Santa Fe is at a “at a cusp moment,” The SF Reporter’s Zane Fischer said in an epic New York Times article coming out tomorrow amid The City Different’s 400th anniversary celebrations. “The preservation has happened,” he commented, “and we all have to be eternally grateful to the folks who made it happen. But now we can also pull together all the incredible resources of this city — the centuries of green thinking, the science, the artists, the writers.”
The Times said Santa Fe is “a spiritual homeland [with] the famous tricultural diversity, the celebrated adobe look…[but] natives and progressives [are] just what the new Santa Fe is all about.”
For anyone planning on visiting Irene, Sidney and I in Santa Fe soon (y’all better come before she’s not an infant anymore; she’s already gained almost twice her birthweight) or just curious about “The City Different” as our new home-base prepares to celebrate its 400th anniversary, British poet Henry Shukman’s wonderful feature article from Sunday’s New York Times is the perfect entrance. If you don’t fancy reading big articles online, print this one out, because it’s a well-written eye-opener that aptly describes one of America’s most deeply beautiful, culturally rich and almost secretively exciting areas.
Reading quotes from plugged-in Santa Fe figures we know personally, like SFAI’s Diane Karp, and notes on cafes we frequent, like Aztec and Dominic, was neat…but overall Shukman’s article just made me want to (much) further appreciate and explore this amazing city’s past, present and future beyond sporadic readings, concerts, museum exhibits and my customary long bikerides along the Southern Railway, taking in New Mexico’s breathtaking scenery on wheels, either alone or with Irene’s mom.
Thanks to our great friend Matt Dillon for pointing me to the article this morning via email as Irene and I wandered around the Plaza de Santa Fe with Sidney in tow, stopping to chat with friends like “Mad Larry” at the Design Warehouse and Davis Mather at his Folk Art Gallery, two Santa Fe icons sadly not included in the NY Times piece.
Adam Perry 