Santa Fe Reporter, November 23, 2022

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EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

JULIE ANN GRIMM

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR

ROBYN DESJARDINS

ART DIRECTOR ANSON STEVENS-BOLLEN

CULTURE EDITOR ALEX DE VORE

NEWS EDITOR JEFF PROCTOR

SENIOR CORRESPONDENT JULIA GOLDBERG

STAFF WRITER ANDY LYMAN

CONTRIBUTING WRITER ANNABELLA FARMER

CALENDAR EDITOR SIENA SOFIA BERGT

DIGITAL SERVICES MANAGER BRIANNA KIRKLAND

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PRINTER THE NEW MEXICAN

PRESTON MARTIN Co-Founder, BTI

COVER, NOV. 16:

“THE PLIGHT OF THE PINYON JAY”

LOVE FOR THE LITTLES

It’s been a rough year for the little things out here. Fire, flooding, remediation has done dam age to nests, caches and forage; early single-digit overnight lows and snowfall aren’t helping. Put out seed/water/suet. Throw old berries out in the yard. Be mindful of nests & forage.

JOE KELLY VIA TWITTER @ADJECTIVENOUN

NO SLEEP IN THESE PJAYS

I just wanted to send my appreciation for that

wonderful article on p-jays and their current situation. It was great to hear the perspective of Peggy Darr and Kristine Johnson. Thank you for being there and providing us awesome local information!

NAV KHALSA SANTA FE

FOOD, NOV. 16:

WHAT NEXT?

First we have to live without fajitas on the Plaza, now this.

SAMUEL M HERRERA

VIA FACEBOOK

THE BEST

Happy for Felipe! Sad for everyone who loves his food! Best tacos in Santa Fe!!

CHEYEY PEEK VIA FACEBOOK

NOV. 17:

ON ADVICE TO MASK

“FELIPE’S TACOS FOUNDER FELIPE MARTINEZ TO RETIRE NEXT MONTH”

THANKSGIVING IS UPON US

So let’s all eat dinner at 1:30 in the afternoon for some reason and pretend like our families aren’t loosely affiliated weirdos who only get together because society deems it so.

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE CANS AT LEAST TWO SANTA FE-BASED EDITORS...

Gannett: “Hold my beer...”

...MEANWHILE, ABQ CITY COUNCILOR PAT DAVIS

ANOTHER NEWSPAPER

BUYS

That brings his li’l empire to four for those who are counting.

No Supreme Court orders needed this time—progress!

WORLD CUP KICKS OFF IN QATAR

You know—that bastion of freedom that uses forced labor to build stadiums and won’t let people drink at soccer games.

STATE SEN. LINDA LOPEZ FLOATS REPEAL OF NM RENT CONTROL LAW

Careful, Senator, lest folks think the Legislature might be interested in addressing our housing crisis.

SEARCH FOR RARE WEASEL UNDERWAY IN NEW MEXICO

Too...many...joke...options...

MOVIE MAYHEM

Producers of gangster biopic claim COVID-19 halted production, but workers spin a different yarn.

LEAFLET

Our newest cannabis newsletter is out in time for Thanksgiving. Read it at sfreporter.com/cannabis

After a recent interview with one of my long-time sourc es, they asked how things were going with my new job. I told them I was busy, but in a good way. I’m sorry to say, I lied to my source. It’s true that I’m the good kind of busy, but I left out the parts about how I’m thriving as a journalist and learning and improving as a writer.

A

Letter from Andy Lyman

the Southside in Santa Fe, but I’ve also had my eye on the cannabis industry for a decade and I’m reporting on that in print, online and in our new Leaf Brief podcast that launches in January.

I’ve long been what the kids these days call a “stan” of SFR. But I’ve also been a friend, both in the financial and more tradition al senses. Long before I had even consid ered coming on board, I could sometimes be found just sort of hanging around the office. There were the occasional free lance jobs, but mostly I was a low-key groupie. Sure, I love the biting snark of alt-weeklies in general, but SFR goes be yond that and provides readers with ex actly what you would expect from a local paper.

For roughly the past eight years, writ ing about politics was my jam, and every so often I would pitch a story to SFR. With every story, or video in one case, I was always impressed with the thorough editing process and the staff’s ability to crank out news stories with an added bit of levity. Quite frankly, the whole opera tion made me a little jealous of staff writ ers who came before me. When I learned about an opening for a news reporter at SFR a few months ago, I quickly jumped at the opportunity. Now I’m part of the news staff and I feel like I just got a shot to play for the 1976 Eagles. I’m still covering politics and now I’m also learning about

For anyone who doesn’t geek out over journalism, (first off, why not?) things are only getting tougher in our world. Forget the cho ruses of “fake news” we hear or read almost daily. Newsrooms are shrinking, papers are being sold off to large corporations and some times those two things happen in conjunction. But there’s some good news: SFR isn’t giving up or backing down. In fact, we’re pushing forward to bring you, dear readers, a high-quality pa per each week—delivered free all over the city.

And if it looks like we’re having fun, it’s because we are. We may not take ourselves too seriously, but we take our jobs very seriously. The level of scrutiny applied to my stories before readers see them is just one reason why SFR is what it is.

Where else can you get snarky and cyn ical content like 7 Days, right along with in-depth and thoughtful stories about our state’s opioid epidemic and the ongoing climate crisis? The Santa Fe Reporter, that’s where.

I know many of you think just as highly of SFR as I have for so many years. Sure, sharing my level of obsession is probably not healthy, but you can always be our friend! Please consider contributing to ward the independent journalism SFR is known for and become a full-fledged Friend of the Reporter.

-Andy Lyman

This letter kicks off the annual year-end campaign for Friends of the Reporter, a community model for supporting our journalism mission. Our newspaper and website remain free. Can you help offset the cost of paper, distribution and newsgathering? Visit sfreporter.com/friends, to make a one-time or recurring donation or via check at PO Box 4910, Santa Fe, NM 87502.

“SFR isn’t giving up or backing down.”

Green Equity

Cannabis industry fairness—a cornerstone to legalization in New Mexico—is a work in progress, which lawmakers may continue in January

Advisory Committee. She says an of ten-overlooked part of industry equity is reinvesting cannabis tax money to im pacted communities.

“Equity is more than just equity in the market,” Kaltenbach tells SFR. “It’s also about reinvesting dollars. It’s about in dustry being engaged in the community in which they are a part of. So I think it’s important that we remember that equity is broader than just who has a license.”

BY ANDY LYMAN andylyman@sfreporter.com

With drug laws that dispropor tionately impacted people of color in the rearview mirror under cannabis legalization in New Mexico, the next step for regulators is creating a mar ket that offers a bit of redemption for those whose lives have been forever changed by cannabis convictions.

New Mexico’s Cannabis Control Division has made some strides toward a more equi table industry in the seven months since adult-use sales began. But there’s more work to be done in order to meet the bench marks set by the division and its statutorily created advisory panel. A diverse and fair cannabis industry is on the division’s to-do list and at least one lawmaker is ready to invest money from cannabis taxes into the hardest-hit communities.

The notion of creating equity in terms of who earns profits from the state’s cannabis industry began surfacing in legislative de bates several years ago and crystalized in the months leading up to the final passage of the Cannabis Regulation Act this year. One of the law’s architects, Rep. Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, repeatedly made industry fairness part of his legalization pitch. That push from Martínez and the bill’s other cosponsors ultimately left the Cannabis Regulatory Advisory Committee—one of the creations of the legalization law—in charge of coming up with guideposts for eq uity. In December 2021—eight months after the legalization law went into effect and four months before the state saw any sales—the advisory committee sent state regulators a

Mary Poppins list of suggestions, including the creation of a “social and economic eq uity applicant” classification to help small, diverse operators compete against large, corporate entities; setting up an equity of fice at the division; and reinvesting cannabis tax money back into communities dispro portionately affected by the war on drugs.

In turn, the division outlined its plan— based on the committee’s recommenda tions—in a February memo, which included devoting a staff member to oversee “the so cial and economic equity initiatives of the division.” The division’s plan also includes specifics on who qualifies as a “equity appli cant,” such as a “distressed farmer,” those with cannabis-related criminal records, Indigenous people and people of color, among others.

Robert Sachs, the division’s deputy di rector of policy, tells SFR the work has be gun and still has a ways to go.

“Where we’re starting is working with industry and developing some workshops and mentorship programs specifically to just really educate licensees and applicants on how the licensing process works,” Sachs says.

Some of those workshops, Sachs adds, are with the help of industry veterans and largely focus on the basics of applying for a business license and running a business.

“There are some barriers that any en trepreneur would face,” he says. “But for cannabis licensees, or anyone who wants to break into the cannabis industry, there are additional barriers that we found a lot

of people aren’t really aware of, particular ly those who are social equity applicants or micro business applicants.”

But, Sachs says, the division can’t fully identify everyone who might qualify as an equity applicant because the division does not collect data beyond gender, ethnicity and preferred pronouns.

Emily Kaltenbach, who’s day job is heading New Mexico’s Drug Policy Alliance, chairs the Cannabis Regulatory

Early iterations of what became the Cannabis Regulation Act included specif ic appropriations for cannabis tax dollars, but as time wore on, sponsors opted to wait and see exactly how much revenue the state and municipalities would collect. Despite no specific home for cannabis rev enue, a national tax expert praised New Mexico during a recent interim legislative hearing for not going overboard with div vying up the money before the market fully stabilizes. But one New Mexico lawmaker says the 2023 legislative session marks the right time to start talking about what to do with the millions of dollars coming in each month.

Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, was another primary sponsor of the Cannabis Regulation Act. She sees an increase in minority and female owned cannabis businesses as a “positive start,” making the state an “equitable gold standard.”

“How we continue to grow, how we continue to build, I think is going to be re ally important and critical to see that it’s a success story for New Mexico,” Romero says. “But already I’m really proud and happy with how it’s gone so far.”

Besides plans to earmark cannabis rev enue, Romero says she plans to sponsor a bill that would put small cultivation oper ations on even ground with larger growers by creating parity in production limits.

Romero’s vision of an equitable can nabis industry includes, in part, revenue reinvestments in communities that need it most and access to capital for those who have a business background and want to get into the cannabis game, but don’t have access to traditional funding. She com pares reinvesting cannabis revenue to other projects such as broadband internet access and early childhood education and says they all require “baby steps” to make sure the funding is there. But, she says, now that the cannabis money is rolling in, the next step comes during next year’s leg islative session.

“I really do think we will be at the stage of starting to make those investments and starting to ensure that these programs are set up to do what we’d like them to once they’re fully funded,” Romero says.

New Mexico’s recreational-use cannabis sales began in April. The next step for state lawmakers and cannabis regulators is to create a fair playing field for operators.

ANDY LYMAN

H ow we continue to grow, how we continue to build, I think is going to be really important and critical to see that it’s a success story for New Mexico,

Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe

Planting for Prosperity

BY JEFF PROCTOR jeffproctor@sfreporter.com

Careful cruisers in the Swan Park area will notice something a little different these days: a handful of new plant species beginning their lives in the Southside open space. Give it a decade or so, and the change will be complete, with a handful of Austrian pine trees stretching 40 to 50 feet skyward.

The planting came courtesy of area youths.

“My first year out of high school, I had this internship and we were talking about the Southside and how it was kind of bland in places,” says Rodolfo “Rudy” Quiñonez, 18, who, until somewhat recently was living in a series of motel rooms while he and his broth er struggled financially. “I’m glad I got to help make it nicer.”

Quiñonez was one of about 10 at-risk young people whom John Paul Granillo, a youth mentor with the Santa Fe nonprofit YouthWorks, assembled for the sustainable beautification effort. Youthworks secured a $3,400 grant from Tierra Contenta for sup plies, Granillo tells SFR, and another $4,475 for wages from New Mexico Conservation Corps.

The work began about three weeks ago, when Granillo linked up with the City of Santa Fe’s Planning and Land Use Department to identify the proper plants for the project— nearly all of them native to the area and each species designed to thrive in the low-water

Youth tree project adds green to Southside’s Swan Park

high desert. Lawrence Rivera, a compliance officer with the department, helped flag lo cations, then came out to the park on Nov. 17 along with Granillo and others to get the kids ready to dig.

“I’m used to working with landscaping contractors, so this was different because they were kids,” Rivera tells SFR. “I gave them a little lesson on the plants and what kind of growth we would see. They were interested

and respectful. It was pretty cool—most of them had never planted a plant before and had no idea how technical it could be.”

Granillo chose the planters intentional ly: One had recently totaled his car, others have experienced homelessness, and one had been struggling with his brother’s suicide. But Granillo, a longtime advocate for focus ing on community building on the Southside, is interested in what young people can be, not what’s held them back.

“When we talk about the kind of youth I’m working with, we tend to always see things as broken,” he says. “There’s no idea of hope. And a lot of the work I do with them is things like pulling weeds: break, pull; break, pull; break, pull. For this project, I thought, why don’t we plant hope—something they’re go ing to have to take care of, something they’re going to have to love?”

Granillo and Rivera chose the plants carefully, and it’s an impressive list: nine three-leaf sumacs, six Apache plums, nine red yuccas, three mountain mahoganies, four lance bark elms, the Austrian pines and more. Rivera says they stuck to the na tive-plant theme except in the case of those pine trees, which are capable of standing up against the piñon and juniper beetle infes tations that have troubled Santa Fe the last three years.

“The plants had a lot of weird names,” Quiñonez tells SFR with a laugh.

Granillo’s was a perfect project for the Antony, NM native. He’s never cared for working in cramped office spaces and already had some experience with landscaping. Plus, Quiñonez is an artist, as is Granillo, so the two have more in common than sinking seedlings into the earth.

Quiñonez paints in acrylics and oils, and he describes his aesthetic as dark. Painting helped him move out of the “bad zone” as a kid, and the tree-planting project functioned as an extension of that.

“I’m really glad to be a part of it,” he says. “I’ve lived in spaces for so long where there’s really nothing, and I wanted to take all these skills and make it look more beautiful on the Southside.”

Granillo hopes to extend the project into next year, with more planting and trail resto ration work. Once the ground thaws, there’ll be chances to teach the youths about drip ir rigation and more. The work could begin in May or June, he says, and he’s already got his eye on a few more spots on the Southside for additional plantings.

The work, Granillo says, is about foster ing a family vibe and teaching young peo ple who are struggling how to rely on one another.

“The easiest thing to do with these kids is ask for trouble: ‘Fuck it, let’s go smoke some weed or whatever,’” he says. “The hardest thing to do is to ask for help.”

A crew of Santa Fe youths get the shovels in the ground for a tree-planting project at Swan Park on a recent Thursday—part of a program for at-risk young people.

RANDY CASTILLO

FICTION / THEME: SECRETS AND LIES

As editor-in-chief and faculty adviser of the Santa Fe Literary Review, Kate McCahill is accustomed to sorting through thousands of pieces of writ ing to choose a collection for readers. While she usually has a team of five interns and a board of genre editors to help call the shots for the annual publication at Santa Fe Community College, she took on the challenge of judging the fiction entries in the SFR Writing Contest on her own.

McCahill is a tough critic, yet she viewed the entrants with tenderness and intrigue in their responses to the 2022 theme, “Secrets and Lies” and the three required words: yogini, af fidavit and corn.

“It really brought a bunch of di verse submissions. It’s not like I was seeing one topic or one specific fo cus,” she says. “You could tell who wrote a piece with those words in mind and generated something new, which I think is so cool and bold and brave to do, and then you could tell there were other folks who could incorporate those words into what they already had, and people did it in such clever ways…I think [the three words] did steer people’s work in interesting ways. That was one of the things I was considering as I was evaluating each piece: How seam lessly did they embed those terms and incorporate the theme and, did it feel forced, or did it feel so natural that I barely even noticed?”

Watch for the nonfiction winners next week! (Julie Ann Grimm)

all right. Even a pesky little sister like me could see that. A big house too. White. Clearly old. The porch roof was sagging to one side. The wide steps were rotten through in some places. I wanted to climb up those steps but the girls held me back.

“It’s the widow’s house,” Gayle whispered, shrinking

“That’s not a thing,” My sister’s voice rang out and echoed back. She stamped her foot.

“Look!” Gayle pointed to the wide picture window in the recesses of the porch, next to what must be the front door. “Did you see that? The curtain moved!”

Gayle’s hushed and trembly voice was beginning to scare me. I stared at the window. It was framed by white, wispy curtains. Even from here, I could see that the cur tains were tattered and hung lopsidedly across the win dow. In the center of the glass, we could see a huge white pitcher, like an old-timey wash basin pitcher. It looked too big to be real. It looked like it was big enough to hide in. I started forward. The girls screamed and caught up with me at the foot of the porch steps.

“You can’t just go in there!” my sister scolded.

1st

The Lady in the Gray Space

BY SUE BRYAN

There is an empty space at the edge of awareness—a silent, gray space where we collect impressions that don’t make sense, perceptions of flitting spirits around us, or sure knowledge of extraordinary magic. In the tragedy of maturation, we replace our curiosity about what may or may not be real with a patterned narra tive that we call truth: A swearable affidavit we repeat ceaselessly to create the impression that we know how the world works.

I couldn’t even read yet when I trudged along with my sister and her friend Gayle into the undeveloped area beyond our neighbor’s expansive backyard, where we played pick-up baseball games and held neighborhood clam bakes in the summer months.

Today, autumn leaves fluttered around our ankles as we entered the cold shadows of the woods. The old er girls were giggly as if we were doing something we shouldn’t. Maybe we were. We walked slowly through the thick litter of leaves and the tangly ferns, some of which were almost as tall as me. I gripped tightly to my sister’s hand. Just last Saturday, I had lost my grip on her in the corn maze and had to sit down and cry before she came back to find me.

In front of us, Gayle stopped suddenly. “What’s that?” she whispered.

We looked and crept forward, stopping just short of a clearing in the trees. I jumped at my sister’s side, anxious to see what Gayle was pointing to.

My sister’s voice was hushed and shaky. “I didn’t know there was a house here.”

“There isn’t!” Gayle shook her head as if to clear it. “At least there hasn’t been for, like, 100 years.”

“I want to see.” I broke away from my sister’s protec tive hand and ran into the small clearing. It was a house

“Why?” I hadn’t been alive long, but I knew that in my neighborhood I could go into anyone’s house if I needed to pee or get a drink of water—a privilege of suburbia, I suppose.

“It’s haunted is why.” Gayle sounded out of breath.

While the older girls argued about the house, I watched as the curtain inside the picture window flut tered. I waved.

“Let’s go!” My sister tugged at my arm. But at that moment there was a movement at the front door of the decrepit manor house. I stared and tugged back.

The door didn’t seem to open, but suddenly there was someone there. On the porch. A woman in a long white dress. Try as I could, I couldn’t see her face clearly. She clutched at the decaying porch railing, heedless of the peeling paint and splintery wood.

The older girls seemed frozen.

The white-dress lady raised a hand to her brow and peered outward toward the woodsy area we had come through. She didn’t seem to see us at all, right here at the foot of her steps.

I shook my hand loose from my sister’s and took a step forward. “Hi.”

But the women acted like I wasn’t even there. This was not a new experience for me, so I did what I always did when I was invisible. I felt into the situation, to know what I could about the world around me. I could hear the traffic on the distant highway. And I sensed the dank earthiness of the woods behind us. I felt a wave of sad ness, tinged with what seemed like a drop of hope radiat ing from the woman on the porch.

Poor lady. The husband who was supposed to paint the porch and repair the steps and the curtains wasn’t there. Everything was falling apart. I felt her resolve to wait, to be faithful.

I tried to send the pretty lady a prayer of love. Tried to tell her not to wait anymore. It’s been 100 years (if Gayle is right). He’s probably not coming. Probably not going to fix the stairs. Probably not going to paint the porch.

For just a second, I swear she stopped gazing into the trees and looked down at me. Right into my eyes!

But then Gayle and my sister unfroze and grabbed at me screaming. They yanked me back through the woods,

through ruthless scratchy branches, back into the safety of the manicured lawn. They collapsed on the grass breath ing heavily and I sat down next to them, a crossed-legged yogini, serene amid their chaotic fear.

“What was that?” Gayle pounded the ground with her fist.

“She was lonely,” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” My sister’s voice was severe.

“She is waiting,” I tried again.

“Shut up!” She sat up and grabbed my shoulders look ing intensely into my eyes. “That was nothing. Nothing happened. You’re making stuff up and you need to stop it right now.” My sister nodded affirmatively in Gayle’s di rection. I watched Gayle nod dumbly.

Young as I was, I already knew the rules of the game. There are some things you never talk about. Like when grown-ups are lying. When Jesus visits you at night. The fairies that live near the creek. The hatred and sadness that people feel even when their faces are smiling. And now, the sad lady in the woods. These things live in the gray area where things might or might not be real.

“Let’s go home,” I said and grabbed my big sister’s hand.

Sue Bryan is a local author, community builder and life coach. She loves exploring the mountains and the line between the real and the unreal.

something a little more nurturing. Anyway, I wouldn’t call it thinking, really. In fact, the idea is to put the brain to rest, to suppress thinking through focus on the breath, on the third eye, and on the ohm. To allow the energy of the universe to flow through you freely, unimpeded by thought, guilt, worry, all of those worldly emotions.”

“Oh shit. You’ve been in Santa Fe way too long. All this flow talk makes me have to pee.”

“Mom.”

“What? I can’t help it. My bladder is the size of a peanut now. You wait. You got that gene too, I bet.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Well, what about when you’re just sitting there mari nating for four hours. Don’t you have to go?”

Mica sighs. “No, Mom. It’s med-i-tat-ing, and body functions shut down as you go into the deeper states, just like your thoughts, wiping the slate clean. I’m sure you can relate to that image. I didn’t come here to discuss pee. You know, I’m not even comfortable calling you Mom at this point.”

“Well, what else would you call me.”

“I can think of a few things, Tracianne.”

“You know I don’t like being called that.”

“Precisely. Are we going to talk about it? Because if we’re not, there’s no point in either one of us being here. You can’t keep acting like nothing happened, like you didn’t just evaporate into thin air and abandon me there in Pecos with Blaze.”

“Keep your voice down, people…”

2nd

Were You Ever There…

BY DOUG BOOTES

Mica looks across the table, the woman facing her in timately familiar and a total stranger at the same time. “I’m going to school at night, pre-law, and studying to be a Kriya yogini. There’s a few daily asanas I do, but it’s pre dominantly a meditative breathing practice. I meditate four hours a day, sometimes longer.”

The wiry, weathered version of herself responds, “There’s a special place in hell for deep thinkers.”

Mica holds onto a smile and says, “I was hoping for

Mica struggles to suppress the emotion in her voice as she softly but sternly says, “You don’t give a measly fuck about what people think. What do you think people thought when you just disappeared for six years? Do you even care? Do you even care what that did to me? Do you have any idea how many nights I wondered if you were dead or alive? If you hated me so much you couldn’t ever come back and just look at me? No phone calls, nothing. And then you show up one day looking like a zombie and I’m supposed to act like nothing happened, to act like I’m happy to see you and goddammit I am happy, friggin’ ec static, but I’m mad too, Tracianne—”

Shaking, Tracianne gets up, clutching the faded Dora the Explorer backpack she came in with. “I really do need to go to the restroom. I’ll be right back. I’m sorry.”

“Here comes the server. What do you want?”

“I’ll have what you’re having, I really have to go.”

“Alright, go pee for crying out loud. Hope you like hue vos rancheros, Tracianne.”

The server watches her go, then leans down and says, “So, how’s it going? You look just like her, except you have all your teeth.”

“Hey, Leo. Don’t say that. That I look like her, I mean.”

“I just mean bone structure. Hey, you doing okay? I know this must be hard. You want me to stop by after work tonight?”

“Would you? I mean, Guillermo won’t be mad?”

“He’ll be fine. I’ll just give him a wank when I get home.”

“You’re nasty.”

“You know it. Do you know what she’s having? I just got sat with a party of nine.”

“Huevos rancheros. We’ll split an order. You mind?”

“That’s fine, chica Mica.”

“It’s just that I know she won’t offer to pay anything and I’ve only got…”

“Hush. You don’t need to explain.”

“Hey. I really appreciate this. I don’t know if I could have done this without you here. You’re a good friend. I can’t believe she even showed up.”

“I got your back, girl. Now I gotta get my back in motion. How do you want your eggs?”

“Scrambled hard.”

“Tortillas?”

“Blue corn.”

“Alright, cha-cha. I’ll try to get this in before the nine top. Stay strong. No trickier trickster than an addict, even if she is your mom.”

Mica resists the temptation to go into the restroom. I’m not going to check on her. It’s up to her if she wants to have a mature conversation. It’s like the therapists say, she won’t change until she wants to. She looks out the window into the street for distraction, sees her reflection, remembers the weeks and months starving herself because she couldn’t think about anything else. Concern is healthy. Obsession is not.

The people passing by always seem so happy, normal. She wonders, what would that be like—what if Tracianne/ Mom came out and sat down, began to answer all the questions that you can’t ask out of fear she’d vanish again—

“So, this yoga thing. You’re, what, like studying with someone?

Mica says, “Yeah, sort of. It’s a home study course, I get weekly lessons emailed.”

“An internet guru? Well, I’m glad you’ve found something that makes you happy. And you’ve got your own apartment?”

“Yep, day I turned eighteen. It’s just a room. I share the bathroom and kitchen with a couple from Colorado. They’re nice. It’s good to be away from Blaze. He’s become even more of a turd since the dispensary opened. Thinks he’s some sort of self-made legend because he was growing weed for forty years before it was legal. His stupid cow girlfriend’s even worse. I’d slit her throat with a dull knife in her sleep if I had to stay there another week.”

“Geez, you got some anger issues, honey.”

“I’m working on it. How about you? Plan on sobering up in this lifetime?”

“I’m clean, two weeks now. Don’t look at me like that. I am, really. I’m going into a year-long intensive treatment program called Clear Skies in Sedona. I’m hoping you’ll

be able to come visit, I get a weekend a month of supervised visits.”

“Who’s paying for that?”

“It’s court-ordered.”

“Of course. That’s a long way. Couldn’t you find some where closer?”

“I know too many people. It’s too easy, and there’s some thing else you should know. You’re going to have a baby brother. I’m pregnant. I know it’s a boy, I can just tell, you know.”

“You’re joking, right? That’s not even funny.”

Tracianne shakes her head, takes a deep breath and grasps Mica’s hand. “I really need you to understand. And I’m going to need your support in this. So, okay, here’s how it’s been since I left, and believe me, it’s better that I didn’t get you involved.”

Mica pulls her hand away. “Thanks for that.”

“It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, leav ing you like that. I’m not making excuses, either. I’m just gonna lay it out there the way it went down and hope that somehow you can understand. That somehow you can for give me. Believe me, it’s better that I left and didn’t get you involved…”

“You said that. You know Mom, let me say something be

fore you dive into your redemption tale. I want to believe in you, I really do. I want to support you in this, but you need to understand that I need to take care of myself too. Can you even get pregnant at your age? I mean, how is that possibly going to work?”

“Boundaries, right? Had a little therapy myself. I don’t believe in that between a mother and daughter. There’s no boundary for my love for you. I’m so proud of you, how strong and independent you’ve grown up to be.”

“Yes, well, it’s not like you gave me much of a choice.”

Leo sets the platter down in front of Mica. “Here you go, I brought an extra plate. Sorry it took so long, the kitchen’s in the weeds. Is she in the restroom again?”

Mica stares at the steaming plate.

Leo’s voice lowers, “Oh no, she didn’t bail, did she. Are you okay?” They hand her another napkin. “You’re crying, here.”

Mica takes it as she says, “No I’m not. I’m sure she’s gone, but can you just send someone in there to check, to make sure she isn’t…dead or something.”

“Will do. You want a to-go box? Oh my god, you poor thing. I can’t believe this.”

“I can. In fact, if you asked me, I would have sworn out an affidavit that something like this would happen. Besides, you didn’t even ask what kind of chile we wanted.”

“Its always Christmas for you, chica.”

Mica looks up from her plate, tears and snot soaking the napkin in her hand. “You’re still coming by, right?”

“Sure thing, sugar cheeks.”

Doug Bootes teaches creative writing classes at the Institute of American Indian Arts. His writing has been published in Poetry Northwest, Runestone Literary Journal, Tribal College Journal, World Literature Today, Connotations Press, On the Run Contemporary Flash Fiction and others.

3rd

Nash Equilbrium

BY JENNIFER EDELSON

Finnian’s eyes meet mine defiantly, dusky under the wan ing red moon. He holds my stare as he says, “There’s a se cret alien base under Archuleta Mountain in Dulce, New Mexico. Did you know that, Clara?”

A crisp breeze ruffles his hair, sending dark curls skit tering over the left side of his face. “I know many things,” I answer, mesmerized by his mouth and how it tugs up at an arc that mirrors his right eyebrow. I have loved that mouth almost as much as I love being alive.

My best friend Martina says that the sacred shapes of geometry form the foundation of all connections in this world. A sometimes yogini, she teaches things like the an cient art of obtuse angle yoga on Friday mornings at the Chavez Community Center. Truth be told, I sometimes wonder if Martina came from that mountain. Because what kind of being can bend into a scalene triangle, for starters?

The moon moves further into the Earth’s umbra, turn ing a darker shade of crimson as Finnian continues to stare. “Did you know there’s also a secret alien base right here, under Santa Fe?” I point down at the blacktop. “In the tunnels.”

Finnian’s unobscured pupil narrows to a point, swim ming in red. “Why do I think Martina told you that?” He looks up at the eclipse, then to Orion, snorting doubtfully like they’re old buds that share a secret.

To be fair, Martina did once insist I shun corn because she had it on good authority that elote is an evil Mayan imp that lures people into empty fields on full moons and turns them into corn stalks (her words). That “corn = can nibalism” billboard that went up on I-25? Yep. Martina. She’s that kind of trickster.

“An underground base in Santa Fe makes sense,” I in sist. Because if Martina can teach a successful Tuesday morning yoga class called “finding your inner isosceles triangle,” I’m not about to feel bad for pushing the lim its of anyone’s reality, especially not Finnian’s. “All those missing cats and so-called skunks roaming around?” I pause for effect. “I’m sure cats are tasty. And if I wanted to blend in and just observe my surroundings, skunk would be my go-to. Nobody fucks with skunks, Finnian.”

Finnian hops off the kiddy swing he’s sitting on and walks closer. The moon is a black ball outlined in red now. Kind of a twin of what he likes to tease is my maligned heart. It sometimes smarts, knowing we can’t transcend the affidavit I signed back when it felt like the world could be my oyster.

“Do you want to go down there, Clara?” He throws a graceful arm around my shoulder, and like always, the heft of it reminds me how long I’ve been grounded.

“Should we go down there, Finnian?”

It’s a scary story game of chicken. We do this every month, meet here in the same spot, and try to convince each other we’ve got a line on some mysterious secret. Finnian calls it our tower of lies—but with a smile like he’s proud to construct something so ephemeral and precarious.

“I’m not afraid if you’re not afraid,” he says cuttingly.

“I’m not.” I turn to face him.

“Really?”

I’ve never called his bluff before. And he’s never called mine. I think we’ve both been biding our time. Or may be I’ve just been hoarding mine. Time seemed irrelevant back when we met at the crossroads. But lately, it’s a ghost I know will introduce itself the minute I let myself believe he’ll release me from our contract.

So I nod. And for a moment, he looks earnest. I see the thing he once was, lingering behind the thing he’s be come. Year after year of unfulfilled yearning has worn him down. For Finnian especially, these last few have been an albatross around his neck that’s all but strangled the spark that drew me to him.

“But all the other moons,” he says curiously. “Why now?”

“This one’s red. Like blood.” I stare at my bare arms, at the veins I once coveted and how they branch at my wrist, like a fork in the road or what Martina likens to the tip of a triangle. She adores triangles. Because whichever side one chooses, both routes meet the same baseline, proving all roads ultimately lead to the same end. No matter how humans try to fight it.

Finnian pulls me in for a hug, his tall, sturdy frame dwarfing my comparatively minuscule one. My ear meets his chest, settling in the cleft that separates his pectorals from his stomach. The moon is still completely black. Cloaked by the Earth’s shadow. I close my eyes, listening for life. Pretending the sound my heart makes as it rattles with my breath is his heart beating ardently. And I tell my self it’s okay to let go of him.

“You remember the rules?” he asks, his lips pressed against my crown.

“Yep. Full moon. We make up stories. Alter the fabric

of reality. Until the stakes are too high and one of us ac quiesces. If it’s me, I reap whatever we’ve sown. No matter how ridiculous or scary. No turning back. No changing my mind.”

I wanted to be human. Finnian wanted a soul. It seemed like a perfect exchange at the time. But Finnian never expected to fall in love with me. And I never expect ed to fall so in love with living. For a while, we both pre tended the heart he gave me didn’t long ago outlive the life he promised. But recently, it’s become clear that Finnian will never give in. That this new story-telling pastime is just a means to stave off the inevitable.

“Will you miss me?” he asks.

I will. Terribly. I know what it took for him to keep re writing the rules he laid out in that affidavit. And I adore him for it. But it’s hard to admit it in light of my decision. So I put my game face on.

“Will you miss me, Finnian?”

He sighs. “You know I will.”

“Did you think it’d go on this long when I first came to you?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

We walk arm-in-arm to the nearest utility hole, and I wait for him to lift the heavy, rusted disk, leaving it on the road beside what feels like a gaping chasm. He climbs down first, and I imagine him glancing up at me, wonder ing if I’ll be the one to finally elevate his status as I shimmy down after him.

“Even now, it’s still hard to believe that you, Finnian are a crossroad demon.” I laugh when my feet touch ground. “Think they’ll make you king of Hell for roping my ass in?”

“If they do, I’ll come for you,” he promises. “My fallen angel.”

We walk through a dark tunnel into a sterile room crawling with silver-suited, comically rendered skunkaliens, a now permanent corporality that just minutes ago was a figment of my imagination.

“You’ve always been the clever one,” he chuckles.

Behind him, a shiny metallic door closes with a hy draulic whoosh, sealing us in. And for a moment, I wish he knew how right he was.

Finnian begins to chant, and the aliens join in, their eyes glowing as he reaches a crescendo.

A ragged hole opens in the ground, revealing blinding flames that burn like the sun, singeing the edges of the cir cular cavity.

Finnian steps closer to me. But then Martina materi alizes, furiously fluttering her fingers, weaving invisible strings into shapes that finally form a tangible rectangle. Like an empty, upright, enormous see-through coffin.

Finnian’s eyes bulge. And I register the moment he re alizes I played him.

“They’ll keep you down here.” I nod at the creatures I’ve created. “For as long as it takes for me to get being hu man out of my system. When I decide I’m done,” I match his grimace with my own, “they’ll let you go. And then you can cash me in.”

Martina steps back, away from the coffin’s pull. “Never trust a woman with a trickster for a best friend,” she says gleefully. “Even when she tells you she loves you. Especially when she tells you she loves you.”

“And I do love you,” I tell him. “I always will. I just love living on Earth more.”

“How long . . .” Finnian trails off.

“Just after I got you to modify the terms of our con tract. Martina figured it out. When you agreed to it and changed the rules, you inadvertently created a loophole.”

Finnian closes his eyes. “Clara,” he says quietly.

He swoops in on me in a flash, pushing me into the box before the words “I’m sorry” can leave my mouth.

“Never trust a trickster with a woman for a best friend,” he counters sadly. “Tricksters have no loyalty to mortals. You should know that.” With the flick of a wrist, he moves the box closer to the precipice, then steps back, aligned with Martina. “Every angel I’ve ever bargained with tried to get out of it in the end. Turns out living is more fun than sitting on the sideline. I love you too, Clara. Truly. But I always knew how this would go down.”

“What did he promise you?” I warble, almost too im pressed with him to be angry.

“Three pots of gold and a pony.” Martina grins.

Finnian gives her a look. “I sold all my souls to her a millennia ago, Clara. Servitude in exchange for an up-top position. I’m sorry.”

He turns away from Martina to gaze at me. The coffin teeters at the edge. I brace myself as I meet his eyes, and Finnian winks knowingly.

Jennifer Edelson is a writer, artist, pizza lover and Bollywood fan. She loves hiking, exploring mysterious places, and meeting new people—if you’re human (or oth erwise), odds are she’ll probably love you. Find more of her award-winning work online and at bookstores and libraries around Santa Fe.

ANSON STEVENS-BOLLEN

EVENT FRI/25

SHRED THE GNAR 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

If’n you hadn’t heard about local fine-art-meets-skateculture brand Kamagraph, it’s time to get onboard. In a nutshell, the company from local arts consultant Bobby Beals taps artists to create unique skate decks emblazoned with all manner of visual treats and, in turn, sells those decks to benefit charities like the National Alliance on Mental Illness. This week, Ka magraph rides again with a combination art opening/ hip-hop homage/dance party featuring DJ Dynamite Sol. You’ll see some new works unavailable in any other format, you’ll remember why hip-hop might be the most important genre going and you’ll dance with people who are pumped to hear both those things. We’ve even seen Kamagraph do skate demos before, and that just plain rips. (ADV)

Ode to Hip-Hop: A Skateboard Art Show: 7 pm Friday, Nov. 25. Free. Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery 2791 Agua Fría St., (505) 303-3808

MARKET SAT/26-SUN/27

MARKET IMPROVEMENT

Given that Thanksgiving will be but a memory by the end of this week, we’re officially hitting Christmasin-your-face season. ‘Tis a time of gifting for way too many people, and the pressure’s mounting with every second you waste! This year, though, why not be a little more thoughtful about from whence your gifts come? Enter the Poeh Winter Market at Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino—a massive gathering of more than 100 Indigenous artists who craft fine work across more mediums than we could possibly fit in print. Not only will you find anything from jewelry and clothing to pottery, paintings, sculpture and so on, you’ll be gifting something extraordinary with local roots while supporting our Native friends. It’s a real win/win/win. (ADV)

Poeh Winter Market: 8 am-4 pm Saturday, Nov. 26 and Sunday, Nov. 27. Free. Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino 20 Buffalo Thunder Road, (505) 455-5555

BOOKS TUE/29

SENSIBLE

Ah, the library—that glorious book zone where locals can find oodles of things to do, from movement events, book discussions, readings, workshops and more. It’s all pretty good, but perhaps the most notable element of the ongoing happenings at our local libraries is the commitment to youth. Santa Fe’s not an easy town for kids, particularly given the pandemic, but at events like the upcoming Sensory Storytime, parents can offer their kids a chance to engage with stories and play—and meet others, too. Even better, this particular offering was created with kids who have autism and other sensory processing disorders in mind. Oh, you can also check out movies from the library. Neat! (ADV)

Sensory Storytime: 3:15 pm Tuesday, Nov. 29. Free Vista Grande Public Library 14 Avenida Torreon, Eldorado, (505) 466-7323

EVENT SAT/26

All Hail the Kings

New Mexico Drag Kings perform to benefit Colorado shooting victims’ families

While drag queens have certainly enjoyed a more ubiquitous presence within the broader cultural milieu, drag kings have seemingly struggled to gain a similar foot hold. Of course, kings are nothing new, with many performers reaching decades’ worth of experience, and it’s not entirely clear what’s so confusing about the concept— perhaps something about how there hav en’t really been television shows, of which to speak, like RuPaul’s Drag Race. Whatever the reason, many just don’t know about ‘em as well as they could, but a cadre of local and touring kings are poised to change that perception when they take center stage at an event in Santa Fe this week.

“One of our big missions is trying to es tablish our name in the community,” says drag king and organizer Rusty Nutz, who, along with numerous others, hosts this Saturday’s Viva Las Vegas! performance at the Jean Cocteau Cinema. “I think even RuPaul is going to have their first drag king on the show soon, which is huge—we’ve been fighting for a long time to be seen.”

Nutz is a native New Mexican who came up performing in troupes in Washington, DC, and elsewhere, and he describes the drag king craft as an “umbrella that is not rigidly defined.” His character, for example, is very dapper, while others might be silly, sexy, charming and so on. He’s also stacked the upcoming lineup with a veritable cor nucopia of drag talent, from award-win

ning king Rocco Steele and current Miss Gay Pride Youth, Rainbownita, to Nutz’s drag brother Magic Nutz, burgeoning local performer Adam Bomb and many others. And though the performance was origi nally slated to benefit Santa Fe’s Human Rights Alliance, which puts on the annual Pride celebrations in town among other things, the recent shooting at Colorado Springs LGBTQ bar, Club Q, changed those plans last-minute. Henceforth, all proceeds raised during Viva Las Vegas! will go to the Colorado Healing Fund to benefit the fami lies of the victims.

“We figured let’s do something for our neighbors, in Colorado” Nutz tells SFR. “People are even donating the tips they’ll make at the show.”

That doesn’t mean the event need be somber, however, and Nutz says he’s look ing forward to showing folks what he and his fellow performers can do.

“It’s sexy, it’s glam, there are a lot of props,” he explains. “It could be political ly-fueled, too. Some of the performers are very passionate about what’s happening right now. Really, it’s kind of all over the place.” (Alex De Vore)

NEW MEXICO DRAG KINGS PRESENT: VIVA LAS VEGAS!: 9 pm Saturday, Nov. 26. $20-$50 Jean Cocteau Cinema 418 Montezuma Ave., (505) 466-5528

COURTESY SIENNA LUNA

THE CALENDAR

Want to see your event listed here?

We’d love to hear from you. Send notices via email to

calendar@sfreporter.com.

Make sure you include all the pertinent details such as location, time, price and so forth. It helps us out greatly.

Submission doesn’t guarantee inclusion.

ONGOING

ART

1111: MANIFEST

Vital Spaces Midtown Annex

1600 St. Michael’s Drive vitalspaces.org

Oriana Lee unveils writings, drawings and more.

5-8 pm, Weds-Thurs; 3-7 pm, Fri; Noon-4 pm, Sat, free

A NEW MEXICAN BURIAL

No Name Cinema 2013 Pinon St. nonamecinema.org Photo survey of cemeteries. During events or by appt., free

ALISON HIXON

Susan Eddings Pérez Galley 717 Canyon Road (505) 477-4ART Surrealist paintings. 10 am-5 pm, free

ANCESTRAL IMAGINATION

BY JACKS MCNAMARA

form & concept 435 S Guadalupe St. (505) 216-1256

Cosmic works on wood. 10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free

ANDREW

FISHER: ILLUMINATIONS

LewAllen Galleries 1613 Paseo de Peralta, (505) 988-3250

Gilded tapestries. 10 am-6 pm, Mon-Fri; 10 am-5 pm, Sat, free

ART IS GALLERY:

GROUP EXHIBIT

art is gallery santa fe 419 Canyon Road (505) 629-2332

The group is huge. Know that. 10 am-5 pm

CAMILLE

HOFFMAN: MOTHERLANDS

form & concept 435 S Guadalupe St. (505) 216-1256

Transmuted landscapes. 10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free

CHRISTA STEPHENS: PERCEPTUAL ABSTRACTIONS:

Aurelia Gallery 414 Canyon Road (505) 501-2915

Abstract geometry with bold colors, structure and ambiguity. 11 am-5 pm, free

DENNIS MIRANDA: THE MASK NEVER LIES

LewAllen Galleries 1613 Paseo de Peralta (505) 988-3250

Emerging Mexican artist Miranda melds printed engravings with conceptual caricature for ruminative pieces on the humor of the human condition.

To get colloquial here for a second, they’re super cool like woah.

10 am-6 pm, Mon-Fri; 10 am-5 pm, Sat, free

EARTH’S OTHER

Currents 826 826 Canyon Road (505) 772-0953

Earth and otherworldliness. Noon-5 pm Thurs-Sun, free

GUADALUPE STREET

FEATURE: NEW PAINTINGS

Blue Rain Gallery 544 S Guadalupe St. (505) 954-9902

An exhibition of recent works by artist Jim Vogel. Sundays.

10 am-6 pm, Mon-Fri; 9 am-5 pm, Sat, free

HOLDING THE EDGE

FOMA Gallery

333 Montezuma Ave., Ste. B (505) 660-0121

Abstract works identify literal and figurative fracturing.

11 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free

INTERPLAY

SITE Santa Fe 1606 Paseo de Peralta (505) 989-1199

An exhibition of immersive, interactive digital art.

10 am-5 pm Thurs-Mon, free

JANET RUSSEK & DAVID SCHEINBAUM:

KEEPING

STILL WITHIN

Pie Projects 924B Shoofly St (505) 372-7681

New shots, new book.

11 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free

JARED WEISS: THE

OVER Ellsworth Gallery 215 E Palace Ave. (505) 989-7900

PARTY’S

Strange moments in the desert.

10 am-5 pm, free

One-of-a-Kind II, opening at Obscura Gallery this week, explores the one-off photographic processes of Angie Brockey and others.

Want to see your event listed here?

We’d love to hear from you. Send notices via email to calendar@sfreporter.com.

Make sure you include all the pertinent details such as location, time, price and so forth. It helps us out greatly.

MARIO QUILLES AND ELLEN KOMENT: WHEN TWO VOICES SING THE SAME SONG

Aurelia Gallery

414 Canyon Road (505) 501-2915

A reception for ceramicist Mario Quilles and encaustic painter Ellen Koment.

10 am-5 pm, free

ROBERTO CARDINALE: ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTURE

Patina Gallery 131 W Palace Ave. (505) 986-3432

Local artist and former monk Cardinale explores the New York architecture of Marcel Breuer through sculpture. 11 am-5 pm, free

JERRY UELSMANN

Scheinbaum and Russek

812 Camino Acoma (505) 988-5116

A bit of a retrospective for the enigmatic late surrealist photog.

By appt., free

JODI BALSAMO

Java Joe’s 2801 Rodeo Road (505) 231-7159

New mixed-media still lifes from Basalmo achieve a textured and almost tactile quality. Pretty good coffee over there, too, if we’re being honest. But seriously, you should go see the art—Balsamo’s a champ.

7 am-5 pm, free

JUN KANEKO: SOLO EXHIBITION

Gerald Peters Contemporary 1011 Paseo de Peralta (505) 954-5700

Key pieces from Kaneko’s lesser-known study, including muted tones, copper surface effects and geometric compositions.

10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free

KELLY SENA: FOR THE WILD

Foto Forum Santa Fe 1714 Paseo de Peralta (505) 470-2582

Los Angeles photographer Kelly Sena shows arresting landscape shots born from correspondence with incarcerated environmental activists.

12:30-5 pm, Tues; Noon-5 pm, Thurs-Fri, free

A LETTER: PAINTINGS BY

RICARDO FERNANDEZ

ORTEGA

Meyer Gallery

225 Canyon Road (505) 424-9463

Mexican painter Fernandez Ortega brings the chiaroscuro of traditional Spanish masters to his own surreal dreamscapes.

10 am-5 pm, free

MARK HEINE: SONG OF THE SIREN

Keep Contemporary 142 Lincoln Ave. (505) 557-9574

Heine explores the mythology of sirens.

11 am-5 pm, Wed-Sat, noon-5pm, Sun, free

MAX

COLE: ENDLESS JOURNEY

SITE Santa Fe

1606 Paseo de Peralta (505) 989-1199

Featuring a selection of paintings and works on paper spanning 1962-2022, inluding stuff never seen before.

10 am-5 pm, Thurs-Mon, free MEGAN BENT: PATIENT/ BELONGINGS form & concept

435 S Guadalupe St. (505) 216-1256

Bent presents a selection of photographic meditations from the series, I Don’t Want to Paint A Silver Lining Around It, which centers the artist’s experience as a disabled person throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free MICHAEL DIAZ DRESSED IN WATER.

5. Gallery 2351 Fox Road, Ste. 700 fivepointgallery.com New illustrations.

Noon-5 pm, Thurs-Sat, free MICHAEL WILDING AND KAORI TAKAMURA G2 Gallery 702 1/2 Canyon Road (505) 982-1212

Sculptor Wilding and painter Takamura run concurrent shows that just plain kinda work together.

10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free PAUL-HENRI BOURGUIGNON: REMEMBERING HAITI Ventana Fine Art 400 Canyon Road (505) 983-8815

Gorgeous and Gauguininfluenced landscapes from the Belgian master.

9:30 am-5 pm, Mon-Sat; 10 am-4 pm Sun, free

PETER BUREGA: CHANGING LIGHT LewAllen Galleries

1613 Paseo de Peralta (505) 988-3250

Through subtle permutations of light, color, and shadow, Burega deftly evokes the elements of weather, the surface of water and the semblance of landforms in this exhibition of abstract oil paintings.

10 am–6 pm, Mon-Fri; 10 am–5 pm, Sat, free

RITES OF PASSAGE: RAVEN|BLACKWOLF|WHITE BUFFALO

FaraHNHeight Fine Art

54 E San Francisco St., #4 (575) 751-4278

An Indigenous fine art group show. bursting with amazingnew works.

6-8 pm, free

SELF-DETERMINED: A CONTEMPORARY SURVEY OF NATIVE AND INDIGENOUS ARTISTS

Center For Contemporary Arts 1050 Old Pecos Trail (505) 982-1338

Through film, installation, photography, sound, beadwork and studio arts, Indigenous artists engage environmental themes, explore mythologies and rework traditions.

11 am-5 pm, Fri-Sun, $10

SHIRIN NESHAT: LAND OF DREAMS

SITE Santa Fe 1606 Paseo de Peralta (505) 989-1199

This multidisciplinary series features over 100 pics of New Mexico residents embellished with Farsi calligraphy. 10am-5pm, Thurs-Mon, free

SUZANNE SBARGE: NEW WORKS

Hecho Gallery 129 W Palace Ave. (505) 455-6882

Paintings and mixed media. 10 am-5 pm, Wed-Sun, free THREE ARTISTS

Calliope 2876 Hwy 14, Madrid (505) 474-7564

Paintings by Bonnie Teitelbaum, wheel-thrown ceramics by Frank Willet (1929-1991) and hand-built ceramics by Luisa Baldinger.

11 am-5 pm, Mon-Fri; 10 am-5 pm, Sat-Sun, free UNDER A ROCK, ALONG THE SHORE form & concept

435 S Guadalupe St. (505) 216-1256

This group show explores alternative approaches to representing landscape, the body and the collision of the two.

10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free WILD PIGMENT PROJECT form & concept

435 S Guadalupe St. (505) 216-1256

20+ artists working with foraged natural pigments across a variety of media.

10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sat, free

WED/23

DANCE

TWO-STEP WEDNESDAYS

Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery 2791 Agua Fría St. (505) 303-3808

Get your steps in, one way or another. Honky-tonk tunes, New Mexican brews and all the possible grooves.

7-10 pm, $10

at Pacheco Park

Annie O’Carrroll Interior Design

Archaeo Architects Board30

Counter Intelligence

Custom Window Coverings

Dudelczyk Family Law, LLC H and S Craftsmen

La Farge Foundation for Folk Art

La Luz Lighting

Lush Beauty Lounge

Morton Accounting Odai Design | Construction

Pella Doors and Windows

Que Tenga Buena Mano

Rituel Studio

Santa Fe By Design

Santa Fe Pro Musica

Santa Fe Reporter

Stacy Nixon Fine Art

Sun Mountain Custom Doors

Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen Talweg Creative The Beauty Lab Tierra Concepts

Trattel Court Reporting Victoria at Home

Pacheco Park

Hector Balderas has been in elected office since 2005—that’s two years before fellow Democrat and former Gov. Bill Richardson launched his ill-fated presidential campaign, for you longtime New Mexico politics watchers. Balderas, 49, served one two-year term in the state House of Representatives, then two highly visible four-year terms each as state auditor and attorney general. That’s some ride for a dude from Wagon Mound. (And Balderas has never been shy about discussing his childhood in rural Mora County.)

The political merry-go-round is coming to an end, for now, when the calendar turns to 2023. That’s because last week, Española’s Northern New Mexico College Board of Regents unanimously voted to make Balderas the school’s next president, selecting him over three other finalists for the post, all of whom came from the world of academia. His term as AG ends Dec. 31, and he’s negotiating a salary and a start date with Northern as you read this. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. (Jeff Proctor)

Most readers know you from your time as an assistant district attorney, or more recently, your two terms each at the auditors and attorney general’s office. Moving to Northern will obviously mark a pretty significant shift for you career-wise. What makes you the right guy for this job? So, you know, obviously, I’ve developed a lot of professional experience in accountability and oversight. But my motivation was that I have lived the life story that many of those students are living, so I feel very closely connected to that type of student. And then number two, that it’s an underresourced institution. So in essence, I’m at the height of my career, and I want to use my passion and experience to build more equitable funding for some of those forgotten communities and institutions. And Northern is clearly an institution that I think I can secure additional resources for those students…One of the reasons I emerged from the pack of academics and

a highly qualified pool of candidates was my experience in strengthening board governance. And so my proposal to the Board of Regents was to build a partnership, and as AG I’ve advised nearly 100 boards and commissions on effective governance. So I think that piece was very appealing to them, that we would raise the standard of accountability and operational excellence.

What, from your perspective, are the most pressing issues facing the school now, and what are your plans to address them in the early stages of your tenure?

I think the K-12 crisis in education is dramatically impacting small institutions like Northern. So, for instance, it’s already an under-resourced institution, but making sure that those students have the opportunities when some of them are already coming from the K-12 system behind. And so they need additional academic support and, quite frankly, those services need to be available to all students so that they can succeed. And so an institution like UNM or New Mexico State gets substantially more funding to provide support services. But the top part for me is to get more resources to increase support services to also complement excellent academic instruction…A lot of education institutions are being forced to become more optimized, use more online learning, create virtual experiences. And due to the rural, frontier nature of that institution, I have a real vision to transform the way we deliver education. We have to meet students where students are at…and it’s important to have leadership that’s very forward-looking as opposed to trying to preserve old institutions of higher education that are dying.

We’ve all obviously seen the large staff turnover and de-prioritizing of certain units when a new administration comes into the AG’s office. Which units or initiatives during your eight years do you hope will survive and thrive in the [incoming AG Raúl] Torrez era?

I have already been meeting with the attorney general-elect, and I met with the [Legislative Finance Committee] just recently, and I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve built the most robust civil and criminal litigation shops in the country. And the Legislature was commenting that I brought in record revenues. And I’ve also successfully litigated and indicted corruption on a historic level. And so I think the attorney general-elect is going to keep those systems very strong…I’m hoping the Legislature will give Raúl Torrez more funding to do [Inspection of Public Records Act] and Open Meetings Act violation cases. Those have been severely underresourced.

with Incoming Northern New Mexico College President Hector Balderas COURTESY

EVENTS

FILL

THE SEATS FOOD DRIVE

Lensic Performing Arts Center 211 W San Francisco St. (505) 988-1234

A community food drive in partnership with The Food Depot to help feed Northern New Mexican neighbors this holiday season.

10 am-4 pm, free

FRENCH CAFÉ JAZZ LUNCH

Mille 451 W Alameda St. (505) 930-5492

Pretty self-explanatory, no? Noon-2 pm, free

HOTLINE B(L)INGO

Desert Dogs Brewery and Cidery 112 W San Francisco St. (505) 983-0134

It's bingo time. 7 pm, $2

SANTA FE CHILDREN'S

MUSEUM: WEE

WEDNESDAYS

Santa Fe Children's Museum 1050 Old Pecos Trail (505) 989-8359

Story time and play centered around fun weekly themes. This week it's Geckos.

10:30-11:30 am, free

TURKEY TROT MMXXII

The Brakeroom 510 Galisteo St.

(505) 780-8648

Wear a costume and run for fun. Plus, there’s beer.

6:30 pm, free

FOOD

SUSHI POP-UP WITH BRENT

JUNG

Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery 2791 Agua Fría St. (505) 303-3808

Get you some raw fish. So good. 9 pm, $13

MUSIC

JASON DEA WEST

El Rey Court

1862 Cerrillos Road (505) 982-1931

Troubador Jason West culls from vintage country, folk and blues sensibilities.

8-10 pm, free KARAOKE NIGHT Boxcar 530 S Guadalupe St. (505) 988-7222

Classic karaoke options at Boxcar. It’s pretty self-explanatory, huh? 10 pm, free

SECOND CHANCES

La Fonda on the Plaza 100 E San Francisco St. (505) 995-2334

Welcome to Country Western Wednesday with Second Chances, a band you’ll forgive for whatever it is they did.

6:30 pm, free

THEATER

THE SEAFARER

The Actors Lab 1213 Parkway Drive B (505) 395-6576

We’ve been hearing nothing but good things about this show wherein a card game turns into a wager for a man's soul and other such family drama.

7:30 pm, $15-$30

WORKSHOP

ART JAM WEDNESDAYS

Alas de Agua Art Collective

1520 Center Drive, Ste. 2 alasdeagua.com

Make art with the local organization. They’ll have supplies, but you can bring some, too, jeeze.

5:30 pm, free

THU/24

MUSIC

BOB MAUS

Cava Lounge, Eldorado Hotel 309 W San Francisco St. (505) 988-4455

This is the only event we’re sure is happening on Thanksgiving, so go get you some blues and soul.

6-9 pm, free

FRI/25

ART OPENINGS

I'LL GET BACK TO YOU| ANDREW SHEARS (OPENING)

Evoke Contemporary 550 S. Guadalupe St. (505) 995-9902

Andrew Shears presents imagery taken from memories, dreams and experience: an intimate inscape revealed in paint.

10 am-5 pm, free

IT'S A SPECIAL HOLIDAY GIFT SHOW! (OPENING)

Eye on the Mountain Art Gallery 222 Delgado St. (928) 308-0319

Affordable art gifts in all shapes and sizes, from clothing and scarves, prints and more.

11 am-6 pm, free

KAMAGRAPH:

ODE TO HIP-HOP—A SKATBOARD ART SHOW (OPENING)

Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery 2791 Agua Fría St. (505) 303-3808

The local skate-meets-art brand kicks off another show. (See SFR Picks, page 17)

7 pm, free CONTINUED ON NEXT

COURTESY

LIGHTNING BOY FOUNDATION ART SHOW

La Fonda on the Plaza 100 E San Francisco St. (505) 995-2334

Pick up some visual art to benefit the local hoop dancing nonprofit. Noon, free

NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE DAY

art is gallery santa fe 419 Canyon Road (505) 629-2332

What better way to celebrate NAHD than by spending money on Native creations? Featuring jewelry, leather wearables and music from Santo Domingo Pueblo artists. 11 am-3 pm, free

ONE-OF-A-KIND II (OPENING)

Obscura Gallery 1405 Paseo De Peralta (505) 577-6708

Obscura's second annual Winter Holiday Exhibition. 5-7 pm, free

RAILYARD ARTISAN MARKET (BLACK FRIDAY MAKERS MARKET)

Railyard Artisan Market 1607 Paseo de Peralta (505) 983-4098

Join the Railyard Artisan Market & Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Gift Shop for this special Black Friday Market.

10 am-3 pm, free

THE TONY VACCARO CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION (OPENING)

Monroe Gallery of Photography 112 Don Gaspar Ave. (505) 992-0800

A new exhibition celebrates the 100th birthday of acclaimed World War II photographer Tony Vaccaro.

5-7 pm, free

DANCE

EARTH DANCE BODY

333 West Cordova Road (415) 265-0299

Dance party action with specially curated music and proceeds supporting humanitarian projects run by the Tessa Foundation. 7-8:30 pm, free

EVENTS

PABLO THE DRAGON'S HOLIDAY TRAIN RIDE & VILLAGE

Sky Railway 410 S Guadalupe St. (844) 743-3759

The folks from Sky Railway not only do a holiday-themed train ride, but they've created a winter wonderland kinda thing at its destination in Lamy, too. Choose the last session of the day if you want to watch the sunset.

10:15 am, Noon, 2:30 pm and 4:15 pm, $29-$59

SANTA FE BOTANICAL GARDEN: COMMUNITY DAY

Santa Fe Botanical Garden 715 Camino Lejo (505) 471-9103

Make your own leaf-printed shirts, spread some cheer, look at some native plants. Boom— Community Day. 10 am-4 pm, free

SANTA FE PLAZA HOLIDAY LIGHTING

Santa Fe Plaza 100 Old Santa Fe Trail santafe.org

Hit the Plaza for the ceremonial lighting of the...ummm...lights. We’re talkin’ more than 30,000 LEDs’ worth of holiday cheer, baby!

4:30 pm, free

FILM

THE FILMS OF ERIC LEISER

No Name Cinema 2013 Pinon St. nonamecinema.org

Filmmaker Leiser himself is slated to attend a screening of his laser film holograms. A Q&A follows.

7 pm, free

FOOD

MIXOLOGY MEET & GREET & CUBAN SANDWICHES

Santa Fe Spirits Distillery 7505 Mallard Way, Ste. 1 (505) 467-8892

Holiday craft cocktail tasting.

4:30-7 pm, free

MUSIC

BOB MAUS

Cava Lounge, Eldorado Hotel 309 W San Francisco St. (505) 988-4455

Blues and soul.

6-9 pm, free

JIM ALMAND

Mine Shaft Tavern 2846 Hwy. 14, Madrid (505) 473-0743

The singer-songwriter rides again.

5 pm, free

SIRSY

Mine Shaft Tavern 2846 Hwy. 14, Madrid (505) 473-0743

Pop and/or rock duo from upstate New York.

8 pm, free

THEATER

THE SEAFARER

The Actors Lab 1213 Parkway Drive B (505) 395-6576

A card game turns into a wager for a man's soul.

7:30 pm, $15-$30

WORKSHOP

HULA HOOPING MOVEMENT AND EXPLORATION

Wise Fool New Mexico 1131 Siler Road, Ste. B. (505) 992-2588

Beginner hula hooping tricks.

5:30-7 pm, $22

TIME

Powering

SAT/26

ART OPENINGS

IT'S A SPECIAL HOLIDAY GIFT SHOW!

Eye on the Mountain Art Gallery 222 Delgado St. (928) 308-0319

Affordable art gifts in all shapes and sizes, from clothing and scarves to perfumes, oils, prints, cards, art, wall hangings and lots more.

11 am-6 pm, free

LIGHTNING BOY FOUNDATION ART SHOW

La Fonda on the Plaza 100 E San Francisco St. (505) 995-2334

Pick up some visual art to benefit the local hoop dancing nonprofit.

5 pm, free

SANTA FE ARTISTS MARKET

In the West Casitas, north of the water tower 1612 Alcaldesa St. (505) 983-4098

The weekly outdoor art market continues despite how it’s super-cold all the time now. 9 am-2 pm, free

THE TONY VACCARO CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION

Monroe Gallery of Photography 112 Don Gaspar Ave. (505) 992-0800

Celebrating the 100th birthday of photographer Vaccaro. 10 am-5 pm, free

DANCE

SKY CITY BUFFALO DANCERS (ACOMA)

Indian Pueblo Cultural Center 2401 12th Street NW, Albuquerque (505) 843-7270

Celebrate the seasonal cycles through prayer, song, and dance with the Cultural Dance Program.

12-1 pm, free

CONTRA DANCE

Odd Fellows Hall 1125 Cerrillos Road (505) 690-4165

If you wish to contra dance, you must be vaccinated. 7 pm, $5-$10

EVENTS

EL MUSEO CULTURAL MERCADO

El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe 555 Camino de la Familia (505) 992-0591

An eclectic collection of art, antiques and so many other things. Y’know, like, there’s always someone selling knives for some reason at these kinds of things.

8 am-4 pm, free

PABLO THE DRAGON'S HOLIDAY TRAIN RIDE & VILLAGE

Sky Railway 410 S Guadalupe St. (844) 743-3759

The folks from Sky Railway not only do a holiday-themed train ride, but they've created a winter wonderland kinda thing at its destination in Lamy, too. Choose the last session of the day if you want to watch the sunset from the train.

10:15 am, Noon, 2:30 pm and 4:15pm, $29-$59

POEH WINTER MARKET

Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino 20 Buffalo Thunder Trail (505) 455-5555

More than 100 artists. Guests can also enjoy a weekend of live music, Native dance performances and quality handmade arts and crafts. (See SFR Picks, page 17)

8 am-4 pm, free

TRADITIONAL SPANISH MARKET ARTIST SHOW

Santa Fe Community Convention Center

201 W Marcy St. (505) 955-6590

Find pieces including santos, jewelry, weaving, iron and tinwork, pottery, colcha, furniture and much more.

9 am-5 pm, free

MUSIC

B.A.B.E.S.

Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery 2791 Agua Fría St (505) 303-3808

Aka Bad Ass Bitches Electro Sounds, a DJ collective dropping dance jams, techno, EDM, more. 9 pm, $13

BOB MAUS

Cava Lounge, Eldorado Hotel 309 W San Francisco St. (505) 988-4455

Get your fill of blues and soul from the local legend. 6-9 pm, free

CHATTER (IN)SITE: PORTRAITS OF LANGSTON SITE Santa Fe 1606 Paseo de Peralta (505) 989-1199

Contemporary chamber music for sonic explorers. 10:30 am, $5-$20

ELOVATED ROOTS

Mine Shaft Tavern 2846 Hwy. 14, Madrid (505) 473-0743

If the word "roots" is in the band name anyplace, chances are it's reggae.

8 pm, free

RUMELIA COLLECTIVE

Second Street Brewery (Rufina Taproom) 2920 Rufina St. (505) 954-1068

Music from the Balkans and Mideast featuring four-part harmonies, mandolins and more. 7:30-9:30 pm, free

SATURDAY NIGHTS AT LINO’S TRATTORIA/CHILE LINE BREWING

Lensic Performing Arts Center 211 W San Francisco St. (505) 988-1234

A night of jazz and pop. 9:30 pm, free

ST. RANGE

Mine Shaft Tavern 2846 Hwy. 14, Madrid (505) 473-0743

Desert rock from Santa Fe/ Madrid and who knows where else—they’re mysterious. 2 pm, free

THEATER

BATHSHEBA

Downtown Santa Fe (505) 397-0371 exodusensemble.com

The immersive theater troupe is at it again, this time with a new take on the tale of David and Bathsheba. You’ll get the event address upon booking, so hurry up and do that 7 pm, free

ACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE.

JAYSON

Downtown Santa Fe (505) 397-0371

exodusensemble.com

Immersive theater troupe Exodus Ensemble presents a new work based on the Greek myth of Medea.

2 pm and 7 pm, free

NM DRAG KING COLLECTIVE PRESENTS : VIVA LAS VEGAS DRAG KING SHOW!

Jean Cocteau Cinema 418 Montezuma Ave. (505) 466-5528

Ditch the holiday weekend family obligations to drool over drag kings. (See SFR Picks, page 17) 9-11:30 pm, free

THE SEAFARER

The Actors Lab 1213 Parkway Drive B (505) 395-6576

By Conor McPherson and directed by Matt Sanford; the play won both the Tony and the Olivier Awards. A card game turns into a wager for a man's soul.

7:30 pm, $15-$30

SUN/27

DANCE

SKY CITY BUFFALO DANCERS (ACOMA)

Indian Pueblo Cultural Center 2401 12th Street NW, Albuquerque (505) 843-7270

Celebrate the seasonal cycles through prayer, song and dance with the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center’s Cultural Dance Program. Free for museum members, or with admission. Noon-1 pm, free

EVENTS

EL MUSEO CULTURAL MERCADO

El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe 555 Camino de la Familia (505) 992-0591

An eclectic collection of art and antiques and, like, that one vendor at these kinds of things who always has weathered postcards. This isn’t a burn, it just...is.

10 am-4 pm, free

PABLO THE DRAGON'S HOLIDAY TRAIN RIDE & VILLAGE

Sky Railway 410 S Guadalupe St. (844) 743-3759

The folks from Sky Railway not only do a holiday-themed train ride, but they've created a winter wonderland kinda thing at its destination in Lamy, too.

10:15 am, Noon, 2:30 pm and 4:15 pm, $29-$59

POEH WINTER MARKET

Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino 20 Buffalo Thunder Trail (505) 455-5555

More than 100 artists. Guests can also enjoy a weekend of live music, Native dance performances and quality handmade arts and crafts. (See SFR Picks, page 17)

8 am-4 pm, free

TRADITIONAL SPANISH MARKET ARTIST SHOW

Santa Fe Community Convention Center 201 W Marcy St. (505) 955-6590

Find pieces including santos, jewelry, weaving, iron and tinwork, pottery, colcha, furniture and much more.

9:30 am-4 pm, free

MUSIC

BILL HEARNE

La Fonda on the Plaza 100 E San Francisco St. (505) 982-5511

A real-life honky-tonk legend struts his stuff, which includes a beautiful voice in this case.

7-9 pm, free

ESTHER ROSE

El Rey Court 1862 Cerrillos Road (505) 982-1931

A bit of the ol’ singer-songwriter action and, according to the press release we read, a real crystalizer of moments. Word.

7-9 pm, free

HIGH DESERT PLAYBOYS

Mine Shaft Tavern 2846 Hwy. 14, Madrid (505) 473-0743

Country, honky-tonk and Americana. And yes, those are all different things, just ask anyone near you with a beard and a penchant for trains. Go on, ask ‘em.

2 pm, free

JAZZ BRUNCH WITH PAT MALONE

Bishop's Lodge Ranch Resort 1297 Bishop's Lodge Road (505) 983-6377

It’s been a minute since we’ve seen this guy out there, so get yourself some brunch along with the dulcet jazz tunes of guitarist Pat Malone.

11:30 am-2:30 pm, free

THEATER

BATHSHEBA

Downtown Santa Fe exodusensemble.com Immersive theater troupe Exodus Ensemble based its new work on the David and Bathsheba story in the Bible. You’ll get the address once you book your tickets.

3 pm, free

JAYSON

Downtown Santa Fe exodusensemble.comExodus Exodus Ensemble continues its ongoing immersive theater domination plans by presenting a new work based on the Greek myth of Medea. Book your tickets to get the venue address.

3 pm, free

THE SEAFARER

The Actors Lab 1213 Parkway Drive B

By Conor McPherson and directed by Matt Sanford; the play won both the Tony and the Olivier Awards. In the thing, an alcoholic tries to walk the straight and narrow by moving in with his elderly brother. Every part of that sounds dramatic. 2 pm, $15-$30

WORKSHOP

YOGA FOR ADVENT SERIES YogaSource 901 W San Mateo Road (505) 982-0990

Yogini Áine McCarthy gets y'all yoga-ing. There's a virtual version, too!

5:30-6:45 pm, $60

MON/28

BOOKS/LECTURES

INNOVATIONS IN RADIOCARBON DATING

Southwest Seminars 219 Ojo de la Vaca (505) 466-2775

Dr. Eric Blinman shares the latest in human burial studies, carbon dating and the archaeomagnetism of burned rocks (the spelling of which this calendar editor had to double-check several times). $20 at the door or $75 for four lectures. You can never ever know too much about burned rocks and magnets.

6 pm, $20

DANCE

SANTA FE SWING

Odd Fellows Hall 1125 Cerrillos Road (505) 690-4165

Ask yourself who played the main kid in Swing Kids and then get down to some good old-fashioned swing, big band and blues DJs. $8 for the class and for the dance, $3 for just the open dance (which starts at 8 pm).

7 pm, $3-$8

EVENTS

GEEKS WHO DRINK

Jean Cocteau Cinema 418 Montezuma Ave. (505) 466-5528

Put together a team like you’re some kind of rogue military guy from an ’80s movie, then take that team all the way to pub quiz glory! That’s a weird way of saying it’s trivia with prizes.

6 pm free

MUSIC

BILL HEARNE

Cowgirl

319 S Guadalupe St. (505) 982-2565

If you don’t own the Bill and Bonnie Hearne record Smilin’, are you even alive? We doubt it. 4-6 pm, free

TUE/29

ART OPENINGS

JANE SHOENFELD: PAREIDOLIA

Strata Gallery

418 Cerrillos Road, Ste. 1C (505) 780-5403

A new solo exhibition of pastel paintings from the artist/poet, plus special readings and such. 10 am-5 pm, free

BOOKS/LECTURES

DAN FLORES LECTURE

Lensic Performing Arts Center 211 W San Francisco St., 988-1234

Author Dan Flores discusses his book Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals & People in America with Sara Dant. 6:30 pm, $15

SENSORY STORYTIME

Vista Grande Public Library 14 Avenida Torreon, Eldorado (505) 466-7323

Engaging kids through movement, play, music, stories, etc. It's ideal, too, for kids with autism and sensory processing disorders. (See SFR Picks, page 17)

3:15 pm, free

MUSIC

ALEJANDRO ARANDA (SCARYPOOLPARTY)

Meow Wolf

1352 Rufina Circle (505) 395-6369 Alt tunes from the former American Idol contestant. . 7 pm, $22

MUSEUMS

IAIA MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY

NATIVE ARTS

108 Cathedral Place (505) 983-8900

Athena LaTocha: Mesabi

Redux. Matrilineal: Legacies of Our Mothers. Art of Indigenous Fashion. 10 am-4 pm, Wed-Sat, Mon 11 am-4 pm, Sun, $5-$10

MUSEUM OF ENCAUSTIC ART 18 County Road 55A (505) 424-6487

Global Warming is Real Juried Exhibition. 11 am-4 pm, Fri-Sun, $10 (18 and under free)

MUSEUM OF INDIAN ARTS AND CULTURE

706 Camino Lejo (505) 476-1200

Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery. ReVOlution. Here, Now and Always. Painted Reflections.

10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sun, $3-$9

MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART

706 Camino Lejo (505) 476-1200

Dressing with Purpose: Belonging and Resistance in Scandinavia. Fashioning Identities. Yokai: Ghosts & Demons of Japan. 10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sun, $3-$12

NEW MEXICO HISTORY MUSEUM

113 Lincoln Ave. (505) 476-5200

Setting the Standard. The First World War. WORDS on the Edge. The Palace Seen and Unseen; Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and WWII. 10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sun, $7-$12, NM residents free 5-7 pm first Fri of the month

SENSI TRAILS

Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery 2791 Agua Fría St. (505) 303-3808

Surf rock meets psych with a little bit of reggae thrown in, too.

Part of the Preserve Tour 2022, with support from Dale and the Zdubs and The Happys—you know, the kind of thing that makes you all pumped that cannabis is legal around here now. Just kidding, don’t @us, stoners.

7 pm, $10-$12

WORKSHOP

Want to see your event listed here?

LETTING

GO AND MOVING ON: BUDDHIST TEACHINGS AND GUIDED MEDITATIONS

Zoetic 230 St. Francis Drive (505) 292-5293

Life is basically an ongoing series of small things not worth sweating, like when the internet goes out, effectively erasing hours and hours of work. Instead of becoming a jerk, try meditation. It’s smooooooooooth, man. 6 pm, $10

We’d love to hear from you. Send notices via email to calendar@sfreporter.com.

Make sure you include all the pertinent details such as location, time, price and so forth. It helps us out greatly.

Submission doesn’t guarantee inclusion.

MUSEUM OF SPANISH COLONIAL ART

750 Camino Lejo (505) 982-2226

Pueblo-Spanish Revival Style: The Director’s Residence. Trails, Rails, and Highways. 1-4 pm, Wed-Fri, $5-$12

NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF ART

107 W Palace Ave. (505) 476-5063

Selections from the 20th Century Collection. Western Eyes. Transgressions and Amplifications: Mixed Media Photographs of the ’60s, ’70s.

10 am-5 pm, Tues-Sun, $7-12

POEH CULTURAL CENTER

78 Cities of Gold Road (505) 455-5041

Di Wae Powa. Nah Poeh Meng: The Continuous Path. 9 am-5 pm, Tues-Sun, $7-$10

WHEELWRIGHT MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

704 Camino Lejo (505) 982-4636

Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry. Abeyta | To’Hajiilee K’é. The Mary Morez Style.

10 am-4 pm, Tues-Sat, $8

From Nah Poeh Meng: The Continuous Path at the Poeh Cultural Center.

COURTESY POEH CULTURAL CENTER

RECURRING GIFTS

Jesse Allen

Stephen Apodaca

Gini Barrett

Gayla Bechtol

Jonathan Blakey & Nanci Cartwright

The Blogs

The Bobs

Curtis Borg M Yvonne Brown

BSPOKE Brand Consultancy

Kent Buckingham Anne Coller

Barbara Conroy

John & Bekki Cook

Davis-Gibbon Family M DeAnda Hay

Mark Davies

The Deej

Adrienne DeGuere Rothstein Donatelli, LLP Deborah Dorff

Nate Downey

DeeDee Downs

George Ducker

Dona Durham

Lauren Eaton Prescott

Sara, Michael & Nordic Eckhardt

Areena Estul & Shell Goldman

Ever Joyful Yoga Jill & Terry Fernandez Gail B Flanagan

Cheryl Fossum Graham Q Gallaher

Mark Glaser

Helen Goldberg Goodwest Productions Katy Gross David Gunter Mary Hall

The Harwood Family M DeAnda Hay HaydenFold

Tom & Rose Himrod Samuel Hokin

Nelson Hower

Joanna Hurley

Sheila Hyde

Megan Kamerick

Heather Karlson & Bill Leeson

Diane Karp

The Reverend Canon Ted Karpf

Katie & Andrew Nicholas King Photography

Laurie Knight Karen Ann Koestner Ruth & Paul Kovnat Joseph Lacayo Laurel Ladwig & Trina Altman

Melanie Lamb Faithful Guido Lambelet David LaPlantz Catherine & Britt Leach Long View Asset Mgmt

Douglas Lonngren

Peter Lundberg & James Mowdy

James Lutz

Scotty & Sue MacGregor Jane & Paul Mandel

Kate McCahill

Jean McCray

James McGrath Morris

Mike & Mary McGuire Sara McKenzie Jean McRay

Lanette & Jeff Meister

Bram Meehan

Richard Meeker Michael A. Messner

Katherine Mille Wimmer Karla Milosevich

Laurie Mitchell Dunn Marylin Morgan Kristen S. Moy Heidi Munziner Juliet Myers Lauren Paige

SUPPORTERS

Kristen Pelz

Grace Perez & John Benfatto

Justin Peters

Janey Phillips Johnnie Prather

Proctor Family Rainbird

Susan Ray Leslie Reambeault & Carol Nolden

Greg Reiche

Shelley Robinson

John R Roby Pat & Richard Rosenthal Barbara Russell Pamela Ryan

Dante Schackel Bordegaray Don Schreiber

Vickie Sewing Mary Ann Shaening Martin Shannon

Joan Sickler & Mike Roscow

Danette Sills

Melinda Silver & Melvin Buchwald Caitlin Smith

Leslye Sneider

Joan Snider Lauren Snyder

Meredith Speers Eric O. Springsted Howard & Dorothy Stein Laura Stupin

Robert D Taylor

Caitlin Thomas Pamela Villars Adair Waldenberg Jasmine Walker Jeff Waters

Dr. David Wood & Brad Barrios Mary Beth Yates Kimberly Zeilik Ellen Zieselman

Frances Adams & David Patterson

Bill Adrian

Jan & Jim Allen

Helga Ancona

Jarratt Applewhite

Atlas Fitness Center

Karen Aubrey

Irene Ayala

Joe & Tamara Banar

Cris & Marilyn Barnes

Joanie Puma Bennet

Bill Bergner

Neil H. & Kelley O.

Berman

Jason Berry Ruth Blaser

Gay Block & Billie Parker Gino Brazil

Markeeta Brown

Alexis Bove

Georgellen Burnett

Anne & Jack Burton (IMO - Richard McCord)

Lee Caldwell & Marcus Randolph Mary Ellen Capek & Sue Hallgarth Susan & Appy Chandler

Jill Christian & Kiera Ortiz

Tom Claffey

Lynn Cline

Gene Covington & Patrick Murphy

CC Culver Merrilee De Vore Elizabeth Dunham

Meredith Dunning

Peace Exists

Dede Feldman

Joshua Finnell

Barbara Fix

Ella Frank Michael Friestad

Thomas G. Gallegos

Roman Garcia

Lynn Gary

Tim & Lina Germann

Birgitte Ginge

Susan Gordon

Lisa Gray Fisher

Denise Fort

Teri Hackler

Cynthia Hartling

Pat Hodapp

Vicki Holmsten & Don Allen

Bernhard Holzapfel

Michel & Lynn Hopkins

Jane & Lee Hruska

Ken Hughes

Hal Kahn Jeff & Sue Kemner-Richardson

Michael Kentor & Mandy Dealey

KevinBox Studio

Malissa Kullberg & Joshua Maes

Cathy LaForte

Bushrod Lake

Leslie Lakind

Signe Lindell

Dave Maass

Ramona Lopez Marcus

Gloria Martinez Friestad

Virginia Mattingly Pam McFarland

Sasha McGhee

Dee Ann McIntyre

Elizabeth Alexander & Larry Metzger

Milagro Dental

Native Bloom

Bob & Karan Novak

Craig O’Hare

Dylan O’Reilly & Sara Montgomery

Janet Patrick William & Susan Primm

Dori & Tom Ramsey

James & Barbara Redd Linda Reid

Coletta Reid & Pat Hastings

Ana Reinhardt

John Robertson Karen Rowell

Sonya & Myron Salamon

Gail P Samota

Roberta Shaw

Linda Siegle

Martha & Ken Simonsen

Morgan Smith

Anne Souders

Carolyn Spolidoro

Monica Steidele

Dennis Storz

Melody & Michael Sumner

Rachel Thompson

Suzanne Timble

Two Star Trading Rob Turner

Christine & Paul Vogel Brian Watkins

Adam Wasserman

Elizabeth West William & Janislee Wiese

Leah Yngve Faith Yoman

Tale of Two Cities

Albuquerque brings its wine and spirits to Santa Fe

BY JULIA GOLDBERG @votergirl

My friend Andy and I share a common antipathy toward Albuquerque. He used to work there; I went to grad school at UNM; neither of us seeks out Albuquerque experiences and we both have been known to use the word “Albuquerque” as a snarky adjective.

None of this kept us from attending an open house at the newly opened downtown Vara Vinoteca tasting room where we pro ceeded to eat—well, drink—our words.

Albuquerque-based Vara Winery & Distillery’s Santa Fe spot features locally made vermouths, aperitifs and wines, in cluding Laurent Gruet’s two debut sparkling wines for the company. Gruet joined Vara as partner and winemaker two years ago, ap proximately six years after his family sold their company, which brought its winemak ing from Champagne to New Mexico in the 1980s and put New Mexico wines on the map.

Vara Winery—which had its first release in 2016—also has been receiving nation al recognition (among other awards, it was named New Mexico Distillery of the Year at last year’s New York International Spirits Competition) for its blends of Old and New World wines. At Vara Vinoteca’s opening, I asked Gruet if Santa Fe seemed like a good fit for his new endeavor.

“Santa Fe is a great market,” he said, both because of its restau rant and tourist scene. “It’s the right place to show your wine. Albuquerque is harder, I would say, because it’s wider and maybe not as charming.”

Charmed we were at Vara Vinoteca, where we sampled both of Gruet’s new sparkling wines, which offered up a plethora of tiny bubbles, citrusy and delicious. The company recommends pairing the American Silverhead—blend ed with Spanish grapes (Xarel-lo/ Macabe)—with crisped Manchego cheese straws with pickled sum mer pear compote. This delightful sounding combo was not on hand, but the tasting room does offer a

small charcuterie and tapas menu—think pa pas bravas and mussels al diablo.

I enjoyed the sparkling wine, but wanted to sample some red. After a brief discussion of my wine proclivities, Jennie Thornton, Vara’s wine and spirits educator, led me toward the 2019 Tinto Especial—described as the “power of Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon adorned with the grace of Garnacha and Cariñeno,” which won best in class at the 2022 San Francisco International Wine Competition. I will need more training to truly smell its purported aromas of cassis, black plums and dark chocolate, but I thought it was delicious and bought a bottle. Vara sells bottles on the spot; has a wine club for discounts; and Thornton offers wine classes from 11 am to 12:30 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays (vinoteca@varaines.com to reserve your spot).

Like several Vara folks with whom I spoke at the opening, Thornton boomeranged back to New Mexico—she grew up in Los Alamos— after working elsewhere; in her case: for wine companies in Napa and Europe.

“I came from a non-wine-drinking fami ly,” Thornton said. “And when I first got into the wine trade, I thought it was the most arrogant, pretentious trade on the planet. Everyone would put their nose in a glass and say they smelled leather and pine shavings and persimmons from a winter tree. I didn’t

get that at all.” So she set out to learn the science behind wine (essentially yeast feed ing on sugars), and the brain science behind learning to recognize certain aromas. “Then I realized all the sommeliers I was drinking with weren’t being arrogant…they were actu ally smelling things that were there.”

I could have sat listening to Thornton all night (I’m going back for a class!), but there were spirits to try. Lead Mixologist Jared Reeder spotlights Vara’s award-winning High Desert Gin (best American signature botanical gin in the 2022 World Gin Awards) in his Lady Coley, along with Vermut Dulce, house bitters and grapefruit oil. I have been drifting away from craft cocktails of late, but Reeder has lured me back. It’s possible Andy and I even toasted Albuquerque toward the end of the evening after we sampled Reeder’s After the Gold Rush: Taylor Garrett Whiskey, lemon, ginger-honey syr up, egg white, red chile.

As many aromas and flavors as Vara Vinoteca’s wine and spir its boast, lavender was not among them. Not to worry. Another Albuquerque venture, Los Poblanos, has brought its lavender and botanical gin game to Santa Fe via the newly opened Bar Norte and Farm Shop Norte. The latter made my little Southside-living bougie-aspirational heart soar. The shop features Los Poblanos products galore (think floor-toceiling lavender everything from its Albuquerque-based lavender farm, but also blue corn body scrub; Chimayo salt; simple syrups and an array of local food stuffs from New Mexico vendors).

The tasting room is small and, based on my 5 pm Friday entrance, crowded. While we waited for a table to open up, my friends and I secured drinks, which we were allowed to carry while we walked around the store (having spent my entire adult life in Santa Fe being corralled into various beer gardens, I found this type of freedom borderline shocking).

As for the drinks, the bar’s Lavender ‘99 probably won’t suit someone who doesn’t like lavender (Lavender Gin, Créme de Violette, lavender simple syrup and spar kling wine), but it’s delicious and way too gulpable if you do. We liked the signature Three Guineas (New Western gin, char treuse, aperitivo, sage, grapefruit) better than the margarita. My favorite was proba bly the No. 16 martini, which featured cham omile hydrosol and a lemon twist and which I wisely did not finish.

Bar Norte also has a small bites menu: cheese, olives and tinned fish, along with a tea service.

Neither new downtown spot has late hours. Both open at 11 am and close at 7 pm, except for Fridays and Saturdays when Vara Vinoteca stays open until 9 pm. Santa Fe hours, in other words.

VARA VINOTECA

11 am-7 pm, Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday; 11 am to 9 pm, Friday and Saturday 329 W San Francisco St. (505) 898-6280 varawines.com/santa-fe

BAR NORTE AND FARM SHOP NORTE

11 am to 7 pm, Tuesday through Saturday 201 Washington Ave. (505) 808-1713

lospoblanos.com/shop/farm-shop-norte

Vara Vinoteca Lead Manager/Lead Mixologist Jared Reeder makes it hard to choose between spirits and wine.

COURTESY

Los Poblanos brings Santa Fe the dangerous combination of craft cocktails at Bar Norte and high-end shopping at Farm Shop Norte.

COURTESY JEN PEREZ

BY ANNABELLA FARMER @boeinbrief

My First Popsicle: An Anthology of Food and Feelings (Penguin Books, Nov. 1) is, well…exact ly what it sounds like—a delectable tour through the raw, complex, heartbreaking and heartwarming emotions we all hold, in one form or another, about food.

Editor Zosia Mamet, of HBO’s Girls fame, had the idea for the anthology when she and her husband, Evan Jonigkeit, were (so the matically) out to dinner with friends who showed them a video of their 2-year-old son eating his first-ever popsicle. His emotions regarding the popsicle were, as Mamet de scribes them, as complex and varied as a sym phony—curiosity, fear, confusion, distaste, betrayal, sadness, jubilation. The video stuck in Mamet’s mind. Haven’t we all had an expe rience like that with food?

She was determined to find out.

A few years into the pandemic, Mamet set the wheels in motion for real, contacting friends, professional writers, cooks, musi cians, actors and singers to see if they’d be interested in contributing. The answer? A resounding yes. Thus was My First Popsicle

born. Its parents, midwives, doulas and dot ing godparents include Michelle Buteau, Sian Clifford, Beanie Feldstein, Rosie Perez, Busy Philipps, Ruth Reichl, David Sedaris—I could go on, but you get the picture. Star-studded. Some of Mamet’s contributing authors—like chef and cookbook author Anita Lo and chef and writer Kwame Onwuachi—write about food professionally. Others are actors, yoga teachers, illustrators, activists, dog groom ers, mothers. Others are just big fans of food. The result is a tantalizing literary smorgasbord.

As Mamet notes in the book’s intro duction, food is one of those few things we truly can’t live without. But, unlike most of the other necessities of continued exis tence such as oxygen and water, food isn’t just fuel. It’s a portal into memory, family and identity, depending on your expe rience. The essays, at times joyful and sweet, pithy and acerbic, or melancholy and bitter, acknowledge such complexi ties with finesse and humor.

Among my personal favorites are writer and creative strategist Andrew Bevan’s “Ball Buster,” in which his boyfriend breaks up with him—on Valentine’s Day, no less— just as he’s put a humiliatingly large bite of the most succulent meatball into his mouth. During Bevan’s prolonged mastication of said meatball, we run the gamut of emotions from shock to bewilderment to desperation; from the perfect clapback

to Bevan’s channeling fast-talking-dame Bette Davis.

In writer and performer Heidi Schreck’s “Solyanka Valentina,” we hear the story of her love affair with a Siberian man—and, more importantly, his mother and her cook ing. Over blini, pelmeni, cold cucumber soups and, of course, solyanka, she and Valentina Konstantinovna forged a friendship so du rable it couldn’t be broken by the narrator slamming Valentina’s arm in a hot oven (an accident, she swears).

But My First Popsicle isn’t just about those warm, fuzzy feelings we have about food and eating. It’s also about the sadness, the strug gles, the isolation. The ache as complex as a stew that’s been simmering on the stove for days.

“Shallot Vinaigrette Insurance” is novel ist, memoirist and screenwriter Stephanie Danler’s recollection of grieving a rela tionship built primarily around food, and slowly relearning how to give that nourish ment to herself after it ended. In Sancocho Dreaming!, John Leguizamo celebrates the Latin American soup that, in his mind, bears the cultural traumas of the places it hails from, as well as the personal traumas as sociated with it (his family had sancocho after the death of his grandfather, who had stolen his parents’ savings to pay off his own debt). But it’s also a symbol of remem brance, of honor and resilience.

Daniel Lavery’s “On Running-Away Food” is an homage to the foods we read about in children’s books: Lucy Pevensie’s Narnian af ternoon tea, pie and coffee from the automat in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Heidi’s toasted-cheese sand wiches—to which the prosaic foods of the adult world can never quite live up.

Recipes accompany many of the es says. If your culinary aptitudes are some what lacking, fear not—there’s something here for you, whether it’s Katie Holmes’ grandma’s peanut butter cookies or Beanie Feldstein’s “meh” fried egg. If you’re a cook of slightly more aplomb, or an adventurous dilettante, you might try Rosie Perez’ tía’s pollo guisado. Sometimes, the recipes are straightforward. Sometimes they’re as much a ritual as they are a recipe, as with Bevan’s “Uh-Oh” SpaghettiOs with Meatballs, a seemingly mundane dish elevated by Dave Brubeck and existential meditation. And if you want to try Matt Flanders’ Cookie Salad, comprised of vanilla pudding mix, milk, whipped topping, pineapple, mandarin or anges and Fudge Stripes cookies—well, it’s your funeral.

The world of food is a world where memo ries crystallize. Where Cool-Whip obliterates one’s errors with Bob Ross-ian gentleness. Where Fig Newtons are the height of sophis tication. But most of all, where we’re fed, and we feel.

Zosia Mamet’s new anthology celebrates food, glorious food

The Menu Review

BY ALEX DE VORE alex@sfreporter.com

You likely know people who are just like some, if not all, of the principal characters in director Mark Mylod’s The Menu—a brisk and compelling ode to/takedown of restaurant culture that ditches the rose-colored glasses for a darker dissection of obsession, burnout and charlatanry. Mylod has, thus far, been more of a television director with numerous big-hitter series including Shameless and Game of Thrones under his belt. With The Menu, however, he’s proven a knack for the eerie and unsettling, though within its norm-core setup we can easily see ourselves, and it’s not the most palatable reflection to observe, even if it is a fun ride.

In The Menu, numerous well-to-do types travel to a remote island to dine at the most exclusive restaurant run by the most exclusive chef (Ralph Fiennes). Our in with the diners comes courtesy of ostensible foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult, The Great) and his companion, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), someone who clearly has a secret of some kind. He’s a loudmouth food lover who feels the need to aggressively explain how the rest of us should go about tasting food—the mouthfeel, the flavor, the chefs themselves—and who needs the chef to know he’s knowledgable; Margot, meanwhile, loud ly proclaims she’s not as into it: Service folk, she says, need not be impressed by their diners. Elsewhere in

the dining room, wealthy mucky-mucks rub shoul ders with douchey finance bros and pretentious food critics; John Leguizamo’s faded star emphatically lies about a close friendship with the chef, while the chef’s mother drinks herself into a wordless oblivion in the corner.

The big change, then, happens so gradually that we hardly see it coming. The chef, seemingly under pressure, starts serving concepts rather than dishes: A note that explains the bread they’re not eating was developed by such-and-such grain-based nonprofit, tortillas with damning bank records and images of cheating husbands etched into their surface with food lasers. Everyone seems willing to go along with its theatrical aspects because the chef is so brilliant, but Margot—the one diner not of means—finds herself at odds with the presentation.

The Menu is a tough film to review without spoil ing its twists, so we’ll leave it at that before mention

ing Fiennes’ commanding performance is an absolute career high. Similarly, Taylor-Joy, who will apparent ly be in pretty much any film we ever see again, nails the tough but tragic Margot. Against her date’s idiocy, she might be the most normal person on the island, though Hoult proves once again to be one of the fin er actors working today. Writers Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, meanwhile, are the true heroes, particularly in how they painstakingly show us it’s silly to work our selves to death, all the while obsessing over wheth er—and to whom—it matters. Do we ever stop to ask ourselves what we really think? Perhaps too late, The Menu posits. By the time we hit this realization, how ever, it’s entirely possible we’re trapped too deep.

THE MENU

Directed by Mylod With Fiennes, Taylor-Joy, Hoult and Leguizamo Violet Crown, R, 107 min.

come for him. Explosions become imminent.

Shoutout to Marvel Studios for continuing with the Black Panther storyline following the death of actor Chadwick Boseman, who tragically succumbed to cancer in 2020. It would have been so easy to simply relegate the Black Panther characters to side roles in other mainline films, but instead, they put Letitia Wright (who has played sister Shuri to Boseman’s T’Challa since the start) front and center. The results, unfortunately, are mixed.

Director Ryan Coogler (Creed) confronts Boseman’s death head-on in the film’s early moments, showcasing Shuri’s tragic and all-too-logical response to the world around her. Here, Wakanda Forever hits some of its best emotional heights—including a Boseman-specific intro reel—but it all goes downhill pretty fast.

In the wake of T’Challa’s death, leadership from around the globe wants in on the fictional country of Wakanda’s greatest resource, a magic-adjacent space metal known as vibranium. Taking over the country for her son, the queen, Ramonda (Angela Bassett, who wrings out the best performance by far), offers a kind, “Yeah, no thanks,” in response, leading to tense rela tions across the board.

Meanwhile, the amphibious underwater prince, Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), reveals himself to the Wakandans. He, too, has vibranium, it seems, and his plan is to kill anyone interested in that before they

Elsewhere, at the periphery, find capable turns fea turing warrior Okoye (an always badass Danai Gurira) and the brilliant Nakia (a lovable Lupita Nyong’o), plus the introduction of Marvel character Ironheart—a sort of Iron Man descendent—from Dominique Thorne.

Narrative-wise, Black Panther starts simply enough, with Shuri running from her feelings and refusing the Black Panther mantle because she’s busy doing sci ence stuff. The rest of the film plays out like a lesson in accepting change, but with an absolutely point less layer featuring federal agents played by Martin Freeman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Black Panther lags. Clocking in at nearly three hours, it’s a shame, too, because it has good bones. Through flashbacks and tedious expositional conversations, however, those bones start to matter less.

And all the same, Wakanda Forever does up the ante in the CGI realm, a notable achievement following its silly inclusion in the first film. When it focuses on quieter emotional moments, it even starts to feel like a solid outing. But Marvel, of course, isn’t about to give up its massive set-piece battles and swelling orches tral music. These scenes make it feel almost like two films crammed into one, which could be about hedg ing bets in case folks didn’t accept a non-Boseman Black Panther. Wright holds her own, though, lending a certain grieving vulnerability that adds at least some dimension to the superhero movie about space metal. These actors worked with Boseman for years and were likely somewhat close, too, which makes some perfor mances feel all the more authentic. (ADV) Violet Crown, Regal, PG-13, 161 min.

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN 10

+ MASTERFUL CAST, BRILLIANTLY SCRIPTED AND SHOT TOO SUBTLE FOR SOME

You’d be wise to brush up a tad on Irish history and myth before seeing The Banshees of Inisherin, the new film from writer/director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges). Or maybe do it right after. In either event, it’s not that you won’t find plenty to love in the film’s humor or its folktale style—or even just in the re-teaming of Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell. But McDonagh pulls his allegory from the Irish civil war—which occurred from 1922-1923—illustrating how there’s not much sense to be found when brother turns on brother, that sometimes things just hurt. And though you’ll surely laugh and cry and learn and such, being in a better position to understand the symbolo gy at play makes the film all the more enjoyable.

In Banshees, good-natured doofus Pádrac (Farrell) goes to round up his best pal Colm (Gleeson) for an afternoon at the pub, a previously daily outing. Colm, however, is unresponsive, claiming ultimately that he just finds Pádrac dull and they shan’t be friends moving forward. Nonplussed, Pádrac pushes the issue, claiming they were friends just a day before. Colm responds by threatening the unthinkable: Every time Pádrac dares to engage him, he’ll chop off one of his own fingers with an imposing set of sheers. Meanwhile, Pádrac’s sister, Siobhan (a luminous Kerry Condon), finds herself tired of the machinations of men, and the town idiot, Dominic (Barry Keoghan, who might be the film’s secret weapon) loiters about,

creating an almost childlike lens through which the viewer might consider what is fair and what is not; the elderly Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton) glides through the hills and dales like the grim specter of death, a por tend of eerie things to come.

Both Farrell and Gleeson are at the top of their respective games here, and when filtered through McDonagh’s crackling script, they find real magic together. There’s something to be said for chemistry, yes, but also for a pair of studied actors digging into real-world history from a more humanitarian angle. The remote island of Inisherin somehow feels both lonely and bustling. It looms like a character unto itself and brilliantly encapsulates the challenges of a com munity too close-knit.

In the distance, on the mainland, explosions and gunfire; on the island itself, a crossroads bisected by a statue of The Virgin. Farrell keeps it light and funny, right up until he doesn’t. Still, as he angrily announces to Colm’s dog that he “didn’t come here for licks,” or explains to the townsfolk that he “doesn’t think we’ve been rowing,” there is a barely masked hurt. Maybe some pride. In Gleeson’s gruff and borderline preten tious elder character, too, one might glimpse the bits of themselves they don’t much like. It’s a relationship like brotherhood, but almost like the inevitable fallout from when a child understands their parent is a mortal human. God help those who discover they don’t like their family when they stop to think of it.

The stunningly green Irish backdrop of McDonagh’s masterpiece almost staves away the ugliness. Almost. (ADV)

Violet Crown, Center for Contemporary Arts, R, 114 min.

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER

+ WRIGHT TACKLES SOMETHING SO HARD; BASSETT IS GLORIOUS NEEDLESS FED STUFF; FAR TOO LONG

Powerhouse Ralph Fiennes leads chilling takedown of obsession, burnout and foodie culture

+ SHOCKING AND INTRIGUING; BRILLIANTLY ACTED LACK OF CONCRETE ANSWERS

PSYCHICS

Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): One of your callings as an Aries is to take risks. You’re inclined to take more leaps of faith than other people, and you’re also more likely to navigate them to your advantage—or at least not get burned. A key reason for your success is your keen intuition about which gambles are relatively smart and which are ill-advised. But even when your chancy ventures bring you exciting new experiences, they may still run you afoul of conventional wisdom, peer pressure, and the way things have always been done. Everything I have described here will be in maximum play for you in the coming weeks.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Your keynote comes from teacher Caroline Myss. She writes, “Becoming adept at the process of self-inquiry and symbolic insight is a vital spiritual task that leads to the growth of faith in oneself.” Encouraging you to grow your faith in yourself will be one of my prime intentions in the next 12 months. Let’s get started! How can you become more adept at selfinquiry and symbolic insight? One idea is to ask yourself a probing new question every Sunday morning, like “What teachings and healings do I most want to attract into my life during the next seven days?” Spend the subsequent week gathering experiences and revelations that will address that query. Another idea is to remember and study your dreams, since doing so is the number one way to develop symbolic insight. For help, I recommend the work of Gayle Delaney: tinyurl.com/ InterviewYourDreams

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The TV science fiction show *Legends of Tomorrow* features a ragtag team of imperfect but effective superheroes. They travel through time trying to fix aberrations in the timelines caused by various villains. As they experiment and improvise, sometimes resorting to wildly daring gambits, their successes outnumber their stumbles and bumbles. And on occasion, even their apparent mistakes lead to good fortune that unfolds in unexpected ways. One member of the team, Nate, observes, “Sometimes we screw up—for the better.” I foresee you Geminis as having a similar modus operandi in the coming weeks.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I like how Cancerian poet Stephen Dunn begins his poem, “Before We Leave.” He writes, “Just so it’s clear—no whining on the journey.” I am offering this greeting to you and me, my fellow Cancerians, as we launch the next chapter of our story. In the early stages, our efforts may feel like drudgery, and our progress could seem slow. But as long as we don’t complain excessively and don’t blame others for our own limitations, our labors will become easier and quite productive.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo poet Kim Addonizio writes a lot about love and sex. In her book *Wild Nights*, she says, “I’m thinking of dating trees next. We could just stand around all night together. I’d murmur, they’d rustle, the wind would, like, do its wind thing.” Now might be a favorable time for you, too, to experiment with evergreen romance and arborsexuality and trysts with your favorite plants. When was the last time you hugged an oak or kissed an elm? JUST KIDDING! The coming weeks will indeed be an excellent time to try creative innovations in your approach to intimacy and adoration. But I’d rather see your experiments in togetherness unfold with humans.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In her book *Daughters of the Stone*, Virgo novelist Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa tells the tale of five generations of Afro-Cuban women, her ancestors. “These are the stories of a time lost to flesh and bone,” she writes, “a time that lives only in dreams and memories. Like a primeval wave, these stories have carried me, and deposited me on the morning of today. They are the stories of how I came to be who I am, where I am.” I’d love to see you explore your own history with as much passion and focus, Virgo. In my astrological opinion, it’s a favorable time for you to commune with the influences that have made you who you are.

Week of November 23rd

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In accordance with astrological omens, here’s my advice for you in the coming weeks: 1. Know what it takes to please everyone, even if you don’t always choose to please everyone. 2. Know how to be what everyone wants you to be and when they need you to be it, even if you only fulfill that wish when it has selfish value for you. 3. DO NOT give others all you have and thereby neglect to keep enough to give yourself. 4. When others are being closed-minded, help them develop more expansive finesse by sharing your own reasonable views. 5. Start thinking about how, in 2023, you will grow your roots as big and strong as your branches.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Even if some people are nervous or intimidated around you, they may be drawn to you nonetheless. When that happens, you probably enjoy the power you feel. But I wonder what would happen if you made a conscious effort to cut back just a bit on the daunting vibes you emanate. I’m not saying they’re bad. I understand they serve as a protective measure, and I appreciate the fact that they may help you get the cooperation you want. As an experiment, though, I invite you to be more reassuring and welcoming to those who might be inclined to fear you. See if it alters their behavior in ways you enjoy and benefit from.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z has stellar advice for his fellow Sagittarians to contemplate regularly: “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with the aim; just gotta change the target.” In offering Jay-Z’s advice, I don’t mean to suggest that you *always* need to change the target you’re aiming at. On many occasions, it’s exactly right. But the act of checking in to evaluate whether it is or isn’t the right target will usually be valuable. And on occasion, you may realize that you should indeed aim at a different target.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You now have extra power to exorcise ghosts and demons that are still lingering from the old days and old ways. You are able to transform the way your history affects you. You have a sixth sense about how to graduate from lessons you have been studying for a long time. In honor of this joyfully tumultuous opportunity, draw inspiration from poet Charles Wright: “Knot by knot I untie myself from the past / And let it rise away from me like a balloon. / What a small thing it becomes. / What a bright tweak at the vanishing point, blue on blue.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In accordance with current astrological rhythms, I am handing over your horoscope to essayist Anne Fadiman. She writes, “I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things, but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one.”

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Over the course of my life, I have been fortunate to work with 13 psychotherapists. They have helped keep my mental health flourishing. One of them regularly reminded me that if I hoped to get what I wanted, I had to know precisely what I wanted. Once a year, she would give me a giant piece of thick paper and felt-tip markers. “Draw your personal vision of paradise,” she instructed me. “Outline the contours of the welcoming paradise that would make your life eminently delightful and worthwhile.” She would also ask me to finish the sentence that begins with these words: “I am mobilizing all the energy and ingenuity and connections I have at my disposal so as to accomplish the following goal.” In my astrological opinion, Pisces, now is a perfect time to do these two exercises yourself.

Homework: In what process have you gone halfway, and you really should go all the way? Newsletter.

FreeWillAstrology.com

MIND BODY SPIRIT

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ANXIOUS? OVERWHELMED? OVER IT?

I’m Ryan, I teach creative empaths to master big feelings so you can live in a consistent state of calm, using a unique modality of abstract Energy Work + practical Life Coaching. 505-231-8036 abstracttherapie.com

CASEY’S TOP HAT CHIMNEY SWEEP

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PREPARING FOR THE HOLIDAYS: The Magical Practice of Taking and Giving Holidays are wonderful when celebrating with friends and family. But our expectations are high, leading to stress and disappointment. For many the holidays bring disappointment, loneliness and depression. Relationships, finances and social demands can be challenging.

Buddha’s teachings offer techniques to attain personal peace so we respond naturally to every situation and conversation with a positive mind and a kind heart. So our holidays become meaningful and stress-free. Cherishing others is the basis of all happiness. When we reverse our ordinary childish habit of seeing ourself at the center of the universe, fulfilling our own wishes as most important and our discomfort as paramount - we naturally emphasize with others respecting them and feeling compassion.

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Our mind is our greatest healer. Discover your potential to overcome the mental and physical pain, the sorrow that comes from loss and illness through the renowned, ancient meditations known as Taking and Giving: We transform the simple act of breathing into a powerful healing practice causing our compassion and love to grow, improves our concentration, brings wisdom and makes our life meaningful. These teachings will explore the foundation of compassion and how to transform adverse conditions into spiritual growth. We’ll move into the sublime meditations that unify our compassion and wisdom. Meditations are guided and based on Buddha’s advice. Time is allowed for discussion and Q&A. It’s most beneficial to attend the whole series but dropping in also brings great benefit.

LEGALS

STATE OF NEW MEXICO

COUNTY OF SANTA FE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT No. D-101-CV-2022-001815

In the Matter of Gregory Paul Al-Yassin Petition for Change of Name.

Gonzales. KATHLEEN VIGIL, District Court Clerk

By: Marquel Gonzales-Aragon Deputy Court Clerk Submitted by: Jessica Lynn Leonard Petitioner, Pro Se

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NOTICE OF CHANGE OF NAME TAKE NOTICE that in accordance with the provisions of Sec. 40-8-1 through Sec. 40-8-3 NMSA 1978, et seq., the Petitioner, GREGORY PAUL AL-YASSIN, will apply to the Honorable Bryan Biedscheid, District Judge of the First Judicial District, at the Santa Fe Judicial Complex, 225 Montezuma Ave., in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 9:00 a.m. on the 1st of December, 2022 for an ORDER FOR CHANGE OF NAME from GREGORY PAUL ALYASSIN to GREGORY ALYASSIN. TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that this hearing shall be by remote access All hearings are conducted by Google Meet. The court prefers counsel and parties to participate by video at https://meet.google. com/hdc-wqjx-wes. If it is not possible to participate by video, you may participate by calling (US) +1 954-507-7909 PIN: 916 854 445#.

Kathleen Vigil District Court Clerk

By: Johnny Enriquez-Lujan Deputy Court Clerk

I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of the foregoing was served electronically on the following parties/counsel of record on the date of this filing: Lynn A. Barnhill

Attorney for Petitioner Gregory Paul Al-Yassin lynn@barnhill-law.com. /s/

Terri. S. Sossman, TCAA

STATE OF NEW MEXICO COUNTY OF SANTA FE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT

IN THE MATTER OF A PETITION FOR CHANGE OF NAME OF JESSICA LYNN LEONARD Case No.: D-101-CV-2022-01957

NOTICE OF CHANGE OF NAME TAKE NOTICE that in accordance with the provisions of Sec. 40-8-1 through Sec. 40-8-3 NMSA 1978, et seq. The Petitioner Jessica Lynn Leonard will apply to the Honorable Bryan Biedsheid, District Judge of the First Judicial District at the Santa Fe Judicial Complex, 225 Montezuma Ave., in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 10:20 a.m. on the 5th day of January, 2023 for an ORDER FOR CHANGE OF NAME from Jessica Lynn Leonard to Jessica Lynn Leonard-

STATE OF NEW MEXICO COUNTY OF SANTA FE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT

IN THE MATTER OF A PETITION FOR CHANGE OF NAME OF LAVERNE CHRISTINE LOPEZ Case No.: D-101-CV-2022-02099

NOTICE OF CHANGE OF NAME TAKE NOTICE that in accordance with the provisions of Sec. 40-8-1 through Sec. 40-8-3 NMSA 1978, et seq. The Petitioner Laverne Christine Lopez will apply to the Honorable Kathleen McGarry Ellenwood, District Judge of the First Judicial District at the Santa Fe Judicial Complex, 225 Montezuma Ave., in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 9:45 a.m. on the 14th day of December, 2022 for an

ORDER FOR CHANGE OF NAME from Laverne Christine Lopez to Verna Lopez Jaramillo.

KATHLEEN VIGIL, District Court Clerk By: Leticia Cunningham Deputy Court Clerk Submitted by: Laverne Chrstine Lopez Petitioner, Pro Se

STATE OF NEW MEXICO COUNTY OF SANTA FE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT

IN THE MATTER OF A PETITION FOR CHANGE OF NAME OF SANTIAGO ANTONIO MANESS Case No.: D-101-CV-2022-02158

NOTICE OF CHANGE OF NAME TAKE NOTICE that in accordance with the provisions of Sec. 40-8-1 through Sec. 40-8-3 NMSA 1978, et seq. the Petitioner Santiago Antonio Maness will apply to the Honorable Matthew J. Wilson, District Judge of the First Judicial District at the Santa Fe Judicial Complex, 225 Montezuma Ave., in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 1:15 p.m. on the 19th day of January, 2023 for an ORDER FOR CHANGE OF NAME from Santiago Antonio Maness to Santiago Antonio Benavidez.

KATHLEEN VIGIL, District Court Clerk

By: Tamara Snee Deputy Court Clerk Submitted by: Santiago Antonio Maness Petitioner, Pro Se