, though brand new, had a mostly winning
football team that made it to the state finals. When I was in college, our team
went to the Rose Bowl, and some of the guys went on to legendary pro careers. I
was fortunate to get to know a couple of them. They were great guys.<o:p></o:p></div>
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They weren’t sore losers either, but I still remember, decades
later, that they were often very sore winners. With all that padding and
training and muscle mass, those healthy young men, in their late teens and 20s,
sometimes moved like my elderly grandfather after a major operation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And I remember a legendary defensive end, a very bright,
funny and yes, gentle soul, who hated it when the crowd made a famous chant of
his friendly two-syllable name, with “Kill!” on both sides of a vicious cheer
sandwich. Let’s call him “Buddy.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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What I’m about to criticize are cherished American pastimes
more beloved that apple pie, so I’m not going to use real names. I can’t ask
Buddy’s permission. He’s a contemporary of mine who died many years ago. He was
diagnosed with CTE, a neurological condition related to concussions and head
trauma.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Kill, Buddy, Kill!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is a column I’ve been planning to write for a very long
time, an Emperor-has-no-clothes cry of the heart that I’ve wanted to shout
since I saw my first football game, followed quickly by my first boxing match
in a childhood that starred what some consider the greatest of all time, a boxing
icon we lost not long ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Recently, a wise Las Cruces friend (we’ll call her Molly) sighed
and said, ”Why do we pay people millions of dollars for doing things they’d be
arrested for doing anywhere but a football field or a boxing ring?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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And why are we so surprised when there is a spillover of
violence, carryover behaviors that result in child and spouse abuse and battery
outside the arenas or playing fields (occasionally by a pro athlete, and all too
frequently by super-charged spectators)?<o:p></o:p></div>
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And what does it say about those of us who are fans? Just
how are we different from the ancients we call barbarians, who enjoyed watching
gladiators fight to the death, or were entertained by lions consuming
Christians?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have heard all the lines about form and beauty and
brilliant strategies. And there are many sports that are all that and more,
that, beyond a doubt, build fit bodies, discipline, endurance, and all sorts of
virtues. Hooray for all that. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But however you sugar-coat it, the goal of boxing is to hurt
your opponent. Prohibiting striking below the belt is a gentlemanly gesture but
a cop out, when it’s just fine to strike above the neck and cause permanent
brain damage. Why were we so shocked when a champ bit off a part of his
opponent’s ear when we would have applauded him for a first-round knock-out?<o:p></o:p></div>
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And football. Is the goal to maneuver the ball to the goal
through brilliant strategy, great skills and brotherly teamwork? Or is it to
knock down, hurt, punish, hit hard and stop-at-any-cost? Are we watching it for
the strategy and camaraderie, the form and art? Or for the violence? If not for
the latter, why don’t we evolve into touch football?<o:p></o:p></div>
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There are other sports that are gory and potentially lethal,
usually involving other devices: guns, racing cars, canyon-leaping motorcycles.
And there are undeniable risks, hazards and even possible serious injury or
death in almost any sport (and even artsy enterprises like ballet or movie
stunts).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But boxing and football are one on one, and a major (if not
the major) goal is to hurt, to do things, as “Molly” accurately said, that we
would arrest and punish and jail people for deliberately doing any place else
in civilized society. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Boxing is not a gentlemanly sport and football is not worth
the death or maiming of a single little boy. And the millions of dollars we pay
our champions are not fair compensation for their premature disability and
death. If we really think about it all, well, we should be ashamed of
ourselves.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Kill, Buddy, Kill.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wish, all these years later, I’d yelled “Quit, Buddy,
Quit!” Or, find another sport, another way to share your wonderful talents.
That we hadn’t run out of time to say, “Live, Buddy, Live.”<o:p></o:p></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-86348376169705816392016-09-24T13:48:00.001-07:002016-09-24T13:48:19.355-07:00Remembering my friend Alexis<div class="docBody">
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<h3 class="docCite">
Death of wine guru resonates worldwide</h3>
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<span class="pubName">Las Cruces Sun-News (NM)</span> - Friday, April 28, 2006
</div>
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<span class="tagName">Author/Byline: </span>S. Derrickson Moore, Las Cruces Sun-News<br /><span class="tagName">Section: </span>A Section<br /><span class="tagName">Page: </span>1A</div>
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Sun-News reporter<br /><br />
The death of renowned wine expert and writer
Alexis Bespaloff of Las Cruces has generated an "overwhelming and
touching"
international response, his widow Cecilia Lewis said
Thursday.
<br /><br />
Articles and tributes have appeared in The New
York Times, The London Times and other newspapers and publications
around
the world following his death April 22 at MountainView
Regional Medical Center after a long battle with cancer.
<br /><br />
He was 71.
<br /><br />
"I've had over 400 phone calls from all over the
world, with an outpouring of love from his friends," Lewis said.
"People
are breaking down and crying over the phone.
<br /><br />
Writers from The Los Angeles Times and magazines
from England and France and Italy have called and are planning pieces,
too."
<br /><br />
Deemed "the dean of wine writers" by Arthur "The
Food Maven" Schwartz, Bespaloff authored some of the best-selling wine
guides of all time With millions of copies of his
works in print, he ranked as one of the world's most-read wine experts.
<br /><br />
From 1972 to 1996, as New York Magazine's
celebrated wine columnist, he educated and influenced the tastes of
American's
largest and most sophisticated city of connoisseurs.
<br /><br />
"The Signet Book of Wine" became a bestseller,
going through 17 printings. He went on to write several more books,
including
"Alexis Bespaloff's Complete Guide to Wine" and
"Alexis Bespaloff's Guide to Inexpensive Wines." He revised Frank
Schoonmaker's
classic "Encyclopedia of Wines" and researched and
edited "The Fireside Book of Wine," an anthology of poems, essays and
quotes
from famous wine lovers.
<br /><br />
He wrote columns for Elle, The Wine Enthusiast
and Appellation/Wine Country Living and numerous magazine articles on
wine and wine regions for Travel & Leisure, Food
& Wine, Harper's Bazaar and House Beautiful. A special publication,
his "Family
Circle Guide to Wine," sold more than 500,000 copies.
<br /><br />
In a piece in Monday's New York Times, Frank J.
Prial quoted from a 2004 Sun-News interview in which Bespaloff opined
that he lived in the "best of times" for wine lovers:
"It's not unusual for connoisseurs to look back with regret at having
missed the golden age of their particular interest
the Elizabethan age for poetry, perhaps, the 17th century for Dutch
painting,
or the heyday of Bach or Mozart when quality,
variety and innovation combined to produce exciting and remarkable
works.
For enophiles, this is the golden age, and there's
every reason to predict that the next millennium will enable this
specialized
world to shine even more brightly," Bespaloff said.
<br /><br />
Writers in The New York Times and The London
Times recalled a now-famous Bespaloff telephone-answering machine
message:
"I cannot take your call right now, but if it's an
emergency, white with fish and red with meat."
<br /><br />
Bespaloff and his wife moved to Las Cruces in 1995.
<br /><br />
At private memorial services Thursday, friends talked about Bespaloff's wit and kindness.
<br /><br />
"He was a kind, wonderful man," said Heather
Pollard, who hosted the memorial with her husband, Warren, as a tribute,
she said, "to a life well lived; Alexis had so many
friends here who loved him."
<br /><br />
Lewis said her late husband "was absolutely
unique. He was a modest man and he knew he had a lot of old and loyal
friends,
but I think he would have been amazed by this
outpouring. There was not a drop of malice in him. He had an acerbic
wit, which
he could have put to unkind use, but he was always
kind and affectionate and people loved him."
<br /><br />
Lewis said she was especially touched by an
article by London writer Jancis Robinson who called Bespaloff "one of
the
most cosmopolitan Americans with a detailed knowledge
of many of the arts and particularly who was who in the worlds of food
and wine ... In his written work, most notably the
frequently updated Signet Book of Wine, he was punctilious in his
fact-checking,
but in conversation, the wry smile, vaguely
reminiscent of Harpo Marx, was paramount. His favorite bit of wine
advice was
'try not to let your lips touch the brown paper bag.'
And when still in New York he'd say, 'Whenever someone says they wonder
what this wine will be like in 10 years' time, I say,
just let me keep it in my apartment for a couple of days.'"
<br /><br />
Robinson is an adviser to Queen Elizabeth, Lewis
said, "and she chose the wines for the wedding of Charles and Camilla.
She knows her stuff. I've been so touched by people
who have let me know how much they cared about Alexis."
<br /><br />
Bespaloff was born in Bucharest, Romania, in
1934. His family moved to Belgium, then Brazil and settled in New York
City on the eve of World War II. He graduated from
Amherst College and attended Harvard University Business School. Before
beginning his best-selling writing career, he worked
as representative for a wine importer and as a publicist for Simon &
Schuster, handling promotions for "Catch 22" author
Joseph Heller and other noted writers.
<br /><br />
In a 2004 Sun-News interview, Bespaloff shared
advice on what to serve with chile and Mexican and Southwestern cuisine:
"With spicy foods in general, you're better off with
cold beer. You might try a crisp, light white wine, but it's silly to
have expensive wine with really spicy food when you
can't really taste it. What's important here is the tactile experience
and temperature, like the cold bubbles in beer and
champagne."
<br /><br />
As a English literature major at Amherst
College, he said, "it never occurred to me that I would end up as a
professional
wino."
<br /><br />
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com
<br /><br />
Alexis Bespaloff (1934-2006)
<br /><br />
Bespaloff highlights
<br /><br />
* Born: 1934 in Bucharest, Romania
<br /><br />
* Married: Photographer, China scholar and
former Mary Quant and Revlon model Cecilia Lewis. After moving to Las
Cruces
in 1995, the pair traveled together on magazine
assignments to the Napa Valley, northern Portugal, the Tokay vineyards
of
Hungary, Bordeaux, the Loire and Brittany in France.
<br /><br />
* New York Magazine Wine Columnist: 1972 to 1996
<br /><br />
* Wine columnist for: Elle, The Wine Enthusiast, Appellation/Wine Country Living and Penthouse Magazine
<br /><br />
* Contributing writer: Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine, Harper's Bazaar and House Beautiful
<br /><br />
Mug of Bespaloff
<br /><br />
Books by Bespaloff
<br /><br />
"Signet Book of Wine" (Signet)
<br /><br />
"Family Circle Guide to Wine"
<br /><br />
"Alexis Bespaloff's New Signet Book of Wine" (Signet)
<br /><br />
"Alexis Bespaloff's Complete Guide to Wine" (Signet)
<br /><br />
"Alexis Bespaloff's Guide to Inexpensive Wines" (Simon & Schuster)
<br /><br />
"Alexis Bespaloff's Guide to Inexpensive Wines, Revised" (Fireside)
<br /><br />
"Alexis Bespaloff's Guide to Inexpensive Wines" (Pocket Book)
<br /><br />
"The Fireside Book of Wine: An Anthology for Wine Drinkers" (Fireside)
<br /><br />
"The New Frank Schoonmaker Encyclopedia of
Wine/Completely Revised by Alexis Bespaloff" (William Morrow & Co.)
<br /><br />
In New Mexico: He hosted a wine tasting and wine
country photo exhibit at Glenn Cutter Gallery in Las Cruces and served
as a moderator at a champagne seminar at the Santa Fe
Wine & Chile Festival.
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<div class="sourceInfo">
<span class="tagName">Record Number: </span>lcs30227902<br />Copyright (c) Las Cruces Sun-News. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.</div>
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<a href="http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:NewsBank:LCSB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=1114DD95232B3C20&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggdocs&req_dat=109072EF9514D603" target="_blank">Death of wine guru resonates worldwide</a></div>
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Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-51460655939284785332016-08-23T08:43:00.000-07:002016-08-23T08:43:27.142-07:00Close encounters of the critter kindAug. 28, 2016<br />
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Aug. 28, 2016<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – Just about any human being’s day can be
improved by a CECK (Close Encounter of the Critter Kind).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A recent week included colleagues and sources being felled
by a virulent stomach flu, and three –yep, count’ em: three!- concussions. Two
amigos were rear-ended while driving in northern New Mexico and Sun-News
Anayssa Vasquez was knocked out and concussed while shooting a local football
practice.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By comparison, a long hot wait in a sizzling asphalt parking
lot, was nothing much to complain about. Still, by the time La Luz de la Luna,
my vintage Sonata, was on the road again, I was addled and crabby. I managed to
screw up perfectly clear instructions and drive by the clear-as-day lane of
blooming desert willows and Rockin’ Horse Ranch pillars not once but twice. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was not a happy camper, but I was amazed how quickly my
attitude changed when I met up with the ranch’s therapy horses and enjoyed a
quick series of CECKs. I was greeted by a friendly dog named Zippy, which
instantly transported me to a happy place of memories of my grandfather’s Brittany
Spaniel with the same name.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From my overheated car, I salvaged a bag of still-cool
carrots just large enough to establish profound bonds with horses Coco, Karma,
Bear and Rio.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I paused for a gracias a Dios moment, grateful for a job
that involves CECKs with dogs and horses. (The humans were terrific, too. Check
out their inspired plans to bring healing horse experiences to kids, vets with
PTSD, and assault victims at <a href="http://www.rockinghorse.com/"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">www.rockinghorse.com</span></a>
)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It continued to be a long, hot, tough week, full of strange,
weird, disconcerting and sometimes downright bad news for the world in general
and many of those close to me in particular.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still, after meeting the horses and the people they’ve helped,
I was more aware of the CECKS that brighten my life every week. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A group of crows often greet me early in the morning at the
back door of the Sun-News. Most of my downtown CECKs are a little less wild.
Usually, brown-and-white Arrow is wagging his tail and expecting a cookie bone
when I start my rounds at the Las Cruces Farmers & Crafts Market, and there
are a lot more wagging tails to be rewarded. The market’s CECK doggy parade is
a big perk for getting out of bed early on a Saturday, I feel. In addition to
regulars like Arrow and macho golden doodle Tex at Patina Home, market CHEK ops
always include a vast and diverse group of loveable canines, from adoptable
puppies to beloved old pampered pooches getting rides in strollers. There are
Chihuahuas, St. Bernards, greyhounds, poodles, corgis, afghans, pit bulls,
several sorts of hounds, terriers, pointers, retrievers and spaniels and many,
many heretofore barely imaginable combinations of all of the above. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know secret gathering places of cats looking for good
homes in Mesilla and where big birds of prey hang out at NMSU, T or C, and
quiet neighborhoods.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, for some of my favorite CECKs, there’s no place
like home. I’ve watched two comely kitties grow into cats next door, and on the
other side, chocolate lab Porter is always ready to jump high or go long for a
cookie bone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My own tiny premises are surprisingly rich in wildlife. I’ve
found big turtles, tiny bunnies and humungous jackrabbits, and a bevy of bats,
taking a break between my front porch and the juniper bushes. On the back
patio, I watch ravens and an amazing variety of bird species perched in the
pine trees, the neighborhood roadrunner making his rounds and often, an eagle or two circling overhead. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This time of year, with the neighborhood cats confined to
inside quarters, I usually see a few kinds of lizards, too. Right about now,
I’m expecting a CECK with a gecko.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-22665929385343576142016-08-23T08:41:00.004-07:002016-08-23T08:41:34.711-07:00Dancing in the desert rainAug. 21, 2016<br />
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">LAS CRUCES – This is the time of year when our thoughts turn to
rain in all its glorious forms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">It seems like everywhere I go, people are talking
about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Rie Palkovic, a recent artist of the week, who now in Moses
Lake, Washington, told me how much she was looking forward to some desert
monsoon thunderstorms when she returns to her former home for her August
one-woman show at Unsettled Gallery in Las Cruces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img align="left" height="32" src="file:///C:/Users/dmoore/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image002.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_s1026" width="32" /><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">As an erstwhile Oregonian, I
could sympathize. People have visions of lush Pacific Northwest rainforests,
but as veterans of the real deal, Rie and I shared stories about arid high
desert landscapes in both Washington and Oregon, and the demoralizing quality
of the gray skies and long drizzly seasons, with no redeeming celestial
pyrotechnics, on the coastal sides of both states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">“I do miss those Las Cruces rainstorms and the smell of the
desert after rain. I lived downtown on Court Street and I used to go out and
sit on front porch and the lightning was so spectacular,” Rie said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Maybe we should have names for all the kinds of rain in our
lives, like that fragrant, vaguely spicy and flowery rain in the desert after a
long drought. If gratitude has an aroma, that could be it, I’ve often thought.
So let’s call it gratitude rain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Though it was a little off this year, most of the quarter of a
century I’ve lived in New Mexico, we could count on dramatic rainstorms on the
Fourth of July, with thunder and lightning special effects that out-class the
most spectacular human fireworks displays. Let’s call that Mother Nature’s
fireworks rain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Less dramatic, and sometimes downright irritating, is what I’ve
christened polka-dot rain, when those barely discernible droplets of moisture,
in cahoots with dust storms, leave dirty little spots all over our cars and
windows and patios.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">“I call that adobe rain,” Annette Tombaugh Sitze told me
recently. We reminisced about adobe mud, which I got stuck in several times
during my first rainy summer in Santa Fe, before the rain discussions took a
cosmic turn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Annette and I discussed the 2015 arrival of the New Horizons
probe at Pluto, carrying the ashes of the dwarf planet’s discoverer, her dad,
Clyde Tombaugh, who spent most of his remarkable life in Las Cruces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"> “The New Horizons downloads show there is so much
interesting geology on Pluto … frozen nitrogen fields and high ice mountains.
Certainly, it’s helping us rethink how things behave in various types of
environments,” Annette said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Will we discover a substance we could think of as Pluto rain?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Meanwhile, back in our corner of planet Earth, sometimes, in any
season, some just-right, refreshing showers can inspire and rejuvenate us,
showing up as a surprise blessing that seems to spring out of a clear blue sky.
Other times, the soul-quenching showers come after a long, teasing siege of
cloudy days and oppressive humidity that renders our swamp coolers ineffectual
and our tempers sticky and strained.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">What such showers have in common is that they lift our spirits
and make us feel like singing and dancing. Let’s name this Nacio Herb Brown
rain, after the composer of “Singing in the Rain.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">It delighted, but did not surprise me, when I moved here and
learned that Brown was a native of nearby Deming, New Mexico.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">In our high desert territory, I’ve actually seen people sing and
dance when long-awaited rains arrive. I’ve done it myself and I’ll bet most of
you have, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">If we find ourselves in Nacio Herb Brown rain (and we know it
when we see it), may I have the pleasure of this dance?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">S. Derrickson
Moore may be reached at 575-5450, <a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="color: black; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a> or @derricksonmoore
on Twitter.</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-70365590554136827432016-08-23T08:37:00.002-07:002016-08-23T08:39:12.506-07:00We were glampers, ahead of our timeAug. 14, 2016<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but I
realize now that my parents were ahead-of-their-time glampers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve never been shy about sharing my aversion to camping.
Though I was a pretty cheerful child otherwise, I grumbled from earliest memory
through late adolescence about having to go camping with the family nearly
every weekend that weather permitted (and many with weather that would have
driven any sane soul to sturdier shelter). I was sadly outnumbered and outvoted
in my family of five, or six, if you counted our Brittany spaniel, who loved
camping as much as my parents and brother and sister.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It could have been a lot worse.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, with the benefit of hindsight and research for today’s glamping
feature, I realize that my relatives, especially mom, tried their best to glamp,
adding glamorous touches to wilderness life and camping experiences, long
before it was a “thing.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mom had the breeding for it. Her dad was a retired physician
who seemed happiest at the stern of a canoe or the end of a fly-fishing rod.
Grandma, on the other hand, was a sophisticated urbanite who never let her
subscription to VOGUE lapse. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They were a devoted couple who loved each other deeply. When
Grandpa decided to retire early and, with his physician brother, create a
rustic resort with log cabins in northern Michigan, Grandma reluctantly agreed.
But she and Grandpa lived in what was more a lodge of the manor than a cabin, with
a deep-carpeted great room big enough for Mom’s baby grand piano and cabinets
for Grandma’s good crystal, china and silver, easily accessible for dinner
parties and everyday use. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dad and Mom started with a tent on state park campgrounds,
but quickly began to add creature comforts. My aircraft engineer father managed
to rig up barrels with fresh water for drinking and showers. Later, when they
acquired 15 acres of their own prime campgrounds on the middle branch of
Michigan’s Pere Marquette River, he constructed a pump, a water system and
eventually an electric generator. There were always apologies from Dad about
disturbing the peace of nature, when he fired up that generator, but we all
appreciated electricity and hot water. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Doris, you’re taking the whole house with us,” Dad would
complain on camping weekends, as Mom rushed back for just one more down pillow,
or few pretty dishes and a vase for wildflowers, to stash in the back of the station wagon. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They acquired a little trailer and later, a large mobile
home with three bedrooms and (hooray!) indoor bathroom facilities. My mom, who
was an art and American history teacher, chose an Early American theme for the
décor, with warm earth tones, samplers and interesting artifacts. Though she
was normally very casual about housekeeping, she was adamant about keeping
everything neat and in its place in her wilderness abode, which eventually
became much nicer than our city home.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By that time, I was away at college, so I missed most of the
glamping-before-its-time phase of our family wilderness adventures.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But when I think of what I loved most about our family time
in the great outdoors, my memory is unclouded by nostalgia.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those long walks in the pine and birch forest, those kayak
voyages and and floats in an icy river were all made more wonderful by a nearby
hot bath or shower afterwards. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A breakfast of just-caught rainbow trout was okay, cooked in
a cast-iron flying pan over a campfire in a muddy campground. It was downright
delicious served in at an Ethan Allen dining table in Mom’s pretty kitchen with
modern appliances and artfully arranged Early American accoutrements. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-18536108512674756802016-08-23T08:37:00.001-07:002016-08-23T08:38:03.404-07:00Pondering the future of museums<div class="MsoNormal">
Aug. 7, 2016<br />
LAS CRUCES – Lately, I’ve been thinking about museums. And
not just in the line of journalistic duty, on the arts and entertainment beat.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recently, I was one of several locals asked to meet with
consultants for a brainstorming session about a new permanent exhibit for the
Branigan Cultural Center. Our spirited discussion tackled everything from the
role of museums in a community, to educational and entertainment expectations
of visitors. We digressed into a critique of museum websites (which most of us
liked and found helpful) and local government and university websites, which
garnered less-than- stellar reviews.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I kept thinking about museums, and all the museums I’ve covered
and visited, and all the consultant panels and groups I’ve been part of over
the last several decades.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The pondering didn’t stop during my vacation, which turned
into a busman’s holiday. In addition to the regulars on Museum Hill in Santa
Fe, we hit some of our favorite public and private museums in and around the
Santa Fe Plaza. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dr. Roger had been reading about the Manhattan Project and decided
we should also go visit the Bradbury Museum in Los Alamos. He went off to check
out some exhibits focusing on the scientists who’d lived a few blocks from the
museum and changed all our lives by developing the first atomic bomb. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when I felt arms
grasping me and leading me off in another direction. I’d been chosen, friendly
voices informed me, to test some new interactive exhibits.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I protested that I was on vacation, and am known to
generations of long-suffering Information Technology (IT) guys as someone who
had an unerring instinct for screwing up their most carefully plotted,
best-laid and allegedly user- friendly plans.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They were delighted. And amazingly, their delight grew as we
went through panel after interactive panel, and I tapped when I was expected to
swipe (and vice versa) and found many new and exciting ways to misconstrue and
misinterpret what they’d thought were crystal clear instructions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was delighted too, to finally find an appreciate audience.
I’ve always felt my ability to think outside the box, make unexpected choices (and
creatively confound computer design guys’ ideas about “logical” and “intuitive”
human behaviors) was a talent that should be harnessed for the good of mankind.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Hey, look what she did here,” the nice Bradbury team tester
exclaimed, encouraging her colleagues to make note. “That was surprising! Gee,
none of us expected anyone to do THAT!” (Hear that, IT guys? Not “wrong,” not
“frustrating,” but “surprising” and “unexpected.”)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We had fun, and I hope I didn’t create a monster, or an
otherwise imaginative, educational and entertaining interactive game/exhibit
that no one but me can figure out how to play.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m convinced they were on the right track, however. And I’m
confident that I do know what people like and want after years as a consumer
myself, making endless museum runs with colleagues, friends, and multiple
generations of kids and grandkids. I’ve also had the inside track as someone
with friends, and a former spouse, who’ve designed interactive museum exhibits.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I’ve covered museums, and fiestas and special events at
museums that range from the monthly downtown Ramble to music, science and arts
extravaganzas and city-wide, multicultural celebrations, as well as the brand
new, multimedia darling of Millennials, Meow Wolf in Santa Fe.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll always treasure the opportunity to spend an hour or two
quietly savoring miracles and milestones of art, science, history and even pop
culture in a thoughtfully designed, special environment. But I’m also convinced
that to thrive and survive in the future, most museums will have to find their
own fusions of significant content and fiesta ambience through interactive and
online exhibits and special events.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-40689108683571935152016-08-23T08:36:00.002-07:002016-08-23T08:36:43.965-07:00Mark Medoff plans another full-tilt year July 31, 2016<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – While researching today’s upcoming theater
season story, I learned that the Las Cruces Community Theatre will be resuming
its one-act play festival (March 30 through April 4), but Mark Medoff won’t be
choosing and directing a winning entry this time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He got a really good excuse. Or make that excuses.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As of this writing, he’s in the process of casting a
big-name star to portray Marilyn Monroe in “Marilee and Baby Lamb: The
Assassination of an American Goddess.” The play is slated to premiere on
Broadway next spring.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But many of us saw it here first, in its out-of-town, off-Broadway
(way off: about 2,120 miles) performances last October. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">The Tony Award-winning, Academy
Award-nominated Medoff, who wrote and directs the play, has described the
story is a “reimagining of the relationship between Marilyn
Monroe (Marilee) and ‘Baby Lamb,’ Monroe’s nickname for Lena Pepitone, who
began as Marilyn’s seamstress and over the last six years of the icon’s life
became her confidant, her best friend, and her secret.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">The play was inspired by three years
of interviews with Pepitone by Dennis D’Amico, a New York-based
producer, musician and former Las Crucen, who was a student of Medoff’s at
New Mexico State University in the 1970s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Which brings us to more of those really good
excuses for Medoff’s absence from involvement in theater projects in his
longtime Las Cruces home this season. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">“I have five directing jobs,” he mused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">“Johnny Cash,” is a touring piece he’s
written and cast, with D’Amico producing, about the musical legend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">He’s working on a piece called “Decades of
Divas” with Franke Previte, the musician and songwriter who won an Academy
Award for Best Song, for “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” </span><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">with co-composers John DeNicola and Donald
Markowitz for the soundtrack of the iconic 1987 movie “Dirty Dancing.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Medoff will also direct “Deli</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">kateSSen,” a new work by prolific veteran playwright </span><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Richard Atkins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">“It’s about a family that
survived the Holocaust and opened a delicatessen in New York,” Medoff reports. “It
will open at Centre Stage in Greenville, South Carolina.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">He’ll direct his own new
play, “Time and Chance,” slated for a July opening at the Axelrod Performing
Arts Center in Deal, New Jersey. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">In his spare time, he’s working on project
dear to his heart, a book, “Hope Full: A Reckoning With the Universe,” about
his granddaughter, Hope Harrison, who was born with Trisomy 18, a severe
chromosomal anomaly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">In summary, over the next year, that adds up
to a book, several writing and co-writing projects and five directing gigs at
sites from South Carolina to New York and New Jersey. There’s a chance that one
of the projects might have some rehearsals here, but it’s a long shot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: MillerDailyTwo-Roman; font-size: 9.5pt; letter-spacing: -0.05pt; line-height: 107%;"> Las Cruces’
“Broadway of the Southwest” nickname and reputation owe much to Mark, a
cofounder of American Southwest Theatre Company, founder of Creative Media
Institute and long-time teacher at NMSU and area workshops. For decades, he’s
been an enthusiastic participant in all of our major theater companies, as
playwright, director, producer and sometime actor, as well as an award-winning
filmmaker who’s chosen Las Cruces and New Mexico for several of his projects. He
has a cameo role in Rod McCall’s “Rose,” starring Cybill Shepherd and James
Brolin, shooting in Truth or Consequences this September. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To refresh your memory,<span style="background: #FAFAFA; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">
Medoff’s “Children of a Lesser God,” one of 16 Medoff productions launched in
Las Cruces, went on to win a Tony Award for Best Play. Other Medoff plays
first seen in Las Cruces that ended up on New York stages include “When You
Comin’ Back, Red Ryder,” “The Wager,” “The Hand of Its Enemy,” “The
Heart Outright,” “The Majestic Kid” and “Prymate.”</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And “Marilee and Little Lamb” will become No. 8.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After hearing about his current and future
projects-in-the-works, I’d be willing to bet there are more Medoff plays bound
for New York stages in his future. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark, who’s only
76, is shooting for an even dozen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-50525256916028493182016-08-23T08:34:00.001-07:002016-08-23T08:34:20.754-07:00The Pokemon revolutiion<div class="MsoNormal">
July 24, 2016</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – By the time you read this, it may be too late. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We may already be one Pokémon nation, under Pikachu and at
least 151 other Poképersons, firmly locked and loaded and ready for world
domination and the new Pokémon world order.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can’t say we didn’t see it coming.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I first became aware of the Pokémon menace at the dawn of
the new Millennium, when grandson Alexander the Great, then a dashing three-year-old,
moved to Las Cruces. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the next decade, we had many adventures, developed
profound bonds, took several hikes, played at lots of parks, went to many
movies, parties and art openings, danced and sang and spent way too much time
shopping. And through it all, I realize now, too late, there was a constant theme:
Pokémon. There were Pokémon games, TV shows, movies, books and parties,
posters, medallions and action figures.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And cards. So many Pokémon cards. Almost two decades later,
I have a hard time passing the sections of local superstores where the cards
were on display. For many years, I tried to take evasive maneuvers, and find alternate routes so that my grandson’s
Poké addiction would not be triggered.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He’s always been a wily lad, and I rarely succeeded. I would
find myself in a queue with other daunted parents and grandparents waiting for
our little loved ones to get their fix and compare notes. Would this deck of
cards finally contain the illusive Pokémon they were seeking?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
It went on at school,
too, though I seem to remember at least one of Alex’s teachers banning any talk
or trading of the creatures in her realm. I wish I’d learned her secret. Alex
seemed powerless to resist the siren call of Poképersons (he hated it when I
called them that: “NOT PokéPERSONS! It’s PokéMON!” he would shout) and I was
powerless to curb his insatiable Poké cravings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During trips to deliver or pick up Alex, I used to
commiserate with other parents and grandparents. It seemed that all of our
children were hopelessly addicted, totally in the thrall of the ubiquitous Pokécritters.
(I was not allowed to call them that, either.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was at one of those school playground gatherings that a
group of us decided a conspiracy of monumental proportions was in the works. Something
subliminal was going on. Being conscientious and involved adults, we’d watched
the cartoons and played the games with our kids. We agreed there was nothing in
the simple (and frankly rather unimaginative, even boring) plotlines about
Pokémasters training and having adventures with the little creatures that could
possibly command such attention and devotion from our otherwise brilliant kids.
It had to be something subliminal, something that evil masterminds had devised
to appeal and attach only to the brains of young Millennials.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Someday, when we least expect it, something will trigger in
their brains and there will be a world coup, the fulfillment of a nefarious
plot,” one of us said. (I won’t say who; not even a Pikachu Thunderstone-enhanced
double lightning bolt attack will get me to reveal my source.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After a while, it seemed the Pokémon were waning, Maybe it
was just a fad that would die away, I hoped. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But during a recent visit, Alex, who turns 20 this year,
responded a little too eagerly when I asked him if I should throw out a bunch
of gold Pokémon medallions I’d found in a box in the hall closet. He grasped
them tightly and put them in his suitcase.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This month, I wondered if we’d triggered something. I’ve
watched the Pokémon Go feeding frenzy envelop millions, then tens of millions,
breaking long-held records for downloads and participation in apps and games,
far exceeding Tinder or Candy Crush. The Pokémon Go app craving is more
powerful than sex or sugar!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Except it’s more that an app, of course. The conspiracy, the
takeover of a generation, has been triggered and the coup is underway.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week, an editor who always displayed a maturity and
gravitas far beyond his years loudly lamented that there are no virtual Pokémon
to be found on the Sun-News premises. When we ran into each other at the
supermarket, a world-renowned playwright gloated that he has two Pokémon in his
pasture.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s begun.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last weekend, I looked for my first aid kit and emergency
provisions in the hall closet and found a Pokémon Pikachu medallion that must
have fallen (or bolted) from Alex’s luggage.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m keeping it with me. Maybe, in an encounter with our new
Pokémon overlords, flashing it will give me just enough time to make good my
escape and connect with the resistance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I hate to caution you not to trust anyone under 30, but
until we figure out how to break the Poké spell, stay alert, avoid lightning
storms, and may the Force be with you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-62454174280454663342016-08-18T10:33:00.001-07:002016-08-18T10:33:45.661-07:00We have the right stuff for artistic success<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – When I walked into the House of Eternal Return,
Meow Wolf’s Santa Fe sensation that’s attracting international raves and
enthusiastic crowds, there was a sense of déjà vu.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a unique experience (read more about it in today’s
SunLife section) but I couldn’t shake the notion that I’d had very similar
surrealistic adventures back home in Las Cruces.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Later, I realized that I’d visited and written about another
Meow Wolf installation called “Glitteropolis” that ran from late 2010 to early
2011 at the NMSU Art Gallery.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And my memories drifted back to earlier times, at
imaginative, interactive Las Cruces experiences with sophisticated multimedia
storytelling adventures, mazes and participatory mystery dramas and assorted weird and wonderful Alma d’arte and
NMSU art student antics.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I thought about our Broadway-caliber costume and set
designers, playwrights, and actors, award-winning filmmakers, fiestas and
museum reenactments, brilliant conceptual performance artists, dancers, and
musicians, all right here in my own querencia.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I interviewed artist Noah MacDonald, July 10 Artist of
the Week, I remembered his creative installations in Santa Fe, and his project
with an old adobe in Mesilla, a kind of ruin-preservation, resurrection-through-artistic-documentation
project.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And my mind leapfrogged back to the 1990s, when I first met
Georjeanna Feltha. She recreated her childhood home, in an otherworldly,
richly-textured version incorporating tattered fabrics and molten wax, in
evocative rooms at an installation at the NMSU Art Gallery.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My first such experience came even earlier, when Myriam
Lozada-Jarvis, Kelley Hestir and other imaginative regional artists created
ArtForms (a nonprofit artists’ organization that spawned February For the Love
of Art Month). Artistic adventures abounded in the group’s early years, from an
art car parade to multimedia banquets and what strikes me now as a mother of a Meow
Wolf experience. In what was then called a “happening,” artists transformed an
old house somewhere on the Lohmador corridor into a sophisticated interactive
art experience accessible for just one night.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the last month, I’ve been pondering Meow Wolf’s
phenomenal success story and wondering if it could happen here, and why it
didn’t happen here first. Actually it did, in many forms, as already noted. Las
Cruces is a kind of moveable Meow Wolf feast, and has been, for a long time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what does Santa Fe have that we don’t have? Meow Wolf was
clearly in the right place at the right time. The name value of “Game of
Thornes” creator George R.R. Martin, who reportedly kicked in $3.8 million to
buy an old bowling alley and fund the project, the support of businesses and
other investors and the city of Santa Fe, were crucial factors, of course,
along with international media attention focused on Santa Fe’s rep as an art
mecca. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, was it the passion of the young artists who
experimented and hung together?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“A lot of artists’ collectives get in fights and a lot of
collectives burn out,” long-time Meow Wolf member Golda Blaise-Pickett told me.
“But no matter how tiffy we got, we always came back to our vision for a
special world. Santa Fe needs us and we stuck together.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have passionate, energetic young artists, too, who’ve
founded their own galleries and enterprises. And passionate, high-energy, middle-aged
and downright vintage artists, who’ve kept the faith for many decades and
accomplished remarkable things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have the talent and the visionaries. Could we find the
right place, the funding, the investors, the celebrity name(s), the city backing
and the persistent, artistic souls to create our own enduring, interactive,
innovative, artistic phenomenon that would both employ and attract millennials
and art lovers of all ages?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we built it, would they come, and keep coming and stay
awhile to appreciate the other wonders of our territory?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What do you think? Let me know, and I’ll do my best to unite
our creative collaborators with like-minded souls.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-90566286618180076862016-08-18T10:30:00.001-07:002016-08-18T10:31:46.132-07:00Making Memories<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – If you really can go home again, summer seems
like the time to do it.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thomas Wolfe, in his famed novel “You Can’t Go Home Again,” coined
a catch phase and philosophy that seemed to touch subsequent generations of
ever-more-mobile Americans.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As we mature, it seems that many of us have a quest to
return to, or at least touch base with, our roots.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For years, I’ve listened to a cosmopolitan colleague’s tales
of a happy annual reunion in the small New Mexico town where he was raised.
There are gatherings of family and friends that he always looks forward to
attending. (I won’t reveal the name of my colleague or his town, because it
sounds like a celebration residents would just as soon keep to themselves.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was nice to learn that the summertime is a favorite time
for class and family reunions and homeward pilgrimages in my adopted homeland,
too, even though the hot summer months are not the favorite season for many in
the Land of Enchantment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is something universally seductive about summertime, and
for the majority, especially those of us who grew up in colder climes, summer
is the source of many of our happiest memories. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It always helps that school is out, but even if we squeeze
in an extra summer term, it somehow seems that the living and the schoolwork is
easier, and we often get to hold class outdoors.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everything seems easier in the summer, in fact, from
seasonal jobs to all the basics of daily life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Michigan, it meant we could spend the whole day in shorts
and a swimsuit, or a floaty summer dress, or T-shirts and cutoffs and sneakers
and sandals. Or, better yet, bare feet. Snow suits, sweaters, ski parkas,
boots, mittens, cumbersome layers and anything wool and scratchy…all were a
distant memory.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There were no furnaces to turn on or wood to chop or fires
to stoke, unless we wanted to gather driftwood for a beach campfire, or
charcoal for a backyard barbecue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cooking was easier in the summertime, too. Nobody wanted to
heat up the house-or themselves- with complicated baking or cooking projects.
Fresh salads with grilled trout, tomatoes straight off the wine with a
sprinkling of salt, corn on the cob and watermelon for desert seemed perfect.
It was also, it occurs to me, now, a lot healthier that the heavy traditional
Midwestern diet we consumed most of the year. We went paleo before we’d ever
heard of the concept, and as a result we were leaner and happier in the summer
months.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even those of us who were athletic enough to earn letters in
high school probably got more exercise during the summer. But it didn’t seem
like exercise: swimming, tennis, beach volleyball, canoeing and walking on
sunny shores for miles and miles, with our friends or a summer love, was pure
fun.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And summer romance, carefree as it may seem, may start out
casually but end as a profound and life-changing experience. Don’t forget about
all those June – and July and August – weddings and subsequent anniversaries. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Amidst terrifying times, we still manage to sing silly songs
and do silly dances and feel free to indulge in silly fads and fashions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I suspect even those who have survived dysfunctional
families or childhood tragedies can conjure up some happy memories of bygone
summers and the persons and places that helped form those memories. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’re determined to embark on a sentimental journey,
this is the season to revive and maybe even relive the shiniest aspects of
those golden days of yesteryear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And whether or not you have travel plans this summer, it’s
never too late to make some new memories with those you love, or find those old
photos and souvenirs and savor your personal collection, on your own, or with
family and friends. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-46594343662491064892016-06-23T08:41:00.000-07:002016-06-23T08:41:33.337-07:00Becoming a New Mexican changed my perspective on being an American July 3, 2016<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES - I’ve enjoyed lots of all-American, traditional
red, white and true blue celebrations of the Fourth of July in Las Cruces. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve loved it all: the fireworks competing with, and most
years losing, the contest with Mother Nature in both sound and sight
categories. The monsoon season almost always kicks off with a spectacular
thunder and lightning storm on Independence Day weekend. Usually, the stormy
weather doesn’t lead to the cancelation of fireworks, but there’s an impressive
enough natural display to remind we mere humans who’s the real boss.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And who could resist our heartwarming, patriotic and sometimes
slightly eccentric assortment of festivals, from boat parades at Elephant Butte
and a country picnic at La Viña Winery to Cloudcroft’s decorated bikes and pets
parade (followed by Cloudcroft Light Opera Company melodramas) , and Silver
City Museum’s old-fashioned ice cream social. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then there are the only-in- New Mexico events, like the spacey
Alamogordo fireworks shows, where you can enjoy the rocket’s red glare
reflected on actual rockets at the <br />
New Mexico Museum of Space History grounds. And the even spacier Roswell
UFO Festival <a href="http://www.ufofestivalrosewell.com/"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">ufofestivalrosewell.com</span></a>
which features sci-fi stars, a UFO mart, lectures and other features you are
unlikely to find anywhere else on the planet, like alien costume contests for
humans and their pets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When I first moved to New Mexico, I thought this might be a
manifestation of our cosmic bienvenidos philosophy. We’re so inclusive, here in
the Land of Enchantment, that we decided this is the perfect time to extend our
spirit of independence and freedom to a fiesta for the whole universe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Later, I learned that the festival timing had something to do
with commemorating that now famous UFO incident the first week of July 1947,
but I’m still sticking with my cosmic New Mexico Fourth of July spirit theory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Becoming a New Mexican has changed the way I think about being
an American. My artist/American history teacher mom, imbued our Midwestern
childhood with lots of colorful historical facts, but it wasn’t until I moved
here that I really began to grasp what it means to grow up in our diverse
melting pot of cultures and ethnicities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m proud to have friends in many tribes and pueblos and through
art, music, ceremonies and stories have come to understand something of the
spiritual depth and wisdom of the ecologically enlightened indigenous cultures
that inspired the founding fathers of the United States. It’s been wonderful to
learn about the civilizations that thrived here thousands of years before the
Europeans (and even my prehistoric Viking forebears) settled on this continent.<br />
<br />
While living in Santa Fe, famously billed as the oldest continuing state
capital in the nation, I was often reminded that the Mayflower colonists and
other early WASP immigrants our family historian lionizes, are really
latecomers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My amigos with Spanish, Mexican and South American heritage have
relatives that were here more than a century before mine and many have
carefully preserved and shared the portraits and artifacts to prove it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m mindful that many of my loved ones, including my grandson
Alexander the Great, who can claim Cherokee heritage through my daughter-in-law
Shannon, have roots that run far deeper that mine, in this land that I love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In this contentious election year, when dialogs can too easily
devolve from hyperbole to hate speak, I’m going to devote some Fourth of July
time to grateful remembrance of all the immigrants (including my ancestors) who
helped create so much of what I love most about my diverse and vibrant native
land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And then I’m going to offer thanks to all those who gracefully
and generously welcomed those immigrants, despite, at times, some vicious abuse
and exploitation of the hospitality of those kind and loving souls who were
here first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-81123792960227179852016-06-23T08:38:00.002-07:002016-06-23T08:38:49.663-07:00A sale of two sisters and other estate sale tales June 26, 2016 <div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – When I decided to do some weekend exploring,
who would think I’d end up at an estate sale with what amounted to valet
parking perks? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I followed signage and helpful, neatly uniformed staffers
who directed me to a convenient parking place and then drove me in a golf cart
up a steep hill to a lovely home overlooking the Mesilla Valley. It was the
second day of the sale, but there were still some works by artists I recognized
and an impressive collection of American Indian pottery. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next weekend, at an estate sale close to my own
neighborhood, I found a beautiful baby grand piano very like my mother’s, a
drum set, and a man who told me about an enticing Rolls-Royce for sale at a garage
sale nearby.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I realized it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a such
sales, and even longer since I’d held one myself. It was back in South Florida,
more than two decades ago. When I merged households with my sister Sally for a while,
she decided it was time to clear the decks. She put in a classified ad and made
signs for what she billed as “A Sale of Two Sisters,” Sally’s Dickensian twist
on “A Tale of Two Cities.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The sale itself was not so much fun, at least for me. I’m a
private person and found I didn’t enjoy a couple of days of strangers rampaging
through our premises and our personal possessions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I went through the process one more time when I left Florida
to move back to New Mexico, but that time, I invited mostly friends and
neighbors.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since then, I found myself more inclined to make way for new
décor and life changes by giving things away to friends and relatives, or
donating stuff to the many good and deserving organizations I admire here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During these periodic unfettering sessions, I’m reminded
that garage sales, along with antique, thrift and consignment stores, have been
crucial to my home ambiance. Except for brand new beds, major appliances, a
matching leather couch and recliner, and most of my arts and crafts collection,
everything that surrounds me is the booty from creative treasure hunts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my home office, a bamboo desk and chair from a Palm Beach
yard sale is one of the rare survivors from my last cross-country move. Early
Las Cruces garage and estate sale finds include tea carts, a big coffee table
and end table and the mismatched chairs I’ve painted and ornamented that
surround my new kitchen table. There’s a pretty armoire that fits perfectly in
the corner of a guest bedroom (after the nice man from the garage sale where I
bought it graciously offered to deliver it, and then had to dismantle and
replace the room’s door frame to get it in). And there’s more, lots more. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wish I could follow the example of James Kanel, the owner
of Mesilla Valley Estate Sales. He has a discerning eye and clearly understands,
admires and appreciates beautiful things, but told me he hasn’t collected much
of anything himself for years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“My favorite thing about stuff is watching it leave and
having someone pay for it,” he said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like seeing my no-longer essential stuff leave for good
homes and good causes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now if I could just convince myself that nature and home
décor really do not abhor a vacuum, I might get closer to my minimalist Zen
lifestyle goals.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My working credo is that I must be able to envision a
perfect place to put anything new before I decide to bring it home. Then I see
a painting, or a kachina or a piece of talavera that’s worth a weekend of
cleaning and rearranging to showcase.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I think of J. Paul Taylor. He has amassed and artfully
displays a unique and wonderful collection of antique and contemporary New
Mexican art and artists and international textiles and folk art that is among
the finest in the state, or anywhere, for that matter. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He recently confessed to me that in his mid-90s, he’s still
collecting. Maybe he’d like to join me next weekend at this great estate sale I
just heard about…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-75720960049545718852016-06-23T08:37:00.001-07:002016-06-23T08:37:19.077-07:00Resuming a love affair with books June 19, 2016<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – There’s nothing quite like a summer beach book,
and that holds true even in high desert county. We may not have the lakes and
rivers and oceans of my other coastal and peninsula summer haunts. But we have
the beaches (or at, least, the vast, contemplative expanses of sand). And the
books.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Usually, I stash away lots of books for my vacation. But in
recent years, I never seemed to get around to reading them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s part of an escalating syndrome. I, who once read eight
to ten books a week, now seem to have trouble finding time and eye power to get
through a dozen in six months. Sometimes, sigh, even fewer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I attribute some of that to obligatory screen time. Laptop
and tablet screens. PC screens and cellphone screens. Flat screen TVs. And blue
light bevies of assorted other screens that stare at us at home and the office,
in doctors’ offices, hospitals, shopping centers, airports and many other serendipitous
sites. And we stare right back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After a long hard day of close encounters of the screen
kind, I often find myself too weary to contemplate anything that requires
interaction, which leaves me with yet another screen to end my day, viewing
prerecorded TV programs, passive-aggressively fast-forwarding through ads and
boring parts. (There is, I confess, some satisfaction in this, a kind of sense
of atonement for not being able to skip, switch off or fast-forward through the
boring and irritating portions of the rest of our lives.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But that satisfaction has its price, too. Back in the day, I
was able to read a couple of books each week during the commercials of an
evening of must-see TV. That leisurely rhythm seems lost forever as even mindless
TV watching turns into a type A personal best competition. (Could I beat my
all-time record and get through five hours of recorded programs in four, three
or two hours?)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a rare week without TV, the pleasures of books came back
to me. I spent most of the week savoring, rather than speed-reading “The Last
Ranch,” the final book in Michael McGarrity’s wonderful American West trilogy,
set primarily in Las Cruces and the Tularosa Basin. It’s also an origin story
and prequel for the dozen Kevin Kerney novels, which I also love. Plan a long
vacay and read as many of ‘em as you can. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a nice bit of synchronicity, I was reading about the last
ranchers to hold out when the government took over land for secret atom bomb
tests, when soulmate Roger proposed a visit to Los Alamos, and we got to see
films and exhibits and the actual homes of the scientists who were making the
bomb a reality.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After that, I read a little book about Georgia O’Keeffe in
the very land she painted and where I was lucky enough to meet and interview
her in her last decade of life. Next, I got into “Versions of Us,” by Laura
Barnett, a thought-provoking tale of a couple who met and married young in one
vignette and led star-crossed and complicated lives in other versions,
including one in which they missed connections until their 70s. Another good
read.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then, tempted by a nice little library in our vacay house, I
polished off “The Lake House,” my first-ever James Patterson blockbuster. It
was a real beach book, about the adventures of beautiful teens with wings,
thanks to modern miracles of genetic engineering. Without giving too much away,
the book didn’t lay an egg, but the beautiful flying heroine did, and I suspect
there’s a sequel out there. Maybe I’ll look for it or wait for the movie version.
Or maybe not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Driving to and from Santa Fe, I listened to most of “A Fine
Romance,” read by the autobiography’s author, Candice Bergen. Back home, I
dropped off the CDs at the Branigan Library and checked out the book, and read
the last chapters the old fashioned way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, it was a couple of days before I turned on the TV,
and I’ve found myself going back to old habits of reading through the
commercials and boring parts, instead of fast-forwarding. And drifting off into
peaceful, night-long slumber.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think I may be on to something. Maybe I’ll increase the
book time and cut down the screen time (and that includes ebooks and all online
text forms) and return to basic paper pages again. I’d almost forgotten how
much fun it can be to immerse yourself in a real book. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-32320014842442731252016-06-23T08:35:00.002-07:002016-06-23T08:35:55.923-07:00A very good vacation June 12, 2016<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES - After growing up in a family that would jump at
every possible chance to pitch a tent and make the wilderness their home, I had
more than ample opportunities to decide if I like camping.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t, thank you very much, and ever since I’ve had the
means to select the lodgings of my choice, my idea of camping is staying any place
that rates less than three stars.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love communing with
nature, particularly on my own, sunny, day-tripper terms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was reminded of that on my recent vacation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Soul mate Dr. Roger, knowing that I’d expressed a certain
weariness of vacationing in Northern New Mexico, particularly Santa Fe,
attempted to lure me northward with the promise that we’d get away from it all,
avoiding the Sturm und Drang of the City Different during its first big
Memorial Day tourist season opener.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When he led me from our favorite rendezvous on Canyon Road
to winding routes near Bishop’s Lodge and the Santa Fe Ski Basin, through the
picturesque village of Tesuque and ever onward into the mountain wilderness, I
wondered if he’d also forgotten about my aversion to camping.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But no. Before long, we’d entered a gated community and
turned into the long driveway of an isolated, art-filled home that seemed miles
away from the nearest residence, or any humans, for that matter. Inside and
out, there were lovely surprises, including rustic verandas, a secluded heated
swimming pool down the hill and some exotic stacked rock sculptures scattered
around the environs. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It reminded me of my long-ago home on a hilltop in Picacho
Hills, which always put me in mind of flying in a little Cessna aircraft: that
feeling of motionless silence, suspended in time and space, alone but never
lonely.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thus fortified, I didn’t really mind when we couldn’t suppress
our Type A compulsions to explore the territory. We hit old and new attractions
from Los Alamos to Santa Fe: museums, art galleries, the downtown Santa Fe Plaza,
the Railroad District, hot restaurants and even the nutty darling of
international on-trend arts aficionados, Meow Wolf, a spectacular collection of
art installations in a converted Cerrillos Road bowling alley. But through it
all, we both found ourselves longing to get back to our mountaintop aerie.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I emerged from my favorite Santa Fe art galleries, looked
up, and realized I appreciated the neon lapis sky more than anything I’d seen
inside. Eons of history, eclectic cultural achievements and folk art seemed to
pale in compare to the wildflowers and mosaics of greenery in the vistas
surrounding museum hill.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Neither one of us could figure out how to turn on the TV,
though we devoted at least 15 seconds to the task. We never tried again. We
ignored the news aps on our iPhones and averted our eyes when we passed
newsstands on our infrequent trips into town. We didn’t know about violence at
a Trump appearance an hour’s drive away until we were told by friends, both erstwhile
Las Crucens, who drove up from Albuquerque for lunch. Roger, who so recently
had devoted many hours to do his civic duty in Iowa caucus sessions, changed
the subject. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even the tequila siren songs of the 2016 Margarita Trail and
restaurants we’ve loved for years could not distract us for long. We stocked up
on fresh and colorful provisions at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market and Trader
Joe’s and hurried back to compose big dinner salads and what became our
favorite entertainment: listening to chirping birds, and watching clouds, and
ravens and eagles and sunsets. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We watched some spectacular sunrises, too, and hiked, read
and enjoyed siestas. Each day, we settled in for some serious power lounging
and leisurely conversations. We relaxed and spent a lot of quality time
remembering what we love about New Mexico, Mother Nature, the world and one
another.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a very nice vacation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-73002105895112172022016-06-23T08:34:00.004-07:002016-06-23T08:34:32.899-07:00Making sense of the quest for tiny homes June 5, 2016<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES - Will we ever agree on a Goldilocks standard for
that iconic manifestation of the America dream: the single-family home?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After perusing the eclectic offerings on the 2016 Las Cruces
Home Tour, I postponed the tour itself to binge-watch the “Tiny House Hunters”
series on HGTV.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I found a lot of it baffling, as I do many preferences of
the mostly Millennials who covet the teensy abodes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can understand the lure of escaping crippling mortgages,
especially for children of the Great Recession, and for a generation with so
many members saddled with crippling college loan debt. In many cases, the debt is
larger than the amount many Baby Boomers paid for our first homes. What’s
equally shocking is that some of the tiny houses are in the price range of
considerably larger homes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I watched with claustrophobic fascination as a young single
pondered how she might fit herself, her large dog and, occasionally, her
six-foot-two-inch boyfriend, in a tiny rectangle with a cramped “sleeping
loft,” miniscule bathroom with a toilet in the shower stall, and microscopic kitchen
with the only sink in the house. Luckily, it was just a few feet from the
bathroom. Closet space seemed considerably more limited than the storage area
in the file cabinets in my little office cubicle (which seemed pretty spacious
after my “Tiny House” marathon).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remained perplexed. I understand and applaud so much of
what Millennials have in common with the best of the tree-hugging, flower
children segment of my generation. I applaud the desire to recycle, reuse,
downsize, minimize one’s carbon footprint and value quality over quantity and
substance over status.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the other hand, the obsession with size can be pretty
dumb on any scale. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There seems to be a lot of emphasis on custom builds,
distinctive style (from yurts to miniature versions of San Francisco’s
Victorian Painted Ladies) and portability. Whatever the final choice, it seems,
the house has to be mounted on wheels and easily transportable to a special
site, or for a year-long U.S. tour, in the case of one young married couple.
(Their impossible mission included a quest for individual office space for each
partner within their Lilliputian mansion.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, some of the tiny home owners ended up paying
enough for their little dwelling to buy a two- or three-bedroom home in many
U.S. communities, including Las Cruces. And many faced additional land rental
fees that are as much as mortgage payments for a considerably larger starter
house.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Given their desire for small size and mobility, I was amazed
that none of the house hunters considered the obvious: pre-fab or modular
homes, mobile homes or even vintage Airstream trailers, RVs or campers. I’ve
even seen some high-end, stylish sheds at local home improvement emporiums that
could be transformed into nice living spaces for a fraction of what the
aspiring home owners seemed willing to pay.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I admit I’m happily fixed in a right-sized home in a
neighborhood I like. But I understand desires that transcend age, income levels
and cultural heritage.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember when my sister, then in her early 20s, lived on a
tiny old yacht with her husband, small daughter and very large dog. She
grumbled about having to give something up for every new thing she brought
aboard. They were moored at the same harbor for most of time, but they loved
the rare voyage on Florida’s Intracoastal ( CQ ) Waterway, and the boat people
and the lifestyle. Sally continued to miss the sea and slept on a waterbed for
decades after she became a landlubber again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I get lots of texts, e-mails and visits from friends and
relatives off on endless adventures in their RVs, some of them far from tiny
and just as opulent as the suburban homes they’ve sold or rarely inhabit these
days.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I finally got it: the tiny, custom home on wheels thing.
It’s not really about the size or the money.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s about the real American dream: the freedom to go
wherever and whenever and however you desire. Whether it’s practical or even
possible is another matter. It’s the potential that’s important.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s the thing about dreams: they’re yours and you want what
you want. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-29439796265686377442016-06-23T08:33:00.000-07:002016-06-23T08:33:09.981-07:00A legacy of wise words May 29, 2016<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – This month, I asked several people about the
wisest advice their moms had given them. Ever since, I’ve been thinking about
the best advice I’ve gotten and the legacy and bon mots I want to leave with my
own son and grandson.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve thought about conferring with my older sister and
younger brother but I suspect there might be a consensus about the most
memorable (if not the best) advice from our parents.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Don’t do as I do, do as I say,” was Dad’s fave. He meant it
to be funny, but I think the lasting affect was that all three of us strived to
be better role models for our kids and to aim for honesty rather than
hypocrisy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Smile sweetly, say ‘Yes, dear,’ and then do as you damn
please,” was one of mom’s pre-feminist maxims, and I wish she’d followed it a
bit more herself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the other hand, I’ve come to greatly appreciate her
suggestion to “Bat your eyelashes and say, ‘You big, strong, handsome, wonderful
man,’” on occasions that require lots more upper body strength, mechanical
skills or tolerance for major messes than I possess. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I use the line a lot, and it always works, and I honestly
don’t feel that it’s exploitive or offensive, now that I am a vieja, and
flirting is no longer a blood sport. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I suppose I should check with Human Resources, just to be
sure, but for now, I’m sticking with another favorite, generally attributed to
U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper: “If it’s a good idea, go ahead and
do it. <span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">It </span>is often easier to ask for forgiveness
than to ask for permission.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My spiritual mentor had so much great advice to give us all
that I wrote a book about her (“Tenny Hale” American Prophet.”) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A conversation that I think about a lot (and nearly every
day, when I lived in Palm Beach, and during Presidential election campaigns)
involved the social and spiritual plagues that each generation must confront.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The diseases of my age were innocence and ignorance,” Hale
told me, adding that the cures involved enlightened experience and education.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The diseases of your age are arrogance and greed. Good luck
with that,” she told me, shortly before her death on the eve of the 1980s “ME”
decade.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wish I could have just one more long consult with her about
my theories regarding the only possible cures for arrogance and greed: humility
and charity. How can we disseminate the cure in a world so dominated by
arrogant, greedy sociopaths and narcissists who think things are just peachy as
they are? (And break their spell over the multitudes who admire and follow
them?) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The struggle between good and evil rages on, but as Dr.
William Sheldon once opined, “Wherever there are two seeking consciousnesses,
there is hope.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I have been heartened by the wit and wisdom of new
generations, Gen X to Millennials, who continue to impress me with their
resilience, adaptability and creative fusions of the best of the past, present
and future sagacity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think we all have some important and original advice we
should be collecting to pass on to the future. Here are a few truisms from my
personal collection:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
• The more some people feel they are out of control, the
more they try to control others.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
• The price of awareness is awareness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
• The absence of vice does not necessarily indicate the
presence of virtue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
• Society should be more like a fugue than a football game.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
• Everything (including life in general) is better with
green chile. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me know if you’ve come up with some original advice
you’d like to share with the next generation. We need all the help we can get. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-91702533928923587592016-06-23T08:30:00.002-07:002016-06-23T08:30:37.716-07:00Pondering vacay possibilities May 22, 2016<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – The options I’ve been offered this year include
a trip to the Scottish highlands and Norwegian fiords (some of our family’s ancestral
homelands) with my sister. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then there are possible trips to visit relatives in the
Pacific Northwest and assorted sites in Florida and Michigan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have friends who’ve graciously said they’d love to have me
visit them in Utah, New York City, Jamaica and Germany.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Other dear buddies would like to plan trips to San Miguel de
Allende and/or Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. A high school amigo has invited all
his classmates to an exotic coastal resort he’s built in Mexico. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And some of us have been talking about bucket list
expeditions to the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji and Greece.
We’ve been discussing those journeys for so long, in fact, that most of them
have long since gone, brought me the T-shirts and even made return trips to our
dream destinations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the truth is, since I arrived here in the mid-1990s,
I’ve only made it out of the state a handful of times, and usually in the line
of duty (a work-related trip with a Las Cruces Sister Cities delegation to
Germany) or on fond grandparent migrations to meet up with Alexander the Great
in southern California and Idaho.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, my grandson, at 19, is considerably more
well-traveled than I was at that age and is often willing to spare me a trip to
his current residence by flying in from wherever he is to visit me in his
former Las Cruces stamping grounds.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I think about it, ever since I left Michigan, friends
and relatives have been more than willing to spare me the trip and make the
effort to visit me in the considerably more exotic (at least to native
Michiganders) places I’ve settled since. New York, Connecticut, Oregon, Santa
Fe, Jamaica and Florida can all be potent lures, I’ve learned. During long
Midwestern winters, the company of those of us in tropical and warm southern
climes seems to be particularly attractive to long-lost friends and kinfolk.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve made plans several times, as recently as last year,
when a long-planned trip to see friends in another state was preempted at the
last minute for their trip to visit a new grandchild on the other coast.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That happens a lot as you get older, when many of your
friends are retired and you’re not, and they get tired of waiting for you to
come out and play with them. But there’s a bright side, too. Without the bother
of having to plan an itinerary, book a flight or buy new tires, I’ve enjoyed a
lot of fun visits and reunions in recent years. A surprising number of loved
ones eventually find their way to my door, on side trips, or RV marathon treks,
or quests for interesting places to relocate or spend a more comfortable season
or two.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth is, I’ve already been blessed with opportunities
to see, visit and best of all, spend extended periods living in, some of
Earth’s most interesting and beautiful places. And my life is filled with
well-traveled, articulate adventurers, from my long-touring musician son to
globe-trotting physician soulmate Roger and photographer BFF Cecilia. They’ve
all shared anecdotes and souvenirs and sometimes, their far-flung friends and
colleagues, who have come to visit me, too. I feel as though I have been many
of the places they’ve been. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe this will be the year that I’ll abandon my recent
preference for staycations and again be tempted to heed Kurt Vonnegut’s poetic admonition:
“Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I may grumble now and then about missing great bodies of
water, and there are times I long to walk on the shores of Lake Michigan, or
explore tide pools on the Oregon Coast, or spend another morning ambling for
miles with my sister and her enthusiastic big dog in the warm Atlantic waters
of Bathtub Beach in South Florida.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But then I remember the beach tar and oil spills and
heart-breaking dead and dying marine mammals. And what a hassle it is, as my
son once put it, “to put your body in a big metal tube and get hurled through
space.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I give thanks that I get to spend my days land-locked in
my favorite state, in my favorite place on the planet, where a surprisingly
large number of the most interesting people on Earth already live, or manage to
find their way here, more frequently that you might expect. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650088850182070102.post-20335063621508845792016-06-23T08:29:00.003-07:002016-06-23T08:29:25.885-07:00The brouhaha about bathrooms May 15, 2016<div class="MsoNormal">
LAS CRUCES – I’m trying my best to understand the brouhaha
about bathrooms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the recent state, national and possibly even Supreme
Court-level hubbub about who’s allowed to go where strikes me as way too much
ado about nothing very important, in the grand scheme of things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe it’s because I grew up in a family of five with three
kids, three bedrooms and one bathroom. I was reminded how typical that was,
recently, while watching Irene Oliver-Lewis’ new version of her touching and
funny “Cecilia-isms: Dichos de mi madre,” a play about growing up with her
large, loving, close-knit family.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And you had to be a loving, close-knit family to survive,
share and schedule life around one, shared bathroom. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was not easy. There were issues of territory, privacy,
hot water and other pressing matters to be negotiated several times every day.
When dates or other special grooming issues were involved, sibling rivalries
could surface in dangerous ways. And then there were times of needs for long therapeutic
soaks clashing with – how to delicately put this – illness or desperate calls
of nature.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, on dark days when the world is too much with me, I
have only to look around my little semi-adobe abode to feel instantly better.
Most of the time, I have three bedrooms and two whole bathrooms all to myself.
Life is working out well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then, I hear of laws and nationwide boycotts, all focusing
on the whether certain groups should be able to use particular bathrooms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is nothing new and the roots of such controversies
usually involve some sort of discrimination and fear mongering. The Civil Right
Movement focused on segregation that involved schools, housing, transportation,
employment and the basics of life, including access to public bathrooms and
drinking fountains. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those of us old enough to remember the battles during the
1970s over the Equal Rights Amendment may have forgotten that opponents ominously
and sometimes downright hysterically threatened that the amendment’s passage
would result in, gasp, unisex bathrooms!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think most women I know would have taken the risk for
equality in pay scales. It was the glass ceilings rather than the bathrooms
that had the most impact on our lives and careers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the meantime, though many seem not to have noticed, the
bathroom scene has changed. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the popular sitcom Ally McBeal (1997-2002) made the
unisex bathroom a major plot feature, the concept seemed to generate more
amusement than alarm. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the new millennium, family bathrooms, changing areas and
separate, specially-equipped bathrooms or stalls for the differently-abled
became common, and sometimes required by building code upgrades. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a cautious, if not helicopter, mom and grandmom of boys,
I learned there are fairly simple ways to safeguard your kids. Take them with
you when they’re little and stay observant when they’re old enough to go to the
men’s (or women’s if you’re the caretaker dad of daughters) bathroom
themselves. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I think it would be nice if the whole world would agree
on unisex bathrooms for all, whether multi-stall, a cluster of single restrooms,
or some combination thereof. (And it would solve many practical problems,
including the much longer stadium lines for the ladies’ room.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There would likely be a civilizing, family-friendly
atmosphere that would discourage any of the behaviors, however statistically
rare, that loom large in the paranoid fantasies of some of our citizens.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that civil ambience, in these ever-more-divisive times,
might remind us of the things unite us. We’re all human beings, and when you
gotta go, you gotta go. And, just as we did as families with limited
facilities, to keep peace and for the common good, we must learn to negotiate
on a daily basis to work things out. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, </span><a href="mailto:dmoore@lcsun-news.com"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: black;">dmoore@lcsun-news.com</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Las Cruces Stylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17041802557219266691noreply@blogger.com0