In the Labyrinth

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday

 

Here's hoping that all of you out there have a wonderful New Year's celebration. I am proud to call New Years my birthday. I was the first new baby of 1954 in Santa Monica, California. The doctor still had on his tuxedo pants, but really, my mother and I didn't need him. I was in a hurry and she'd had a couple of glasses of champagne.This was the photo of us hours after the delivery that appeared in the newspaper. I think my mother is so gorgeous and at least I for the moment appear serene. So happy birthday to all of you other New Year's babies, and a joyous welcome to those new ones arriving in the wee hours later tonight.

Madrid, NM Christmas Festival of Lights: The Tree, The Church, and The School

Of the over 41,000 lights that decorated Madrid, about 1,500 of them went on a huge christmas tree that graced the center of the Ball Park (check out the photos of Madrid's baseball teams to see what a great space that field was and how versatile -- during the summer July 4th parades were held, along horse races,bronco busting and Taos dancers).

 

In addition, here are two of my favorite other photos: Madrid's church, fully outlined like some star constellation; and the grade school -- which had a terrific Santa with sleigh and reindeers on the roof.

You can see these photos and others like them here. Do note, there are now two pages of Madrid Christmas photos. And more to come...

Madrid, NM Christmas Festival of Lights: IV Nativity Scenes

 
I have just added a handful of more photos -- including a few close ups of the building of the large dioramas of Jeruselem and Bethlehem, along with a close up of the fabulous Sphinx, and a few more whimiscal house decorations. But what would a Christmas celebration be without a Nativity scene? And Madrid did not disappoint here either -- for it was a display of the Holy Family complete with a live donkey contentedly chomping on hay. (Please note that the photo album now spans two pages -- so click your way to the second page to see all the nativity photos.)

  
 

Madrid, NM Christmas Festival of Lights on Christmas Eve: III

I have only a few moments before heading out to attend Christmas Eve celebrations and midnight mass at the Cathedral, but I wanted to share two photos of the gorgeous Peace  and Goodwill sign that glowed along with the other illuminated scenes high on the hill.

And a special shout out to those in the military serving far from the security of a post, out there in the starlight dark. I pray that all of you come home safe soon.

 

And here is a program from Madrid's Festival of Lights. The photo above is mentioned below as "the Huge  ChristmasTree" with its 1,500 lights in the center of town.

Madrid, NM Christmas Festival of Lights: II

 

There have been a number of wonderful articles written about Madrid's Christmas light show. Here's a bit from Collier's Magazine, 1940 written by Jim Marshall :

"In a grim canyon in northern New Mexico there is a blaze of light. On the steep hillsides are illuminated scenes from the Nativity of Jesus. The Star of Bethlehem shines down and high on a peak stands the tall figure of the Christus bringing peace and goodwill. This is the setting of one of American's most unusual Christmas festivals -- a month long celebration of the coal miners working in the pits around the little town of Madrid, high in the Ortiz Range.

 

 

"In the village, where the four hundred miners and their families live, every home is outlined by lights. The baseball park has been converted into Toyland for the kids, with a miniature train, a Ferris wheel and other amusement devices -- all homemade -- operating. There are hundreds of lighted Christmas trees and on the mountain tops twinkle little cedar fires to El Santo Nino, as they did in the days of Spanish rule.

  

"On the hillsides above the village are built twelve Biblical scenes telling the story of Jesus' birth. There is a tiny village of Bethlehem; the Virgin and Joseph with Child; the Shepherds and the Star; the Flight into Egypt.

  

Although some of the miners tinker around all year with the mechanized displays, most of the work is done just before opening day. The last Sunday before this day is a sort of homecoming, and miners who once worked in Madrid drive up to the little own from far and near, help put up the decorations and wind up in the annual party. Workers are divided into crews and there is great rivalry among them.

Meanwhile, the women have decorated homes and the kids have brought in cedar brush from the mountains and piled wood for the fires on the hilltops. Everything is ready when the first visitor's show up, and from then on it's open house. You may walk into any home and be welcomed. There is a curious combination of old Spanish and Mexican and Yankee customs -- the fandango and the modern dance; the American "party" and the old fiesta. But the spirit behind it all is universal."

 

To see many more of these photos please click on the Madrid Christmas photo album -- I will updating these daily for a while.

Madrid, NM Christmas Festival of Lights: I

 

So I had rashly thought that I would do a single blog post on the fabulous Christmas festival of lights of Madrid, New Mexico during the 1920s to the early 40s. Every year this small mining town with a population of barely 2,000 citizens pulled together and created one of the most spectacular Christmas displays imaginable -- all for free to a public who trooped out to the tiny city (sometimes as many 15,000  day) to enjoy the sight. Every house was decorated, every building in the town had its displays and its lights. On the hillside above, enormous dioramas were constructed of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the pyramids, the Sphinx, and episodes from Christ's life...all of it lit up with over 41,000 colored lights.

 

So here's my problem as I quickly discovered. I have about 400 photographs of the event-- including photographs of my grandfather Pierre Menager painting and putting on the finishing touches to dioramas intended for the children's Toyland. And since there are so many photographs, I have decided to feature a handful every day over the next week or so and will add them continuously to a Madrid Christmas photo album in the right hand column. A year ago I put out a wish that anyone who might have photos of the events might be willing to share them. Pinky Werner, the granddaughter of Oscar Huber (owner and superintendent of the Madrid coal mine) sent me a disk of almost 700 photographs covering daily life in Madrid and especially photos of the Christmas Light Festival. To her -- and to many of the younger generation of former Madrid citizens who have written to me about the photos -- this has been a great gift. Once again, I must give thanks to her for her generosity in making these photos from her family albums available to the public.

PW Review for Except the Queen

Here's a bit of lovely news -- the first review from PW for the new novel Except the Queen: 

"World Fantasy Award-winning Yolen  (Dragon's Heart) teams up with Snyder (The Innamorati) to weave a magical tale. After Serana and Meteora stumble across a secret that could damage the reputation of the Fairy Queen, the close-knit fae siblings are separated and banished to Earth. Stripped of youth, beauty, and magic, they struggle to adapt to the baffling modern world. In New York, Serana meets a feral young man whose talent for music is uncanny. In Milwaukee, Meteora finds refuge in the legendary Baba Yaga's house, where she befriends a trouble woman being stalked by a murderous tattoist. As the various players converge for a deadly showdown, the truth behind the sisters' exile is revealed. Unconventional narrative techniques and a full dose of magic and folklore give this urban fantasy a lyrical, mythic feel."

The book is currently available at Amazon for pre-ordering. Given the hectic and difficult past year I am still a bit stunned that I got this novel turned in at all! Many thanks to Jane for all the support and splendid work.

Armless Maiden and the Hero's Journey Translated into Italian

Sabrina Abeni who edits the blog Gotico-Visionaria (which features articles on myth, folklore, and magical realism) has just translated my article The Armless Maiden and the Hero's Journey into Italian as La Fancuilla Senza Mani E Il Viaggo Dell' Eroe" . So for those you who might want to brush up on your Italian....prego!

Lydia Mendoza Making "Tamales Panchita"

Here is a fabulous little video clip from the documentary film Chulas Fronteras, directed by Les Blank and Chris Strachwitz that shows the great Lydia Mendoza making tamales with the other women of her family and discussing her considerable singing career. It's hard to know which captivated me more, the cooking or the singing! The documentary film chronicles the lives of many well-known Texas-Mexican border musicians and performers and from this clip, it is easy to see why it is so inspiring in many ways. Here's a review from Joe Patoski of the Texas Monthly:

"'Chulas Fronteras provides a magnificent introduction to the most exciting Norteña (“Northern” Texas-Mexican border) musicians working today: Los Alegres de Teran, Lydia Mendoza, Flaco Jimenez and others. The music and spirit of the people is seen embodied in their strong family life and sheer enjoyment of domestic rituals preparing of food and eating, celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary, gathering in the backyard with friends. At the same time Blank does not overlook the hardships, in particular the Chicano experience of migrating from state to state with the seasons for work in the fields. He makes clear the role that music has in redeeming their lives by giving utterance to collective pain. For music, politics and life are integrated in this film in a way that is both enchanting and unsettling.”

(Via Emiliano Lake-Herrera at The Studio.)

In Praise of the Long Sentence: Doctorow's Homer & Langely

 I am in awe of authors who have mastered the really long sentence and use it to great effect. Not only are such sentences masterpieces of grammar and punctuation (making sure that the reader never gets lost in the constant flow of words), but they often serve one of two functions: like a camera pan instantly orienting the reader in a big, lively scene (see my post on Peréze-Reverte) or encapsulating some key theme of the entire novel in a single, richly textured literary bite.

The latter is found in the opening pages of E.L. Doctorow's new novel, Homer &Langely. It is a wonderful novel about two eccentric, wealthy reclusive brothers who gradually turn inward and become compulsive hoarders within their once wealthy family home in New York City. (The novel is an imaginative, fictional biography of the Collyer brothers.) The opening narration is by Homer, who becomes blind in his late teens. He loses his sight gradually, over months and daily stares out at the same vista of Central Park, measuring the encroaching darkness and shadow. It is a long sentence that begins with the sense of sight and ends with the sense of sound:

"The houses over to Central Park West went first, they got darker as if dissolving into the dark sky until I couldn't make them out, and then the trees began to lose their shape, and finally, this was toward the end of the season, maybe it was late February of that very cold winter, and all I could see were these phantom shapes of the white ice, that last light, went gray and then altogether black, and then all my sight was gone though I could hear clearly the scoot scut of the blades on ice, a very satisfying sound, a soft sound though full of intention, a deeper tone that you'd expect made by the skate blades, perhaps for having sounded the resonant basso of the water under the ice, scoot scut, scoot scut."

 
This early in the novel I am trapped by that image -- the fading of sight, the reliance of knowing the world in a more limited way.  I can anticipate all the other concerns of the novel: memory and nostalgia as the brothers' world like Homer's fading sight closes in on them, and their increasing eccentricities create an alternate world out of hoarded trash. Not even on page two and I am already neck deep in the brother's peculiar lives. I'll be posting a longer review of the novel next week -- a group of us are getting together to talk about it over a meal. (The photograph above is the police trying to gain entrance to the NY apartment in 1947, Credit: Anthony Camerano / Associated Press)

In the meantime, anybody have an other favorites? (I can list a bunch from Julio Cortazar's brilliant one sentence, one paragraph story "No One is to Blame" to Joseph Conrad's opening sentence in his novel An Outcast of the Islandsand half a dozen such potent lines in Cormac McCarthy's novels.