Good News for Close Readers
We are sensitive to readers who get depressed when they read the actualities about Taos here on the Friction. Nobody needs to wake up to a downer. After all, we all know Taos is a nice place to visit, get high, or get down—but you (Dear Visitor) wouldn’t want to live here. And neither would the rest of us. But here we are.
Many of our readers constantly flee; take short trips and long trips, to places like LA, NYC, Dallas, New Delhi, or vacation on the hot sands of the multifaceted beach culture in Mexico. We forgive these fleet-of-foot victims of ADD and the self-imposed quantum expansion of their own Carbon footprint.
Meanwhile, as we form and reform our independent alliances—apart from local government and other failed institutions—we shall remind ourselves of why we live here—even if trapped—and how to survive with soul and spirit intact as we trade and barter for the qualities that make la vida worthwhile in El Norte.
By the way the circuit riding Barber will be at the El Prado Shop this Saturday for a special appearance–clippers in hand. Currently, he’s studying at an undisclosed location in Denver the modern methods of Hippocrates’ heirs. Between old-fashioned trips to the baseball park and new fangled encounters with high tech, we hear he’s refashioning himself, aided and abetted by this chemical or that isotope.
Down here among the permanent population, some of our methods of enrichment are so simplistic that we need only name them as alternatives to conventional paradigms. Soccer enthusiasts may praise the well-received “Eco-Park†and football fans lament the lack of running water and indoor plumbing at the TMS Anaya Field. But let me remind you that the water runs cool and cold long side trails named Yerba, Manzanita, and Italianos in the Hondo Canyon. The flora and fauna found is wonderfully transformational on these picturesque trails to the sky. And a Pine Tree suffices for the profane pissoir.
As for the sublime, you can take your dog out to the West Rim Trail beyond the Gorge where the wild sheep roam. The occasional oldster and uptight tourista will holler, “Call your dog.†But Fido and Fidoista can prowl and bark and run just like you and the bikers and the joggers. Taosenos who walk recognize a friendly canine when they see one. You can’t beat the view of the desert and the Sacred Mountain–It’s free!
Believe me when I say, the state rest stop and its public bathrooms are the cleanest in upstate New Mexico. Kudos to DOT and the Dept. of State Parks. The Vendors at the Bridge are friendly and their stands are packed with customers. Unlike Taos Plaza, the Gorge has a life of its own, apart, and independent of John Law. They don’t need no stinkin’ permits! They fought the law and they won. Everyone is frankly civil.
The downturn in the economy is, ironically, good news for the environment in terms of reducing the amount of energy used to despoil Mother Nature. Less travel, less packaging, less CO2. Course it’s a bit hazy now but the breezes shall ultimately blow the smoke away. And as art sales sag, artists will begin to make art again for art’s sake. We shall find ourselves enjoying art according to its purpose and not as means to a more material end like the support of landlords.
Some of us, dare I say it, leftovers, ne’er do wells, underachievers and dropouts are well prepared for this journey. Why our peers have turned round and are coming back to meet us here in our penury. Whether due to end times or with a leap of faith into the great beyond or because we don’t have health insurance, we are stuck with lighting candles or the cyclical sunrise and sunset and our own stoic resolve. If you know how to die, all else follows.
In Daniel Mendelsohn’s wonderful translation of C.P.Cavafy’s poems, one of my favorites is called “Ithaca.†It refers to Odysseus, the famed Greek adventurer, whose homecoming is his reward or the answer to his questions. Cavafy expands the meaning of Ithaka and it seems to fit the state of our journey thus far. Below I post the last two stanzas:
Ithaca gave you the beautiful journey;
Without her you wouldn’t have set upon the road.
But now she has nothing left to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca didn’t deceive you.
As wise as you will have become, so much experience,
You will understand, by then, these Ithacas; what they mean.