Griffin’s Taos: Impossible to Remember!

“There’s a word for it: Taos. Hard to describe. Impossible to forget.”__Joanie Griffin

“We Can Do Better!”—Greg Pease

In the recent Town of Taos election, voters and citizens, residents and activists in the greater Taos Community recognized the hijackers at town hall and threw them out. The mainstream weekly in Taos missed the story and endorsed the status quo, which suggests the editor and publisher are out of touch with the community.

Further, recent stories in the weekly focused on the divisive issue Taosenos were trying to overcome. Apparently the reporters have mistaken “collaboration” between county and town for “conflict of interest.”  Voters, however, in the election of Commissioner Barrone as Mayor, along with Councilors Judi Cantu and Fritz Hahn signaled their commitment not just to the town or county but to the community as a whole re: “collaboration.”

Similarly, Griffin and Associates, a marketing firm from Albuquerque, hired by the former town administration has missed the current “marketing” story. If The Taos News doesn’t “get it” or read the stories written by their own reporters, we residents should not be surprised that Joanie Griffin has missed the biggest and best story of 2013.

In this story of the Rio Grande del Norte Monument, Taosenos turned out in large numbers to support a story underscored by “presidential proclamation” that requires nurturing. The Monument is a story with assets that will continue to reward investment well into the 21st Century.

Griffin’s nebulous take on Taos, according to the announcement in The Taos News is: “There’s a word for it: Taos. Hard to describe. Impossible to forget. Griffin says according to The Taos News, “We’re not Aspen, and we’re not Vail,” And “There are things you get here you will not get anywhere else.”

How can you sell the trivial and the obvious when no one is the wiser? Or knows what it means?

One can’t blame a public relations agent like Griffin for being short sighted, unimaginative or uninformed since she is trying to be all things to all people for a half million dollars. The alleged p.r. guru was hired in 2009 and there has been one so-called marketing campaign that made sense.

Locals and visitors could relate to The Summer of Love. The ode to 1969 included a couple of parades, Dennis Hopper and Friends at the Harwood, a hippie homecoming, the La Cocina Reunion, the reunion of the Oriental Blue Streaks and myriad discussions of those controversial days and the changes that occurred in the local culture. A majority of folks got interested in the “tangible” events and objects of discernment, which folks could also explain to visitors and locals, who missed the original show.

Here’’s a little something from the BLM Website to jog the marketing team’s memory: “The Río Grande del Norte National Monument was established on March 25, 2013 by Presidential Proclamation. The monument includes approximately 242,500 acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The landscape is comprised of rugged, wide open plains at an average elevation of 7,000 feet, dotted by volcanic cones, and cut by steep canyons with rivers tucked away in their depths. The Río Grande carves an 800 foot deep gorge through layers of volcanic basalt flows and ash. Among the volcanic cones in the Monument, Ute Mountain is the highest, reaching to 10,093 feet.”

At a BLM meeting about the Monument, a packed house in the Sagebrush Convention Center discussed the wildlife, the hunting, fishing, Bighorn Sheep, the rafting, the hiking, the viewshed, the eco and enviro concerns, the vast wealth of the Monument and its significance, not the least of which is the Rio Grande River and its watersheds. It’s about water and the high desert, the Rio Grande Rift, i.e. stunning geological features, etc. And one can go on and on about specific and concrete features. The only mystery is in the variety of attractions.

Just as the visitor count picks up substantially during ski vacations, Christmas and Spring Break, so the Monument, properly promoted and nurtured, draws both locals and visitors out and about. Or so the President of the United States and several senators and representatives recognized as well as myriad locals in the business of guiding. Visitors who enjoy the outdoors frequently enjoy the arts, witness skiers walking around town, and locals, like their indigenous 1969 cohorts, also enjoy the outdoors, even if just to walk Fido and Feliz along the west rim trail.

Four or five times a week I visit both the Bridge and the Plaza. The vendors at the Bridge, despite being reduced in number by machinations of Taos Pueblo and the Department of Transportation, frequently appear to garner more visitors than do shops on Taos Plaza despite inclement weather. There is nothing like a spot of beauty to satisfy the soul of the visitor and the resident, who then buys a commemorative object to mark the memory. Maybe Ms. Griffim (and the Editor of the Taos News) could take a tour of the community and the Monument itself.

And here’s a reminder for those who think ahead from the Harwood Museum of Art for 2016. “The Harwood Museum of Art of the University of New Mexico has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation in support of the exhibition Mabel Dodge Luhan & Company: American Moderns and the West and its catalogue. Organized by the Harwood Museum of Art in collaboration with the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in Buffalo, New York, the exhibition will be on view at the Harwood Museum of Art May 21-September 11, 2016. From there it will travel to the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in Buffalo, New York (Mabel Dodge Luhan’s birthplace) and to at least one other venue.”

Hey, Mabel, like the Monument, is one of those gifts that keeps on giving. Similarly, Kit Carson and Padre Martinez, Taos Pueblo and the Historic Museums, or Wheeler Peak and Valle Vidal keep on giving. But I believe you must use a specific organizing principle as an appeal, name an idea that both locals and visitors can grasp. We need to think both inside and outside the box.

The two best publicity stunts of the last year were dreamed up, not by Griffin and Associates but spontaneously by (1) by a district judge and county clerk, i.e. Gay Marriage, and (2) a visitor from Tennessee and the NM state police. We got lots of visitors from the former and mucho publicity from the latter. Think what we could do with a slogan about “Extreme Tourism” or “A History of Violence” or a “History of Real Estate” per Bent, Popay, Onate, DeVargas, Carson, Manby, et al as headliners. We’ve got the history, the place and the people.

Here are a few books about Taos and northern New Mexico: Anasazi America, Blood and Thunder, To Possess the Land, The Man Who Killed the Deer, Utopian Visions, The Taos Indians and the Battle for Blue Lake, Acequia, Water Sharing, Sanctity and Place, the Nichols/Milagro/nonfiction canon, etc. Then there’s the Broken Wheel story from 1898 until the present or Taos, A Topical History and say, Taos Artists and Their Collectors or In Contemporary Rhythm. 

Books, poetry, and art connect the past to the present and make this the Monument a home to the “most interesting place in the world.” Did you know the guy pictured, “the most interesting man in the world,” lives over there with Lovely Lorraine right here in the Town of Taos?