Animal Scandal, Kongos Coming, Historic Photos Displayed

(Editor’s Note: your pesky insect i.e. La Mosca is taking a graduate course in “online pedagogy” at the University of New Mexico’s Department of English each Tuesday in Albuquerque. Though the University’s Bachelor and Graduate program on Ledoux St. still offers live or face-to-face onsite classes, more and more onsite classes are migrating (legally) to online status. I am learning how to march up and over the digital divide. Next semester I shall offer my English. 320 Writing and Revision course as a hybrid: partially online, partially on site.) WPA c.1930-40s PHOTOGRAPHS OF TAOS COUNTY

The Taos Fall Arts Festival opens Sep 26 (Friday) and runs through Sunday, October 5. 10am-6pm each day at various venues like the Mural Room in the Old County Courthouse. Under the guidance of the Taos County/Arts and Artifacts Committee and with funding from the Healy Foundation, Fall Arts Festival will display fifty tri-cultural WPA images from collections such as the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration, and the National Archives and Records Administration.

The historic black and white images feature the work of photographers Irving Rusinow, Russell Lee and John Collier, Jr., who have documented the landscape, architecture, youth and families, acequia culture, farming, cooking, health care and schools in Taos County. The photographs were taken during the New Deal era just after the frescoes by Taos artists were completed in 1935 at the Old County Courthouse. After the show, the photographs will be on permanent display at the Taos County Complex.

Special thanks are due to members of the Taos County Arts and Artifacts Committee, Lee Clockman, Jeff Shannon, the Taos Historic Society, and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative.

Animal Scandal

A reader writes that there will be a hearing at the Ag Center (Livestock Center on Chamisa Road) before the NM Board of Veterinarians (Board) at the Ag Building on Sept, 3,4,5. A lawyer from the Attorney General’s office will be representing the people against Dr. Aversa. The Board will be summarizing their findings and rule on the case.

An assistant attorney general represents former employees and volunteers, who will present evidence before the NM Board of Veterinarians against Dr. Aversa, the in-house shelter vet? The NM Vet Board will also be presenting evidence against Aversa.

Allegations include: paws sloughing (dropping completely off leg) from neglect and improper care; animals thrown to the ground during temper tantrums, operations without anesthesia, etc. Employees and volunteers claimed they were fired when they complained to management. Interested parties should attend the first day of the hearing to hear the accused’s statement as well as a summary of the charges.

Apparently news of this event has been subject to a “community blackout” but the Shadow knows.

KONGOS TO PLAY TAOS

in a free concert in the Taos Town Plaza with KONGOS, Thursday September 25th According to a press release from the Town of Taos, sometime rock’n roll promoter, Manager Rick Bellis et al have partnered with the Taos Solar Music Festival to present live in Taos the “KONGOS.” This multi-media event will be a free show to the public to be held live on the historic Taos Town Plaza on Thursday, September 25, starting at 6:30 pm at the gazebo.

The Kongo Bros from London, South Africa and Phoenix recently burst onto the American music scene with their explosive Platinum selling hit, “Come With Me Now”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz2GVlQkn4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz2GVlQkn4Q. They’ve been featured on promos for HBO, the NFL and the NBA promos, and the sound track for the movie, Expendables 3. Their latest release, “Lunatic,” may suggest why Taosenos will respond.

Dawn Richardson, founder and producer of Taos Solar Music Festival says, “The combination of this upbeat urban rock with the intimate setting of the historic Taos Plaza gives us a wonderful canvas for an artistic endeavor which will be a fun kick off for the legendary Taos Fall Arts Festival. We are going to try to give the audience an up close and interactive experience that will include unique tree lightings and visual displays- basically a working artistic collaboration between The Paseo and SolarFest.”

The Thursday night free concert and “music experience” will kick-off the first year of Taos’s “Paseo”, a unique interactive street celebration of the arts, spanning ½ mile of the Town’s main thoroughfare, Paseo del Pueblo Norte (US and NM Route 64) from the Plaza to the northern Town limits. According to the Paseo’s founder, architect and artist J. Matt Thomas, “The Paseo” will transform the downtown into a one-day-only outdoor art exhibition featuring 20 international competing artists from as close as Taos to as far away as Atlanta, New York, San Francisco and Germany.

The outdoor “exhibits” will feature everything from “x-trees” that grow live from a Wi-Fi connection with branches made of audience generated data, to live performances, user interactive wall and sound projections and a 30 foot robot controlled by passer’s-bye. The Paseo itself kicks-off the 40th Annual Fall Arts Festival, a week-long town-wide multi-venue exhibition of local and international art held at historic buildings, galleries, museums, churches and public places. (visit taosfallarts.com or taos.org for details)

Rick Bellis, Taos Town Manager said, “We are really excited about this band, the Paseo, the Arts
Festival and the whole connection between Taos’ arts and music community. We wanted to bring both the music and the arts out from behind the security gates and gallery walls and give it back to the people, to get everyone involved. What better way than a free concert on the plaza and interactive art on the streets”.

“As always”, Bellis continued, “We’re ecstatic about partnering with Dawn and Dan of Solarfest, with their 15 year history of stellar events, including most recently the opening of the Old County Courthouse as a new hip venue and the record-breaking “Mumford and Sons” experience last year.”

(Editor’s Note to other media: Did Dawn and Dan ever pay their bills for advertising the other “solar fest” events. They stiffed Horse Fly, according to the publisher. I’m just saying…)

See Kongos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz2GVlQkn4Q