Art viewing – LOTS! We have developed the Boone Theory of Bad Art Coagulation: Really bad art makes other bad art seem less bad. For example, after you see the bronze of the Country Jamboree bear with an arrow in his butt eying (why not eating?) a penitent Indian boy you can look at the adjacent eight-foot long stagecoach being drawn by horses and a blue bull without losing your lunch. The Boone Theory explains how a nucleus of bad art will have a surrounding sphere of artistic horror – you will never see very good art next to very bad art. You may think it’s good, but it’s not – your aesthetic center has been temporarily damaged by the bad art.
This research was of course, conducted at a great cost. In the process of surveying the Santa Fe art community on the Plaza and Canyon Road we naturally also entered the good art sphere of influence. Some of it will be arriving at our home soon. We have contributed to the arts, specifically to Lydia Quezada, Jody Forster, and Javier Lopez Barbosa.
The National Atomic Museum has moved. The old Museum was on Kirtland Air Force Base and but after September 11 visitation dropped off due to the fact that only authorized air force personnel were allowed on base. All the guide books still show it at the Air Force base, so we found one of the main gates. When we asked the nice guard at the base, with the sidearm and the slung M-16 and the bullet proof vest, he informed us the museum had moved. The base was at condition BRAVO, in other words they are taking security seriously. We swung a u-turn around the sandbag emplacement and tank traps (they look like big pointy jacks) and headed off to the museum.
The museum is now in Old Town (the old REI building for those of you keeping track.) They have a good display on the thoughts and discussions that led to the decision to drop the bomb but not a lot of info on the effects of the bomb. The museum also traces the development of atomic weapons through the current day. They have other related science displays – we especially liked the one about measuring instruments that had some esoteric slide rules. And they had one of the old fluoroscopes that shoes stores used to use so you could see if your shoes fit
Your Santa Fe quote for the day, from an ad for a leather and fur jacket: “Michael Robinson’s savage bolero in dyed tan lichen toscana.”
