Tony Hillerman’s Four Corners region of the U.S. and an encounter

by Jamie Rhein on

“An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.” –Tony Hillerman

Yesterday, when I read that Tony Hillerman died, I flashed back to one afternoon when I went as a guest to a writer’s group meeting at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As I introduced myself, was I surprised when I shook one man’s hand, and his warm voice said, “My name’s Tony Hillerman.” I had no idea that this was the writers’ group he attended.

What struck me about Hillerman was his unassuming aura. He was generous and thoughtful with his comments to the other writers, and not any more important than the others in the room.

Like anyone else who lives in Albuquerque, I was aware of Hillerman’s work as a mystery writer whose stories center around the Southwest. A person cannot live in that city without being aware of how he brought weight to the region. Plus, his books are everywhere. I recall racks of them.

I’m in awe of writers who are able to attach themselves to a place and dive deep into its nuances. Reading a Hillerman novel is a trip to the Four Corners region of the Southwest. His version is not the one that requires putting one foot in New Mexico, one foot in Arizona, one hand in Utah and the other in Colorado before buying a Navajo taco from one of the food vendors.

If you go to Four Corners with Hillerman’s eye, you look for the person behind the scenery. Who is the person who is selling you that turquoise bracelet? Who lives in the houses far flung at the edge of the hills? What about life matters most to them?

Although tourists may visit the various pueblos and Native American reservations across the Southwest, those experiences are merely glimpses of these cultures. Hillerman wrote about people here by getting under their skin.

As he said, “I always have one or two, sometimes more, Navajo or other tribes’ cultural elements in mind when I start a plot. In Thief of Time, I wanted to make readers aware of Navajo attitude toward the dead, respect for burial sites.” [Brainy Quotes]

Considering that Halloween is coming up this week, here’s a Hillerman title for you: Dance of the Dead. The novel is the second one in his series featuring protagonist Lt. Joe Leaphorn. It won the Edgar Award for best novel.

For an interview with Hillerman in Book Page, click here, and for yesterday’s NPR All Things Considered segment on Hillerman, click here.

“No Reservations” season 4, episode 15: American Southwest

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Location: After four weeks of glamorous international travel, Tony returns “to his roots” with an adventure in the American Southwest, road-tripping it across the arid desert stretching from Southern California through Arizona to New Mexico and on to a final stop in Texas.

Episode Rating: One-and-a-half bloody meat cleavers out of five. Given that this summer has seen one of the more memorable strings of No Reservations episodes in recent memory, the American Southwest has to be one of the blander installments. It’s not that Mr. Bourdain ever makes for uninteresting television or that his destination is uninteresting – far from it. It’s just that compared to trips to Laos, Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay, it was kind of a letdown.

Summary: OK, so last week we were in Uruguay. And before that Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Laos. Where to this week, Tony? The American Southwest? Aw gee, well I guess that’s OK – there’s still plenty of cool stuff to see. To get things started, Tony rents a BMW for an old-fashioned American road trip and peels off into the sunset. The car choice was certainly a departure from Tony’s usual vintage car selection, but an appropriate one nonetheless. Things get going just southeast of Palm Springs at the Salton Sea. Read on after the jump to find out what happened.Although it appears to be a marvel of nature, the Salton Sea was formed by a man-made accident in 1905, flooding a low-lying desert plain near the Colorado River. For a short period the area was a vacation boomtown, though lately it’s largely become a ghost town. Tony makes a pit stop at the local hangout, the Ski Inn. After working up an appetite chatting with the locals, Tony orders the house specialty, the patty melt. It’s gooey and cheesy with a nice hamburger patty in the middle. Nothing spectacular, but certainly tasty.

Not wanting to relish his patty melt too long, Bourdain speeds onward towards Indio, California to visit the Shields Date Farm. After learning about the “fascinating” history of dates, Tony gets rewarded with a date-flavored milkshake. This looked delicious. Remind me to try one the next time I’m in California.

Like any good roadtrip, it was soon time to move on, and Tony crosses state lines into Arizona, eventually pausing in Phoenix, Arizona. In one of the more contrived moments of No Reservations, Tony has lunch with rock legend Alice Cooper, who owns a sports bar in Phoenix with baseball great Randy “The Big Unit” Johnson. Tony’s meal at the sports bar? The house specialty – “Randy Johnson’s Big Unit,” a two-foot hot dog smothered in chili and cheese. Let us not speak of this ever again.

Next on the Southwest itinerary was a remote ICBM missile silo. Tony gets a guided tour from a woman who used to work in the facility. Seeing this sort of thing doesn’t evoke the same sense of dread that it once did during the Cold War, but it’s an imposing sight nonetheless. And you know, missile tours can make you thirsty. That’s why Bourdain finishes his tour with the house’s special cocktail, the Titan-tini made with pomegranate, grain alcohol and vodka. How’s that for explosive?

Bourdain just keeps wracking up the miles though, and soon he’s in New Mexico, where he has a chance to sample the world-famous chili peppers in Hatch, New Mexico. To cool off from this spicy experience, the crew takes an invigorating run whitewater rafting. That’s all that happened in New Mexico. Sorry citizens of New Mexico, I’m sure there’s more to your state than Tony gives you credit for here.

At last, after numerous hours on the road, plenty of antacids and ample bathroom breaks, Bourdain reaches the “promised land” of the American Southwest in Texas. After doing a few blatantly stereotypical things like boot shopping and eating a 72-ounce-coma-inducing steak, I was about ready to turn off my television set. But then things took a turn for the better when Tony drops in for a visit with America’s favorite right-wing bad boy and Texas resident Ted Nugent.

Ted and Tony might not necessarily agree on politics, but they had plenty to talk about when it came to meat and guns. The two tool around Nugent’s huge ranch outside Waco, Texas, stocked with the world’s largest herd of African Oryx and a private firing range. In addition to shooting some of the world’s most deadly automatic weapons like the M60 as well as a sawed-off shotgun, the pair enjoy plenty of barbecue. At Ted’s house they grill some freshly-slaughtered specimens, including venison and wild-boar bacon. And because they didn’t eat enough barbecue, they have a second Texas-style meal of brisket and ribs at the Rusty Star.

Certainly a gratuitous ending to a gratuitous episode. The American Southwest is a place of great beauty and plenty of interesting cuisine, but I came away with the feeling Mr. Bourdain did not do it justice. Sometimes your destination takes care of itself. But other times you have to work for it a little. I think this particular installment falls into the latter category. Oh well, there’s still plenty of new episodes to go this summer – stay tuned dear reader, stay tuned.

National Trails Day: Get moving

by Jamie Rhein on

Yesterday was National Trails Day. Sorry not to give the heads up sooner, but I found this out while I was hiking on a trail and without WiFi access. If you can swing a hike today on a national trail, I’d take one. If not today, than soon.

Make a plan for next weekend if you must. It doesn’t have to be major hike, but give yourself enough time for your arms and legs to move in a rhythm with each other where you have time to find your stride. If there are trees around, a bit of nature, wildflowers, a bubbling brook–great.

On such a hike, keep an eye out for things you don’t normally notice. A spider web that’s stretched between two twigs, a large leaf clump high over head that marks a squirrel’s home, a bird’s nest, a butterfly that’s dipping down for a drink in a stream, the way water shimmers in the sun when it’s illuminated on a rock face. These are some of the reasons for taking a hike in Ohio where this picture was taken.

In New Mexico, it’s the smell of juniper berries and pinion trees and the steady progress as you make your way up the Sandia Mountains or the Jemez–or any other steep mountains in the state. There are switchback after switchback. Notice how the earth turns brilliant orange or deep red depending on the time of day and the angle of the sun.

However, even if you live in an urban area, make up your own trail in the spirit of National Trails Day. Head out on the streets on your own volition–much further than your parked car or the closest subway or bus stop or metro. See where you live from a more intimate angle. Say, “Hi,” to folks as you pass. See what’s going on and which people’s yards make you smile with their riot of flowers if you live in suburbs, or in a neighborhood like I do–not downtown, but not suburban either. If you live in true city terrain, see which people have planted flower boxes and have hung them on the windows of their brownstones. Notice the way your feet move along a sidewalk and the strength of your gait.

No matter where you live, a hike does good, which is one reason to celebrate National Trail Day one day late-plus it gives the exclamation “Why don’t you take a hike?” a positive spin.

When I was on my hike at Old Man’s Cave in Hocking Hills area of Ohio, thanks to the state park naturalist I was with, I saw treasures like spider webs that look like jewels clinging to the gorge’s walls and columbine, the tiny flowers that serve as a hummingbird’s drinking fountain. The flower he showed me had been used by a bee that had opened the petals further.

To help plan ahead, National Trails Day is always the first Saturday of June. Find a 2009 calendar and mark it.

Photo of the Day (6/03/08)

by Jamie Rhein on

There are some items you can look at and pinpoint exactly where the picture was taken. JasonBechtel snapped this in Sante Fe, New Mexico, capturing one item for sale in the Southwest that gives a nod to the desert/ranch scene and a little Georgia O’Keefe. I found a cow skull once when I was hiking in New Mexico and thought my brother might like it. Since there was still some grizzle on it, (it wasn’t as gross at it sounds,) I soaked it in bleach for a mighty, mighty, mighty long time.

If you click here, you’ll see another one of Jason’s shots that captures another aspect of New Mexico. Oh, how I miss those sunsets.

If you have a photo that captures somewhere you’ve been, add it to the Gadling Flickr photo pool.

Sex and the City: You can catch up with a craze in the modern age

by Jamie Rhein on

Sex and the City was the hot topic the summer between our two years living in Taiwan and our two years in India. I saw it once at a friend’s house when I stopped over in Albuquerque for a few days visit. I liked it, but nothing I couldn’t live without. I was jet-lagged anyway. Two years later, I saw one more episode. Friends we were visiting in Pochetello, Idaho had TiVoed it—something else that was new phenomenon in the U.S. cultural scene.

Five years after that, there I was last night with two of my women friends at the opening night Sex and the City event at Drexel East, one of the independent movie theaters in Columbus, Ohio. One friend was wearing a black dress. Since living overseas has made me totally out of tune with what to wear on many occasions, and I don’t travel in glamorous circles very often, I wasn’t paying attention to my attire. Plus, this was a back to back event–the first event was the end-of -the-year potluck at my son’s elementary school. With ten minutes in between the two, I had on a very nice T-shirt, black jeans and a pair of new shoes that fit into casual nice. Ooops.

I was all caught up with the Sex and the City storyline, however, thanks to videos and cable television. It used to be that living overseas meant huge chunks of popular culture were totally gone. It wasn’t a terrible loss, but there were movies I hadn’t seen, or events that happened in celebrity-ville that I wasn’t privy too. There were some conversations at parties I couldn’t join in. No loss really, but it was clear who had been living a life out of the American mainstream.

These days, it is not hard to stay caught up, or to catch up, even though people started miles before. When we lived in New Delhi, we rented Season 1, 2 and 3 of The Sopranos, and with each new season rented those too. Although, we weren’t where everyone else was who saw the series as it was unfolding, with the speed of being able to watch back to back episodes in a row at one sitting, it didn’t take long for us to be in the know of the latest whack job.

It is true that watching the TBS rerun version of Sex in the City is not the same as the HBO version, and at times it’s hard to keep the episodes in order as to what events happened first when one doesn’t start watching at the beginning, but last night I was caught up. It has taken five years, but I do know when it comes to Sex and the City what everyone is talking about, and I finally found out what a Cosmos is. As part of the event you could buy one.

Because I lived overseas during the Cosmos craze, I had a beer instead. It’s summer and I was hot. And, yes, I did like the movie. I think Manohla Dargis’s review in the New York Times is off the mark, although, I usually agree with this particular film critic.