Penasco Cultura Celebrated and the Gringo Reads in El Prado
Reminder: Bill Whaley reads from the comic Gringo Lessons: Twenty Years of Terror in Taos tonight from 5 to 7 at Las Pistoleras. He’s expected to select some of the passages referring to interactions with La Gente from his days in the National Guard to this and that adventure at Old Martinez Hall as well as various and sundry adventures with con artists and others. Las Pistoleras keeps Chicano Culture alive by acknowledging the occasional Gringo as a “Chonky.” Tonight’s reading will be dedicated to the Disappeared Barber of El Prado.
Don’t miss the Peñasco Community Celebración de Culturas this weekend, starting at 5 Friday evening with $8 buffet at Sugar Nymphs and evening dancing to the music of folk musician Cipriano Vigil at the Community Center. Many people are opening their homes to demonstrate traditional skills—making chicos, woodworking, colcha embroidery, preparing chicharrones and biscochitos and more. Carl Struck is leading a 90 minute walk through the forrest to talk about sustainable forrest management. Picuris has an annual footrace. NM Poet Laureate Levi Romero will read at the Peñasco theater. There is food and crafts for sale. Attached is full description and maps.
http://www.penasconm.org/#!penasco-events/cfvg
Those who missed Bill Whaley’s reading of Gringo Lessons: Twenty Years of Terror” at Brodsky Books can catch the Gringo “chonky” at a second reading at Las Pistoleras, home to Chicano activism, in El Prado from five to seven on Friday night, June 12. Whaley, a Nighthawk author will also read on Saturday July 25 as part of the literary extravaganza, titled “Taos Writers on Taos.”
John Nichols will read solo on Friday July 24 in the opening salvo. Organizers of “Taos Writers on Taos,” say they will invite everyone from legendary artist Jim Wagner, Fly Fisher Taylor Streit, Ski Instructor Rick Richards to cookbook authors (Jean Mayer?), and community memoirists like Bertha Quintana and Paul Martinez to poets like Richard Trujillo and Phyllis Hotch, not to mention scholars like Ms. Cunningham and Mr. Miller and Ms. Rudnick and Ms. Rodgriguez. So spread the word.
Donations of $5 will be encouraged and the proceeds used to buy quasi-permanent electric lights for the “Mural Room” at the Historic County Courthouse. “We’re tired of working late in candlelight,” said Whaley. “Despite the WPA 1934 Frescoes, this is the 21st Century but not here.”
Inspired by the likes of “Public Art Maven” Paul Figueroa, a one man band working tirelessly and voluntarily on behalf of the visualists, historicists, and community do-gooders, Whaley says “It’s time for the community to recognize the written word as part of the local culture, a culture largely focused on the imagery and the performing arts, while the authors and literature labor in their solitary rooms and read to friends and family.” Whaley continued, “In fact we need to introduce these notoriously shy writers to each other.”
Authors and presses, bookshops and others are invited to sell their “local books” i.e. Taosenos on Taos during the weekend event in July.
Whaley also said plans were in the works for a broader and more inclusive literary festival later in the year that would include a broader swath of litterateurs, who engage the public outside Taos County. “We’re parochial but not completely provincial,” said Whaley. “Just as the visualists show their work in galleries, we, too, must get used to forcing ourselves on to the public consciousness via public events.”