My Strange New Mexico

Painted in 1940 by Chicago artist Warner Sallman, Head of Christ was a luminous, brown-and-gold-toned oil painting of the head and shoulders of Jesus Christ.  It was said to possess an almost…

It was 1982, in America—a time and a place steeped in the fear of nuclear war, burdened by the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, and occasionally made bearable by…

When it comes to tales of enormous and legendary amphibians, Scotland boasts its elusive mascot in the waters of Loch Ness, China shares rumors of a gorge-dwelling creature that chases fishermen, and South Africa…

It may well be that there are as many reasons to avoid talking about the strangeness of New Mexico as there are reasons to talk about it.   As conversational subject matter,…

New Mexico, one hundred million years ago, lay nameless and borderless and partially submerged beneath sprawling, shallow, briny seas.   Dinosaurs of every size and appetite wandered to the edge of these seas,…

Occasionally, when a star explodes, its field of gravity will cause that star’s remains to collapse in upon itself, in a world-shaking cascade of unstoppable force and motion.   With relentless…

If you were to drive about two hours east of Santa Fe, watching from your car as the sagebrush desert rocked past and rose into wooded hills, you might just…

New Mexico may not have America’s highest literacy rate, lowest rate of infant mortality, an intelligent method of dealing with drunk drivers, or really any sort of a plan at…

Tourists!  Come to New Mexico!  Come to the Land of Enchantment.   Spend a weekend flying down the slopes of Taos Ski Valley.  Explore the shops of the historic Santa Fe plaza.  Marvel at…

The stories take place in the southwestern part of New Mexico—in the watery, sand-sifting darkness of Elephant Butte Reservoir—along the concrete base of Elephant Butte Dam.  The reservoir is large—sprawling up forty…