By Janet Webb | November 3, 2013
November 2 in Taos. How can a small town like Taos have such a plethora of literary events?! Here was my Saturday calendar:
10:00am. Big Read Launch part one, for kids.
Taos Library hosted almost 50 kids and parents to pick up free copies of Sun, Stone and Shadows, a collection of 20 great Mexican stories. This book will be the theme of the month-long, community-wide read-a-thon. SOMOS and the library will be hosting numerous readings and discussions sparked by the stories. (Thanks Amber Gallup for this photo.)
1:00pm Big Read Launch part two, for adults.
About 100 showed up at Taos Library to pick up books and hear about the November events. I got there late due to stopping by the Harwood Museum for Robert Parker’s trunk show in the museum shop. (Bob makes elegant, beautiful fused glass dishes and was demonstrating his technique. See pix.) I missed most of the crowd but wasn’t too late to enjoy three amigos playing fantastic Spanish music. And I picked up my free copy of Sun, Stone and Shadows, and the children’s version for my grandkids.
2:00pm
Hampton Sides author of Blood and Thunder discussed Kit Carson and cronies in the Mabel Dodge Luhan House conference room, hosted by Moby Dickens Bookshop. It was a packed house.
Moby Dickens Bookshop at 4:00pm
Forrest Fenn, the flamboyant Santa Fe art dealer, discussed his newest book, The Thrill of the Chase. It’s about his decision to bury a fortune somewhere in New Mexico and throw out clues for anyone who cares to try to find it. Winner keeps all. He claims 35,000 people have already tried and failed. Hmmmm. It takes all kinds.
5:00pm
On my way to the last literary event of the day, I stopped at Greg Moon Gallery on Kit Carson Road to see Peter Parks new abstracts. Then up Morada Road and back to Mabel Dodge Luhan House, this time in the grand dining room. About 50 Harwood Museum supporters gathered to hear about the plans to mount a huge Mabel and Friends exhibition in 2016.
Curators Malin Wilson and Lois Rudnick (author of many books about Mabel) discussed the plans and actor Leslie Dillon performed a reading of Mabel’s own words, in character, compiled from Mabel’s books, letters and journals
An astonishing day! To see upcoming literary and art events look at Webb Design’s Taos Art Calendar. We created this to work well on smartphones. It pulls all the events from Harwood, SOMOS and Taos Center for the Arts.
Photos, from top to bottom: Big Read Launch Part One and Big Read Launch Part Two at the library, Robert Parker, Forrest Fenn with Moby owner Jay Moore, Leslie Dillon and Lois Rudnick at Mabel’s.
