Heaven and Hell
Another beautiful day in Santa Fe, another museum. This time we go to "museum hill" where we visit the Indian contemporary, which includes cultural items, a history of the geography and tribes and a retrospective on Indian comics - cool for many reasons but mainly because they give out DC and Marvel comics - the new ones too, with lots of bad-ass characters like Wolverine. The older issues I recognise from way-back when Berkeley's Telegraph Ave. had two comic book shops. The ancient 10¢ books had all kinds of stereotypes, surprise-surprise. The most offensive cover: "Indians Run Wild And This Is 1959!"picturing a touristy homey with his black camera strapped from his neck. He is tied to a totem pole and next to his wife who is hot and vulnerable. Arrows fly, boy. Arrows fly.
Santa Fe is a mixture of white trash, (rich)(white) retirees, monied tourists (white), the indigenous and the poor who are vaguely menacing. Ford trucks tail-gate regardless of your lane. The culture here is world-class for a small town and amazingly supports museums, crafts, fairs, dance and the opera too of course. Visitors feed the economy with their buying and the historic plaza takes advantage of our need to spend: we visit a cowboy chic shop and the French sales-woman comments on my "French shirt," an Izod, and then is surprised when I reply en francais justifying my Jr year exchange. She is from Paris and now here, lucky her. Sonnet exams a belt with a $2,400 price tag and we are assured "it is one of a kind." And one that will stay there, I assure her.
Eitan asks how long until we arrive? Again. And again. And again. Finally I counter: "if we are 40 miles from our destination and driving 40 miles per hour, how long do you think?"
It is beyond him. For now anyways. Sonnet meanwhile suggests that she learned eight times seven in the fifth grade.
Me: "What was your favorite thing in the museum?"
Madeleine: "I liked that thing with heaven and hell."
Me: "Do you understand what that means?"
She: "Hell is when you put pins in your eyeballs forever."
