book chat I By Phaedra Greenwood Visit your local bookstores to buy books. Send your book for review to: Book Chat, 614 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe, NM 87502
Adventures in Physics and Pueblo Pottery Frank Harlow grew up in Washington State, served in the U.S. Army during World War II, took an interest in quantum mechanics in college, then pursued a 50 year career as a physicist at Los Alamos studying the theory of turbulent transport. He married Patty Nystuen, who became a medical secretary when they moved to Los Alamos. His job required that he witness a nuclear explosion at the Bikini Atolls, a life-changing experience. Frank and Patty had four healthy children and many pets. His friendship with Pueblo people and admiration of their pottery culminated in “a remarkable collection of Pueblo Indian pottery,” now a permanent collection at the Museum of Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He loved riding his old Harley, incognito in black leather, his own action hero. He became a skilled artist, often painting Pueblo Indian pots with photographic realism. Five stars.
Imagine a City That Remembers Anella and Childs take the long view with a photographic appeal to developers, politicians, and city planners to abandon urban sprawl, embrace the city's long-term vitality and collaborate with UNM. The “Rephotography” project began as series of articles on the urban history of Albuquerque by Anella and Childs that was published in the Albuquerque Tribune from 1998 to 1999. Paired images from the same location, some decades apart, show how the landscape has morphed over the course of the 20th century. In 1940, the downtown Washington Apartments looked grim compared to a 1998 photo of the same apartments with trees and fresh paint, minus 25 refrigerators on the sidewalk. In 1920, the Champion Grocery was “a lively part of a largely Italian neighborhood.” Almost a 100 years later, the attractive building was remodeled to house the Albuquerque Community Foundation, a good example of mixed-use buildings. Five stars!
By Francis H. Harlow with Dwight P.
The Fire Within This erudite and prolific author, who summered in Taos for many years—a pilgrim at Frank Waters’ door—offers a superb memoir with the trope of saving the world through the creation of great literature. He writes, “If world crisis prompts us… to recover spiritual wholeness, our fire within will of itself help us to control our drive toward annihilation… Only in countries of the blind can we continue to believe that the planet is an object to be exploited and plundered.” He anticipates “a union of opposite polarities… a vision quest of genuine spiritual promise,” as the story or the poem draws archetypal truths from the flame of imagination. He embraces “a constantly rising tide of life with an expanding and deepening of human consciousness as its thrust… This evolution of the imagination revolts against our technological, materialistic civilization.” Five stars!
Lanmom • Museum of New Mexico Press
By Alexander Blackburn • Irie Books
University of New Mexico Press
505- 476-1159 • www.amazon.com
876-332-5481 • www.barnesandnoble.com
800-848-6224 • www.unmpress.com
her and her husband from Los Alamos to Socorro. “Desert Sea,” says about the Very Large Array, they are “Not boats but they do collect waves/radio waves from the sea of stars.” For 18 years she served as secretary for the Geological Society that manages the Hammel Museum; she explains that the “M” on the mountain stands for mining, though the silver is long gone. In retirement, she
waxes lyrical about irrigating her fields. She is critical of the mayor who has “held office forever” but “doesn't seem to bring any improvements to town except his own hotels.” The photos are simple and attractive. Mercury Heartlink Press, founded by the late Stewart Warren, did a fine job of the layout and design.
Socorro From the “stunning Mineralogical Museum at New Mexico Tech” to Elfego Baca tiles and the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, Dubois offers brief, sometimes ironical sketches of her adopted hometown of 30 years. New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is what drew
12 May 2020 • enchantment.coop
By Anthony Anella and Mark C. Childs
By Barbara R. Dubois • Mercury Heartlink Press • www.heartlink.com • 505.881.2499
