You’ve seen the Edward Curtis Indian photos I’m sure. But whether you have or not Tim Egan’s “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher” will reveal so much more about Curtis and his work and will open you to a fresh way of knowing what he did and seeing what he saw.
    This is a marvelous bio. and not to be missed. And it’s important! Why? Because most of us have never known what Curtis was really doing and it was much, much more than just taking pictures of Indians. It was helping to document, and in some cases save, Indian history from oblivion.
    I read a criticism not to long ago that claimed that, in many cases Curtis’s photos were “posed”. And yes, some were…and there was a valid and important reason for that. Curtis didn’t want his work to show who Indians were in the early 1900’s. He wanted to capture who they were before they were “civilized” by the government and by missionaries trying to get them to assimilate.
    His life’s work, The Indians of North America, captured in twenty volumes contains photos, but the languages, songs, myths, ceremonies, even comparative alphabets of the people. These things were not only made into criminal acts and suppressed by our government; many were subsequently, as the elders died, forgotten by the people themselves. Curtis memorialized them all in his historically amazing work. He even set the record straight about the Little Big Horn battle mainly by talking to the Indians who were there! Officialdom, from the president on down (T. Roosevelt) didn’t like this at all and covered up the truth.
    You and I will never get our hands on the Curtis collection, unless we get into the archives at the few U.S. libraries that have all twenty volumes. Private collectors have paid up to 1.4 million to own the set. BUT! It IS available on DVD for around $130. Not the same experience as holding the leather bound, gilt-edged, heavy paper of the originals of course, but at least the content is there. (One volume went for $700, 000 at auction recently.)
    The Hopi were able to raise funds and purchase the volume that Curtis wrote about them after having spent many months over a three year period with them, and from it they reconstructed important ceremonies that had been lost and forgotten.
    This is an amazing story of an amazing man who dedicated his life to a purpose and achieved it, at great personal cost. Talk about a heroic journey! Don’t pass this one up.


    It’s a good thing I didn’t get hold of Roger Welsch’s book “The Reluctant Pilgrim, A skeptic’s journey into Native Mysteries” before writing my own, ("Becoming Coyote, A Journey of Enlightenment…Mostly".) because I would have been accused of plagiarism (by me at least).
    Chapter after chapter in Roger’s book parallel my own, not word for word, but at least concept by concept. I DID borrow, actually quote, one of Roger’s ideas. It came as a result of a phone call to him which might have taken place right about the time he was writing “Reluctant…” about 2014 or so. In that call, a rare one since Roger is phone-call adverse, he told me his granddaughter had commented to him that she thought he was a “…..member of the church of ‘There’s Something-going-on-here.’” (How did I get his number? Obviously the result of “Something-going-on-here!”)
    When Roger related that to me I immediately recognized that that was exactly the “church” I belonged to and that the idea of Something-going-on summed up my thinking as well. I’ve used it ever since. (Thanks Roger!)
    I’ve tried to contact Roger, even re-opened my Facebook account temporarily only to get in touch with him (I don’t “do” social media) but to no avail…so I’ve let go of the idea.
    “Reluctant” is a good one and if you are seeking any kind of spiritual path, this is the read for you….ESPECIALLY if you’re a skeptic.

        I no longer look back by counting years, it's now all about blocks of time we call "decades". So, decades ago I read Paul Horgan's "The Great River"(the Rio Grande) and decided, a few weeks ago, to pick it up again. It's a thick book, not just in the number of pages, but in information about, the Southwest, the America of the mid 1800's, the nature of Americans (whites) Mexicans, Indians, humans, what stagecoaches were made of, how battles began, the Mexican-American war, Santa Fe, D.C., Pancho Villa, James Polk, the nature of the cowboy and his relationship to his horse......too much to list, way too much. This is one incredible book. (won the Pulitzer) I can't recommend it highly enough. Should be required reading for anyone who cares about how we became the U.S.

     Path of the Puma. We live in Mountain Lion country here in north-central New Mexico. In the twenty-five years we’ve been here we’ve seen three, one big one and two smaller. We have been extraordinarily lucky. Some people, even those given to lots of hiking in the back country may never see one in their lifetime that’s why some call these elusive animals “ghost cats”. But they DO see us. If you are in mountain lion country you can bet you are being watched, not as prey, they much prefer deer, but certainly as presence.
    Jim Williams book is a great read, all about the puma, panther, catamount, mountain lion in all its beauty and its importance to the survival of the entire Wild in both North and South America. This book is another worth-your-time read with very fine photography to boot. It follows the mountain lion’s range from Canada to Patagonia and tells the story well. Don’t pass it up.

   
    Check out Michelle Obama' book "Becoming" and you'll soon know why it's a best seller. Her style is open and accessible, just as she is. This is a marvelous read and a sad reminder at the same time –––– knowing what we had compared to what we have now.....well, what can be said?

   
    Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval is a rare blend of prose poetry and history, specifically the history of black women from about 1870 to around 1935. In other words, from the end of slavery into the middle of the jazz age…..an escape from the violence of the South to the oppression of the North.
    It’s an unblinking look at the officially sanctioned and unsubtle racism that black people seeking freedom from the overt racism of the South found in places like New York and Detroit, the escape from the plantation to continued subjugation ……an examination of the foundations that were laid, despite best intentions, for the construction of black ghettos. About how poor equals crook in the minds of cops, judges, social workers*, and politicians and how black people in particular were, and are, set up as targets of suspicion and mistrust. 
    Saidiya Hartman is the author and she is a genius when it comes to story telling, touching your heart, and telling it how it is. (A black specialty as far as I’m concerned.)
    *This is also still going on. (One of these times I'll tell my experience of a local, New Mexico, food stamp office visit.)

“Everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific¬––––it went red and deeper red, orange, and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. Sometimes all the town stopped and stared west.” (p-129 in “House of Broken Angels”) Who wouldn't love to have written that paragraph.....and that's just a tiny taste of the kind of writing Luis Alberto Urrea produces time after time in his masterful works of both fiction and non. Of those I've only read, Hummingbird's Daughter, Queen of America, & The Devil's Highway (couldn't finish that last one, too painful). Urrea is one of our great masters.

•   •   •



   

    After the politics of Truman I was ready for something totally different.....I found it in Fredrick Backman's, "Britt-Marie Was Here"! It's a novel which begins with;
    "Forks. Knives. Spoons. In that order. Britt-Marie is certainly not the kind of person who judges other people. Far from it. But surely no civilized person would even think of arranging a cutlery drawer in a different way from how cutlery drawers are supposed to be arranged. We're not animals are we?"
    Etc.
    And this is the way this wonderfully strange book ambles along....and then moves in another beautiful direction....or directions.
    You will love this one. (Even if you're not a dedicated novel reader.)

   
   

    Just a short look at a book I finished this week (this is why I'm not getting any of my own writing done....but I AM trimming trees after all so it's not like I'm slacking off). This book is Red Cloud, a bio of the Sioux Chief by Robert W. Larson. It's a good read and a very clear description of the times (mid 1800's to early 1900's) and this important Sioux presence.
    By the way, I also want to plug any book by Mari Sandoz who was a genius of a writer about so much in the west and the Great Plains....and the Indians of course. Read anything by her and she will take you there both in time and in language. Some readers back in her day (mid 20th Century) didn't like the fact that she did not romanticize the Old West...quite the opposite. Another writer whose work is worth your time.

    Here is a very important read; "How to Change Your Mind, What the new science of Psychedelics Teaches us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence." (Michael Pollan)
    Do NOT pass this one up! The title might seem to predict a dry read about self-help tricks, but that is not the case at all. This one is well written, a first person narrative about how to change how we both perceive and experience what we keep believing is reality. If you invest time in reading anything over the next few weeks, make it this one!

    My own book, "Becoming Coyote, A Journey of Enlightenment (Mostly)" is not quite as "important" as Pollen's BUT! it's NOW available and is it worth the read? After 14 edits I never want to see it again.......however, you might like it and my writer-editor-publisher daughter (Winter) says it's "...really good." and it DID get good "reviews" from a couple of pre-publish readers....so there you go.
    It's thick enough (400+ pages) to make a good door stop and has a very nice cover.....which, for some obscure reason, I can't get to load here....? It beats any over-the-counter sleep aid and has no horrible side effects. (so far)
     Anyway; it's $20, which will cover book, envelope, and postage. (No, not available in a "Kindle" edition or on Amazon, so rare to begin with....and I'll sign it too!)

    If you can find it (at Amazon or your local library) get ahold of "New Mexico: Voices in an Ancient Landscape" by Douglas Kent Hall. I read it and found three as gifts for other NM lovers. This is a classic! First published in '95 it's a bit dated when it comes to some of the views of the people interviewed, but it's a fine piece of NM and Southwest history.

    “In the absence of fact, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.” What a great line. It was written by Stacy Schiff of whom it is said, “Even if forced at gunpoint, Stacy Schiff would be incapable of writing a dull page or a lame sentence.” For proof read her "Cleopatra, a Life". What an epic work! This is not a book you can rush through, not if you want the full benefit of Schiff’s hard won knowledge about this “last empress” (as described by Schiff).

     Winter Desiree's book "Matchbook" is detective-fiction.....not a genre I usually read...BUT! this is one fine piece of reading and as one of the comments on the back cover notes, "You will not be able to put it down."...well, that's for sure. Don't pass this one up, my daughter has written one FINE story.

PS, She just finished a second, not a sequel, and it's every bit as good as Matchbook. She's on a roll. That book, When I Knew You, is now available too.

    We never darken the door of a commercial movie house, we just stream 'em from Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Acorn. So no "New Releases" here...but these come highly recommended from a couple of old movie buffs.
    By the way, for the first time in a long time we actually tried watching a show on commercial TV, "Madam Secretary" (the best topical political drama since West Wing) seemed worth coping with commercials to see. It's intelligent and on-the-mark but the commercial interruptions made it extremely frustrating to watch. We'll just await its placement on Netflix. I don't know how anyone can suffer through watching ANYTHING on regular TV.

"The Good Place" is lots of fun and throws in some "thinking" as well (I've had to watch some episodes twice to really "get it". Nothing lost in a second view. Like "Frazier" the intelligent writing holds up well. )

Doc Martin is back on Acorn. Great show on every Thursday eve.

Another "great show" returns on Acorn, "Miss Fisher's Mysteries" This is a classic, don't miss it.


"The Bookshop" is the story of a woman trying to open a bookshop in a small English town ca. early 60's. Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson, & cast. A fine story. (Amazon)

"The man who invented Christmas!" Yes, it's a story about Dickens, cleverly told by a cast of Brit. stars.....a really heart warming story about writing the book (A Christmas Carol of course.) Need your spirits lifted? This is the movie to see. (Netflix)

"Rumors of Angels" with Vanessa Redgrave. Heart felt and magical....likewise, Collateral Beauty with Will Smith and a fine cast. Both of these are about death of a loved one (a mother in the first, a child in the second) and both are very well done. (Netflix)

Binge watching:
Don't miss "The Politician" on Netflix. Season 1 available now. (I know, this is classified by the TV gurus as a "kid show"......but it's plain to see it's aimed at sophisticated kids.....like us!