New Mexico Mercury

Unfolding Art in Albuquerque, Part I

A citywide art celebration provides an opportunity to explore Albuquerque's rich, and often overlooked, artistic history.

Provincial Matters, 2-23-2015

V.B. Price's weekly collection of observations and appreciations.

Home, Part One: Ties that bind

Later this month, I will be traveling far from home. My wife and I will be exploring Nicaragua, a country we have been trying to visit for 25 years but year after year kept putting it on the deferred list. Now, however, we are pulled by opportunity and pushed by two realizations: now in our 60s and 70s, we are unlikely to get any younger; and Nicaragua itself is moving toward a point of crisis with totally unpredictable results.

But while I am preparing to be far from home, I find myself thinking almost obsessively of home—what it means to have and not have it, to find and lose it, to leave and return, or not...

The Role of Small Presses in Fortifying Literature

San Antonio-based Wings Press and other regional small presses offer relevance and empowerment in the face of conservative backlash. 

Five Questions for New Mexico Authors—Lois Palken Rudnick

This week we ask editor, scholar, teacher, and writer Lois Palken Rudnick about the reissue of her condensation of the four books of memoirs of Mabel Dodge Luhan, titled Intimate Memories, which make up Luhan’s autobiography. Rudnick’s work as an editor and as a writer of the book’s wisely insightful introduction and afterword gives readers an entry into Luhan’s life and contribution to American culture that has not been possible before. Intimate Memories is published by the University of New Mexico Press...

El Machete: Profe Truxillo

Profe Truxillo

What Happens When We Don’t Remember: Tlatelolco

Witnessing a political massacre and the surreal experience of walking through a museum dedicated to it. 

Charlie Hebdo and Baudelaire’s Laughter

To the Frech poet and author Charles Baudelaire, the essence of laughter was the ultimate fool’s errand, yet the pen of the “licensed fool” often acts as a necessary strike at ideological tyranny. 

A Birthday in the Desert

The rain started before dawn—a pounding bitter cold downpour—so Pastor Galván and I decided to forego the pig roast. Therefore, the huge El Chino got to live for at least another week.

It was January 30, my birthday and many months ago the patients at Vision in Action, Galván’s mental asylum in Juárez had promised me a fiesta and pig roast in celebration. Although I have no interest in birthday celebrations, this was a gesture of kindness that I couldn’t resist. I mentioned it to a number of friends and many showed up, but I was very concerned as to how they would react...

¡COLORES! February 6, 2015

Santa Fe painter Dennis Larkins uses iconic imagery from the 50's and 60's to engage his audience...