su libro

on the tail of two cities Seeking the essence of the Duke City and the City Different, plus two books about keeping your home healthy and a guide to Santa Fe and Taos.
By Charles C. Poling

This article first appeared in Summer 06 Su Casa

The Essence of Santa Fe: From a Way of Life to a Style, by Jerilou Hammett, Kingsley Hammett, and Peter Scholz, Ancient City Press/Gibbs Smith, Publisher, Layton, Utah, 256 pages, 450 color and black and white images, hardcover, $50.

The Essence of Santa Fe distinguishes itself among the legions of Santa Fe style books by filling its pages mainly with black and white photos exhumed from deep within the rich archives of the Museum of New Mexico. That photo archive offers an amazingly varied, kaleidoscopic view into the state’s past, a view narrowed by Jerilou Hammett, Kingsley Hammett, and Peter Scholz into a focused study of life and the evolution of architectural style in the self-proclaimed City Different. Many of these photographs are of very high quality, taken by prominent photographers of the past, and even when the images are blurry, blown-out with uncontrolled illumination, or ravaged by time, they still convey an authenticity that cannot be duplicated today. More-contemporary photos round out this collection, bringing the story into the present, though often with less piquancy or emotional resonance than the archival material.

The authors have certainly earned the right to weigh-in on the seemingly endless conversation about Santa Fe. Jerilou and Kingsley Hammett publish DESIGNER/builder magazine in Santa Fe, and Kingsley has authored several books on various aspects of New Mexico furniture and on Santa Fe. Their deep knowledge of the place brings an authority to The Essence of Santa Fe that is often lacking when outsiders toss off a book about our famous capital. Rest easy: the Hammetts know what they’re talking about.

Divided into nine chapters, The Essence of Santa Fe begins with “The Pueblo Perspective,” a blend of summary anthropology, history, and exposition of Southwest roots architecture. Then the authors move through the arrival of the Spanish, the colonial era, the influx of Americans over the Santa Fe Trail and then railroad, and so on, all focusing on architecture, furnishings, and other elements of style against a backdrop of the largest historical milestones and trends.

Sections about the golden age of Santa Fe artists and special events—like Fiesta—make the case for the City Different’s unique lifestyle. And while yet another retelling of how Santa Fe style was created as a marketing strategy to boost tourism a century ago is hardly news, the authors’ setting of the tale in the broad sweep of history—told as much through pictures as words—creates a satisfying context for the evolution of the Santa Fe myth. Chapters called “Forever Santa Fe” and “Old World Charm” do their best to keep alive the myth in the venerable tradition of American Romantic writing about the Southwest. Does Santa Fe have an essence? Is there a way of life, or merely a stylized way of living? Does a myth become reality when it is fully inhabited and wholeheartedly embraced by a population? Maybe the answers don’t matter—spend a day around the plaza while you ponder them, and find a place on your bookshelf for The Essence of Santa Fe somewhere between Christine Mather’s genre-launching Santa Fe Style and Chris Wilson’s The Myth of Santa Fe.

Albuquerque in Our Time, 30 Voices, 300 Years, by Debra Hughes, Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, 144 pages, 60 halftones, paperback, $24.95.
Albuquerque Remembered, by Howard Bryan, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 287 pages, paperback, $19.95.

Albuquerque has never tried to invent its own identity—it’s been too busy wrestling with the challenges of real life. Yet people from the Duke City—those who identify it as home with all the profound and far-reaching attachments that word implies—love it unconditionally. And those are the kinds of people Debra Hughes, herself one among them, has interviewed for her charming oral history, Albuquerque in Our Time.

In the tradition of a Studs Terkel oral history, Hughes delivers a subjective, representative, apt, and accurate collage view into the as-lived Albuquerque its residents know and love. One early chapter dispenses the World Book highlights of great-event history, from ancient habitation, Pueblo settlements, the Coronado expedition and subsequent colonization (and recolonization), to the wave of American immigration—all familiar to even the casual student of New Mexico.

After this place-setting introduction, Hughes serves up the main dish, devoting the rest of the book to our time, our voices. If you have lived in Albuquerque long enough to recall a rainy summer or a snowy winter, you’ll find friends, acquaintances, or at least familiar faces among her 30 interviewees. Through their transcribed stories, which range as widely and idiosyncratically as side conversations at a valley matanza, Hughes paints a collage portrait of a place, like those computer-generated pictures that construct a larger image from a thousand tiny ones. Because she draws from living people’s memories, these stories skew chronologically toward the mid-20th century.

Some of the voices that Hughes records are the ur-Latin-rocker Al Hurricane, surgeon Albert Simms, horsewoman extraordinaire Blair Darnell, state secretary of labor and longtime newsman Conroy Chino, Senator Pete Domenici, photographer Miguel Gandert, former State Fair manager Finlay MacGillivray, author Tony Hillerman, Los Poblanos owner Penny Rembe, McCune Charitable Foundation director Owen Lopez, and NAACP chapter president and restaurateur Joe Powdrell. And that’s not the list by half. One at a time, they reminisce about the old days, tell funny stories about themselves, and shed light on the evolution of a town. Through their cumulative power, these narratives sculpt a three-dimensional image of a town’s soul.

The untold story here, perhaps, is the intricate web of connections linking so many of these people. Forty years ago, it was easy to feel you knew everyone in Albuquerque, or at least his cousin or sister-in-law. Underneath the clamor of 650,000 souls today, I believe Albuquerque remains a small town—that web of connectedness continues to knit the society of doers, movers, and shakers. If you lived here in Governor Bruce King’s first term, you know what I mean. If you moved here last year, the best part is that the doors are still open—come on in.

Longtime journalist Howard Bryan’s history of the Duke City is a horse of a different color, a conventional narrative of the city’s past from prehistory to the recent turning of another millennium. That time depth, a good 12,000 years of human activity, belies the current Tricentennial pomp—what’s 300 years? But then, history is document-based, and the paper trail reaches back only to Coronado’s expedition. (Assuming that the peripatetic shipwrecked Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca and his pals didn’t actually pass through the central Rio Grande valley on their way from Florida to Mexico a decade or so earlier.)

Bryan writes with the assured, loping prose of the seasoned newspaper columnist that he is. Having come to New Mexico to write for the Albuquerque Tribune from 1948 to 1990, he might well claim to have witnessed much of Albuquerque’s contemporary history firsthand. He does a fine job covering the “great man” events, the textbook highlights like the occupation by Confederate troops for a month and the arrival of the railroad. He also has a reporter’s nose for a good story, which he knows always centers on people. Thus he delves into the career trajectory of Franz Huning, from Santa Fe Trail bullwhacker to prominent businessman and father of two of New Mexico’s best-known writers. Then he explores the checkered career of the “wayward padre” of San Felipe de Neri Catholic Church in Old Town, Jose Manuel Gallegos. The colorful priest lived to party, earned censure from Bishop Lamy, gave up his church, won election (naturally! this is New Mexico) as a territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress—then he got married—then he served in local public office.

Albuquerque in Our Time and Albuquerque Remembered make natural companion reading. Together they give a triangulated view into the Duke City’s near and distant past, its famous and everyday lives, its uniqueness of circumstance and disposition.

Happy 300th!

Essential Environments, Discover How to Create Healthy Living Spaces, by TJanie Quinn, Azure Moon Publishing, Waverley, Pennsylvania, 256 pages, hardcover, $24.95.
The Healthy Home Workbook, Easy Steps for Eco-Friendly Living, by Kimberly Rider, photographs by Thayer Allyson Gowdy, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 192 pages, spiral-bound hardcover, $24.95.

Here are two more books that share a common theme, so closely parallel in some sections that they might have been hatched in the same book editors meeting. And that’s not to denigrate either of these worthy, useful books. Rather, their kinship delivers further evidence of the consumer demand for information about green living and products to support that lifestyle. With increasing public awareness about possible ties between asthma, respiratory ailments, allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, and multiple chemical sensitivity and the materials in our homes, more and more people are seeking active strategies to clean up their lives.

In The Healthy Home Workbook, Kimberly Rider explores room by room the potential toxins, allergens, and other hazards. Then she suggests simple steps and more comprehensive campaigns to reduce them. These latter she organizes into categories of increasing rigor, from “Instant Gratification” (the easy stuff) through “More Committed?” to “A Truly Healthy Home.” That stratified approach lets the reader wade in according to predilection or budget.

In Essential Environments, Janie Quinn covers more ground—delving into the health benefits of thorough chewing, for instance—while still giving concrete tips for creating a healthier home. Quinn suggests guidelines for considering which building materials to use, or alternative energy sources. The information is hardly exhaustive—more of a tickler to urge readers to pursue the topics in greater detail for themselves. The strength of this book derives from its panoramic view of healthy living, as it doesn’t confine the subject merely to housing, water quality, or natural foods.

You couldn’t design a green residence from the prescriptions in either book, but you will set them down knowing more about the design elements and kinds of materials that you’ll want to ask a builder or designer about. Both books include resources, with Essential Environments offering more breadth and more detail about where to get information, products, and services.

The Santa Fe & Taos Book, A Complete Guide, 7th edition, by Sharon Niederman, The Countryman Press, Woodstock, Vermont, 294 pages, paperback, $18.95.

This latest edition of Sharon Niederman’s well-researched guidebook to New Mexico’s hottest tourist destination zone carries on the tradition of comprehensive information, insider tips, and overall utility. Niederman, a regular Su Casa writer and seasoned journalist, does a fine job navigating visitors to the obvious landmarks, the less-known gems, and all the shopping, dining, and lodging that a credit card can handle.
In addition to fleshed-out descriptions of many of these attractions, Niederman also delivers thoughtful reporting on such non-obvious topics as proper etiquette when visiting a pueblo, Santa Fe architecture, and sacred sites. The book also covers the expected listings of hotels, B&Bs, restaurants, cafés, museums, parks, recreational sites, cultural sites, and so on—with a handy reference section in back that indexes lodgings and eateries by price (as well as a standard subject index).

For visitors and locals alike, The Santa Fe & Taos Book belongs in the glove compartment, if not the dashboard, whether you’re in a rental car looking for the best quick taco in Santa Fe or escaping Albuquerque’s summer heat for a quiet Taos B&B.