Taos, New Mexico - A My Kind of Town Monday Post

The word Taos means "People of the Red Willow" in the Tiwa language.

There are actually three different parts to Taos. The actual town, population 4700, the nearby ski valley, and the 1000 year old Taos Pueblo and reservation. For this post, I am only going to focus mostly on the town itself with a few pictures of the surrounding scenery. Here is a shot of the road bewtween Questa, New Mexico and Taos.


Taos came into being as a result of the Spanish conquests of the Indian pueblos in the area. Years of unrest, between the Spanish and the various Indian tribes, occurred until the United States took over the State of New Mexico in 1847. That occupation led to the Taos revolt of which you can read more about here.

In 1899 artists began to settle in the town and they eventually created the Taos Society of Arts. The Taos art scene is very much alive and vibrant to this day. Most of the galleries frown on pictures but here is a shot of a weird creation that I captured through the front glass.


The Taos Plaza also has the distinction of being one of a handful of places congress has granted the right to fly the American flag both night and day. The story goes as such ...

In 1861, Southern sympathizers ripped down the flag over the Plaza. A US Army Captain named Smith Simpson, along with the famed Kit Carson picked the tattered flag up off the ground and nailed it to the top of a tall cottonwood pole and raised it over the Plaza. They threatened to shoot anyone who tried to do the flag harm. Backing up their threat they guarded the flag both day and night. Word spread and congress later granted official permission to fly the flag at Taos Plaza round-the-clock

English novelist, D.H. Lawrence traded the original manuscript of his self-biographical novel Sons and Lovers to New York socialite Maybe Dodge Luhan for a ranch in the area. (Here's hoping I can one day trade one of my manuscripts for a ranch in the mountains.) The author's ashes lie in a memorial bearing his name at the ranch. Lawrence was also an artist. In 1929 thirteen of his paintings were confiscated by London police. Nine of those forbidden painting can be viewed at the La Fonda de Taos.

I could go on and on talking about the various rebel, free spirits and artists who have called Taos home, but the thing I love the most is that the town still has that creative vibe to it. Walking around stories and characters idea fill my head. It is something that has to be experienced as there are no words to capture the town's true essence.

The smell of pinon, the occasional whiff of reefer (Taos was home to two separate Hippie communes back in the 60's) , the pine-filled breeze of the mountains. In Taos, uniqueness is rewarded and favored. The uncommon is applauded, the creative cheered, and the questioning respected. It truly is an artisan's town.

Julia Roberts, Val Kilmer, and Donald Rumsfled (seems like an odd fit, but then again he is said to be an avid fisherman and the area certainly offer that) own homes here.

Now here are a bunch more shots I took from the area. If you get picture overload be sure to scroll down to find the links to this week's My Town Monday participants.

The following bookstore is located right on the square. It is a nice smallish store that sells mostly books of a local flair but they also carry classics and a nice children's selection.

Now this next bookstore is off of the main square. Don't you love that name. They have a nice fiction selection upstairs.

Look what I found. Lottery by fellow blogger Patricia Woods. For those of you who haven't read this novel yet what are you waiting for. It's out in softcover now. Read it you won't be sorry.

Speaking of books. Look what I spotted on a stop sign. I had to circle the block three times before Jennifer got a good shot.

Here is a shot of a Catholic church and an approaching rainstorm.

A shot of my wife's favorite restaurant. She recommends the stuffed sopapilla I prefer the blue corn flower and pinon nut pancakes. But stay away from that nut in the gaudy shirt. (He's my father-in-law)

The last two shots are of the Rio Grande River as viewed from a steel span bridge. Yes, that is the same Rio Grande that eventually separates our country from Mexico. No, I did not hike down there to fish.

MY TOWN MONDAYERS

J.L. Krueger -- Kabul, Afghanistan
David Cranmer -- Rayne Louisiana
Patti Abbott -- Detroit Michigan
Barbara Martin -- Toronto, Canada
Clair Dickson -- Livingston County, Michigan
Reb -- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Lyzzydee -- Welwyn Garden City, England
WordVixen -- Lititz, Pennsylvania
Clare2E(Women of Mystery) Mamaroneck, New York
PretZel - Saylorville Lake, Iowa
Debra -- Blue Mountain Lake, New York
Barrie Summy -- Fenelon Falls, Ontario

Word To Your Mother

Let's talk about words. Each year the scholars over at Merriam-Webster decide which new words to add the the dictionary thus making them fair game for Scrabble players. This year they added more than a 100 new ones. Here are a few they've decided are page worthy, along with my comments. The year is parenthesis is the year that the word was first spotted in print. I have taken the words and definitions from this website.

Air quotes (1989): gesture made by raising and flexing the index and middle fingers of both hands, used to call attention to a spoken word or expression. -- For my money there is gesture in the world as annoying as this one. The air semi-colon however is one of my favorites, and both still beat playing the air guitar while listening to Foreigner's "Jukebox Hero" in your best friend's basement.

Dirty bomb (1956): bomb designed to release radioactive material -- And I thought this just meant you added olive juice to the mixture. Oh wait, that's a dirty martini.

Edamame (1951): immature green soybeans, usually in the pod -- What? These soybeans laugh at fart jokes and snicker like Beavis and Butthead when their teacher talks about Uranus? Either way they're green and nasty and I ain't eating them.

Netroots (2003): grassroots political activists who communicate via the Internet, especially by blogs. -- Those rascally bloggers

Pescatarian (1993): vegetarian whose diet includes fish. -- Hey, I'm not a carnivore after all. I'm a meatatarian.

Pretexting (1992): presenting oneself as someone else to obtain private information -- I thought maybe this is what you did if you were air quoting to warm up your fingers before sending a text message on your Iphone.

Prosecco (1881): a dry Italian sparkling wine. -- Is there a reason it took a 127 years before this word was recognized? Did this one get voted in by the old-timers committee? (If you're not a baseball fan you may not get that reference)

Racino (1995): racetrack at which slot machines are available for gamblers. -- I prefer a pokacino, but thena gian that sounds more like a drink at Starbucks than a place to play poker and wager on the ponies.

Supercross (1983): motorcycle race held in a stadium on a dirt track having hairpin turns and high jumps. -- Only 25 years for this one. Supercross says "Eat my dirt Prosecco.!"

Texas Hold 'em (1995): Poker in which each player is dealt two cards face down and all players share five cards dealt face-up. -- Come one everybody join in ...

So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow.
Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light.
And the night got deathly quiet, and his face lost all expression.
Said, if you're gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.

You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There ll be time enough for countin' when the dealins done.

Call me crazy, but I think the Webster board added a gambling, wine drinker to this year's committee.

Scratchin' The Itch

First off let me get back to the rash since I've had so many questions about it. The doctor believes I have had a nasty run in with either poison ivy or poison oak. Guess there was a price to pay for my little fishing excursion to New Mexico.

In all of my time stomping aropujd in the outdoors this is my first infliction from any sort of poisonous vegetation. Maybe it's karma getting me back for my steadfast motto that lettuce (or all things green) is the devil. But the way I see it I have even more reason now to hate things that grow in the dirt. I still contend that salads, carrots, and all other such things are food's food. Let the cows, chickens, and goats, eat the roughage and I'll eat them. And yes Josie, if I developed a steak allergy that would be the end of me.

Let move on to my pursuit of publication for Plundered Booty. I am waiting to hear back from a few trusted advisor and critiquers on my query letter an then once I've made the appropriate changes, I'll start sending out my pitch to literary agents. I'm excited about the possibilities as I truly believed the novel will find an audience but I've had my chops busted before so I know how difficult the process is. And I know the style and manner in which I wrote the book will rub some the wrong way as I've broken many of the so-called rules of writing but I hope that I have learned enough over the years to have broken them with a flair and style that makes the book an entertaining and compelling read.

Boy, do I hope.

One thing I find myself worrying about now is the blog and the things I put forth out into the world. I'm quite proud of the fact I've reached a solid group of readers and hits on the blog. So many in fact hat I dare mention it in my query letter. I can only assume that any agent4ed interested in the query or manuscript will come here. I wonder and worry what their impression will be. What if they are a devote vegetarian? Will my carnivorous habits be enough to turn them against my writing? What about the myriad of typos or grammatical mistakes I make on here? Sure, I could edit heavier but then I either wouldn't have enough time to devote to my actual fiction writing or post very often. I think my writing voice and style come through on the blog but is that enough or will agents expect perfection here as well as my manuscript?

Are the rest of you blogging writer's this neurotic at query time? Do you worry more about your blog when you think some one in the biz might be looking. I know there have been several agents pop in here from time to time but I honestly have no idea what they come away thinking. So if you are one of the few, the proud, the holder of dreams please drop me a comment or shoot me an email and give me your thoughts.

And I'd love to hear from the rest of you as well. We commoners gotta stick together to help assuage each others insecurities. Wish me luck.

Who's Hungry?

I'm not much of a chef. Beyond tossing a hunk of marinated mat on the grill I do very little cooking and even less baking. But I do make a mean loaf of beer bread if I do say so myself. Since it is the only real recipe I know I'm doing a little spin-off of it to give you my instructions for becoming a writer.

For beer bread you need 3 cups of sifted flour.

To become a writer you need 3 cups of sifted imagination. You could just dump the imagination in but if you don't sift it to make it soft and fluffy you'll end up with a chuck of inedible or unreadable junk.

The bread requires 3 teaspoons of baking powder.

A writers needs 3 teaspoons of determination. Yeah we've all heard of the lucky SOB that sat down and wrote in novel in months and sold it at auction six months later. We've also heard of Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, but unless you're eight I wouldn't depend on any of them to come down you chimney or go hippity-hopping down your street
anytime soon.

Add a teaspoon of salt to the bread.

A teaspoon of foolish hope is required of all writers. The odds are stacked against you, but don't get caught up in that fact. There are thousands of books published every year and whose to say you're loaf or novel isn't going to be one of them. Dare to dream.

Pour in a bottle of beer and mix. Some of the special beers such as Blue Moon's Honey Ale and the Pumpkin Spice make for an added taste to the bread. But at the very least get a good dark beer as it will give the bread more flavor that any light beer or standard domestic. When you have a ball of dough of equal consistency pour into greased loaf pan.

Pour in you sweat blood and tears into your writing. Don't hold back. Bland will not get you anywhere. Write like you momma is dead and your preacher is illiterate. An agent once said to me, "If you're writing doesn't piss someone off, you're not writing strong enough to really reach anyone."

Add half a cup of melted butter to the top of the dough.

No one can write without being a reader, so pour in your love of reading, study other books and writers you love. See why their stories work, then incorporate those same ideas and techniques, but tweak and turn them until they are your own. Write something you'd want to read.

Set your oven to 375.

Get excited and hot and bothered about your work. If your characters and plot do not get you excited while you' re writing, researching, and building your story you can't expect agents or editors to get excited when you are finished.

Bake for an hour or until the top is a light brown.

Write and edit until it's ready to submit.

Let cool for at least twenty minutes.

Don't rush you baby out to be devoured. Let it simmer and then slice it yourself. See how it tastes. When it melts in your mouth, slap another pat of butter on and dish it out.

As an added bonus I'll throw my crumbs worth of tongue-in-cheek suggestion on how to craft a particular genre of bread.

Literary Bread - Add a dollop of pretentiousness, and a squirt of academia nut. This bread might win a ribbon or two at the fair but that poorly crafted commercial bread will make all the money.

Romance Bread - Toss in a pinch of wishful thinking, a sprinkle of pipe dream, invite a large man with rippling abs and long flowing locks to stir the ingredients while a reluctant and stubborn women tells him he's doing it all wrong and you will have some tasty bread that will fly off the shelves, but be the scorn of all other bread makers.

Fantasy/Sci-Fi Bread - For this bread you have to call flour - akbinykl, salt- jubellio, and the beer Lord Rakmia. Actually each baker must create as many hard to pronounce ingredients as possible. Also add in a few things no body actually believes in. You know things like, the nose hair of a Pegasus, the scale of a dragon, or the tongue of an honest politician. This bread will have an avid fan base and if you are lucky they will hold conventions for years to come in honor of your bread.

Women's Fiction Bread - There are many ways to bake this bread but makes sure it is stirred by a woman who has had some misfortune a wayward husband, a sister that betrayed her, some sort of grief. make sure the woman is fed up and ready to take on all challengers who question her bread stirring ability. If you can invoke emotion, laughter, tears, anger) from those that eat this bread you have done your job, but a word of caution. Men who bake this bread have a hell of a time convincing anyone to taste it.

Western Bread - This bread is actually the same story as romance bread but stirred entirely by a man who lost his pa, ranch, wife or family do to someone else's greed. Add some dust and tumbleweeds to the recipe also and substitute sex scenes with gunfight scenes.


By the way the recipe is real, the rest of it is just my take on this crazy pursuit and meant in fun. I appreciate authors of all genres so take my descriptions with a pinch of sugar. They'll be sweeter that way.

So how about all of you? Got anything good in the oven? Have any more bread descriptions you'd like to share?

Newsbreak!

I interrupt this regularly scheduled blog to announce. ... This is starting out to be one crappy day!

I'm headed off to the doctor this morning but I've suddenly developed rickets or some other mysterious ailment that has manifested itself as a nasty rash over a sizable portion of my body. The itchy red bumps kept me up a good portion of the night and are driving me crazy.

If that weren't bad enough I have just discovered that Scrabulous (scrabble on facebook) has been shutdown for all North American users. How am I going to screw off now?

I'll be back later with my regularly scheduled blog where I'll give you my recipe for becoming a writer.

My Town Monday -- On The Road - Part 1

This week I'm taking My Town Monday on the road. If you take off from my house and head northwest of my house for four hours you will get here.

This is a shot of Cimarron Canyon in northern New Mexico. The area is home to Philmont Boy Scout Ranch. Philmont is the largest youth camp by both size and number of participants anywhere in the world. It is also the only site to have a confirmed Tyrannosaurus Rex track.

Also nearby is Ted Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch which is said to be the largest tract of privately owned, contiguous land in the United States.

Cimarron Canyon has about fifteen or sixteen miles of fine trout stream that runs from Eagle's Nest lake, down to the town of Cimarron which has a lot of history itself. For a sample, click here to learn about the famed St. James Hotel. Here are more pics of the area. Click on any picture for a larger shot. All photos were taken by either me or my wife. We camped in the canyon as most of it is a state park.

Continuing on through Cimarron Canyon you come to Eagles Nest Lake.

Nestled on the shores of the lake is the small town of Eagles Nest, New Mexico. Eagle's Nest is located along the Enchanted Circle, an 83-mile loop through mountains, valleys, mesa, and national forest area of New Mexico. Here are some pics of the town and lake.




Take a right at Eagle's Nest and you are on the road to Red River, New Mexico. Here are a few shots of that stretch of highway.


Here is a shot of the town of of Red River as you are descending into the valley.


The town is a touristy and chocked full of shops. In the summer you can fish the Red River which runs through town, hike, ride horses, and enjoy the cool mountain air. Come winter Red River is a ski town.

I've rambled enough for this week but next week I'll talk about the Enchanted Circle's most famous town Taos, New Mexico. Taos is one of my wife's favorite spots on earth and a very cool place for anyone who enjoys the arts and a eclectic group of people who all dance to the beat of their own drummer.

Be sure and check back here for links to other My Town Mondayers so that you can learn more about other places all across this planet we call Earth.

Patti Abbott - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Lyzzydee -- Welwyn Garden City, England

Debra -- Village of Peninsula, Ohio

Robyn - - San Francisco, California

Reb -- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Mary Nix -- Olmsted Falls, Ohio

Barbara Martin -- Toronto, Canada

Barrie Summy -- Long Beach, California

Nan Higginson (Women of Mystery) Oshkosh, Wisconsin

J.L. Krueger -- Kabul, Afghanistan

PretZel -- Valley Junction, Iowa

Zippity Doo Dah

Y'all probably didn't even notice, but I've been gone the last few days. I decided I need to get away. No computers , no email, no TVs. But I gotta say there was some great stuff in the comments of my Subway post and after reading the comments I'm now starving. And I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with seasonal taste buds. I'll try to make the rounds to all of your blogs over the next couple of days. After my hard push and frustration to get Plundered Booty finished I was feeling burned out, but my batteries have been recharged because I got to spend my days off in one of my happy places.

Everyone should have a happy place or three. The one spot you can visit that erases worry, relaxes tension, and frees your mind. I have three.


#1 For the father in me I love to visit Walt Disney World with my boys. The looks of pure excitement, wonder and awe are their faces is all I need to make me feel young again. Standing on Main Street USA looking up a t the castle while all around me thousands of people speaking dozens of languages take in the same sights and sounds. It truly is a magical experience if you don't get caught up worrying about the heat, crowds, or prices. And that is easy to do. I simply look at the expressions on my boys faces and look at the place as they do.

No, I did not hope a plane and fly off to Florida for a few days.

#2 For the husband (and Saints fan) in me. I love to sit at a table at Cafe Du Monde catty-cornered from Jackson Square in New Orleans. A couple of powdered sugar covered beignets and a steaming cup of the ever so fragrant chicory coffee. Nestled between the might Mississippi river and the French Quarter, Cafe Du Monde is America's original coffee shop and the only place in the world that I actually like to drink coffee. The sweets sounds of street musicians nearly always fills the air and the eclectic mix of people passing by and through makes this a great scene. Pour enough of that brown sugar into you coffee until it turns the color of milk chocolate and then sip away and feel the adrenaline and caffeine rush through your veins. It's even better when you can head off to the Superdome afterwards and watch the Saints pummel the Dallas Cowboys. Yes, I have witnessed that very event. By the way back in the day a nice Blackened Voodoo Dixie Lager went well as a follow up to the chicory coffee. Actually, I love the city of New Orleans and have never had a bad trip down there.

Nope I didn't head to the Big Easy these past few days either.

#3 For the outdoorsmen in me, there is no better place in the word than knee deep in a rushing trout stream. The scent of pine hangs in the air. The tug of a fish on your line. The sun reflecting off the rainbow stripe of the fish as it arcs out of the water. The sound of a gentle breeze rustling the aspens. Yep, I've spent the last few days knee deep in the cold refreshing waters of a New Mexico trout stream.

More on that tomorrow, as I plan to do a My Vacation Monday and share pictures and facts about the high country of northern New Mexico.

So what's you happy place or places?