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Macs in Gallery Land Corn dogs, I tell you. Tons of 'em ! Southwestern
street party The occasion was an event called "The Lighting of Ledoux," which refers to Ledoux Street here in Taos. It's a short, narrow, ancient little meander that leads from near the Plaza down to the Harwood Museum. At least a dozen galleries and stores line its sides (I didn't say "sidewalks" because there aren't any) and the idea was that from 5:00 until 8:00 p.m., all the farolitos and luminarias would be lit and the galleries open. People like me would be free to wander through, eat lots of goodies, and have a great time. Farolitos, incidentally, are those little paper sacks weighted down with sand and lit with votive candles. Yes, I know, you call them luminarias, but those are actually the name for piñon bonfires in the street. If you live south of Santa Fe, farolitos are called luminarias, and I have no idea what they call luminarias. Don't fret if you're confused. They do something similar to this every year in Santa Fe on Canyon Road, only I'm sure that party is much more crowded and silly. At least here there were "real" Taoseños in attendance, lots of artists and regular folks, with hardly a jewel-encrusted ladies cowboy hat to be seen. Well, there were a few, but mostly just all kinds of gloriously eclectic informal types, and not a bit of tweed on any of them. So
when do we get to eat? The first gallery we visited was in a renovated old adobe home, like most of them on Ledoux. It was of course to die for, as the saying goes, and you can't imagine all the colors. As the artist/owner and hostess (a tall skinny blonde lady dressed in red) ushered everyone inside, I passed a Dell-branded LCD monitor on a table by the door and hissed discreetly, being a guest and all. On the way back to the kitchen I saw a brace of putty-gray PCs in an adjacent office and was immediately predisposed not to like the art. The art, however, was more than good and even whimsical. Imagine that. The kitchen, however, was just around the bend and I smelled something good. I can't describe the room except to say that several dozen refugees could have made a nice condominium of it and had plenty of space left over. There were enough goodies to feed them, too: more cheeses, quiches, chips, nuts, and sauces than I could even recognize, little meatballs you speared with toothpicks, mountains of desserts and candies, and (be still my heart) an immense tray of what looked and smelled like miniature corn dogs. YES! That's exactly what they were, almost too hot to touch and totally delicious.  Finally
some Macs Not far beyond that was the midway point and Lenny Foster's photo gallery, where I saw the first Mac. Lenny is a black guy (which makes him unusual in this town) who hails from the East Coast (which does not). This night he was appropriately garbed in dreadlocks and a fake leopard-skin trimmed Santa hat. On a table in his upper-level office sat a late model G3 iMac, and if you guessed it was green, you're smarter than I think. Lenny's color portrait photos from a recent trip to Senegal are fascinating, by the way, and you may want to take a look at his Web site. At the top of the homepage is the statement, " Lenny Foster's photographs honor and reveal the healing power of the spirit," and it doesn't get much better than that. After making a turnaround at the bottom of the hill, we walked back up the way we had come, hitting all the galleries on the other side of Ledoux. By this time it was quite dark and bitter cold, but the luminarias in the street provided welcome heat along the way. Parents fueled by hot buttered rum chatted happily with friends and left their children free to poke sticks into all the bonfires. Speaking as a barely-cured childhood pyromaniac, I know how much they enjoyed the glorious freedom to burn and learn. By now I was feeling pretty damn satisfied with just about everything in general, so imagine how prepared I was to enjoy the cigar store whiteman in R.C. Gorman's Navajo Gallery, the next stop up the street. "Cigar
store whiteman"? As we walked in the door, my eye went immediately to the first iMac G4 I'd ever seen in real life. Yes, I know, I don't get out much. But there it was, turned on no less, like an art object in itself. I sidled over to get a closer look, but the gallery owner was deeply engrossed in a heavy conversation with a bearded young writer who would probably have to go off to sleep in his car afterwards, and as the pair and the fireplace were between me and the iMac, I let it go. The kid would need to soak up all the heat he could, I realized, and it was almost Christmas anyway, so what the hell. On the way home I remembered the post-Thanksgiving broadcast of the local Native American music show on KTAO-FM, "Moccasin Wire," where the host rather genially (I thought) referred to Turkey Day as the "Native American National Day of Mourning." Interesting to have that perspective, and when was the last time you heard such things in your own home town? R.C. would understand, obviously, even though I don't think he's a Mac guy. Sometimes you can just tell. Actually, I doubt he uses computers at all, but that's just pure, blind speculation invented to end a paragraph. Careful,
now... The "PC" gallery had the best food, however. And the coolest gallery of all didn't seem to have a computer anywhere. I think I know what that means, but you didn't hear that from me. Senior
Applelinks editor and columnist John
H. Farr
continues skipping merrily down the rocky road of life
("Ouch!").
My
BUFFALO LIGHTS ebook is all about
giving up everything to move to the Wild West.
Order info and review links here.
(Current year's columns just below)
"GRACK!" is © copyright 2002, John H. Farr, all rights reserved
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