Maybe it was the fading spirit of the Olympics that floated through the ether via my static-y television set; maybe it was several chats I've had recently with local musicians, poets, piercers and general roustabouts; or maybe it's the rapidly approaching city election, but the recurring theme of diversity versus division has reared up like a cranky horse.
There's no doubt Santa Fe is one of the most creative, diverse towns in the world. We are blessed with a population that aches to
make something, dammit
. That something may be the perfect four-line poem about being queer; it may be the perfect chocolate brownie; or it may be the perfect tiny matchbook converted into a miniature nativity scene, replete with Virgin Marys that can only be measured in millimeters.
That's the thing with the individual drive to create: It is, by definition, such a personal thing, and as such has nothing to do with anyone else in a theoretical sense. Yet art and the communal sharing of art are, especially for Santa Fe, essential components of a creatively successful city. It's all well and good to make 20 paintings in your bedroom, but their significance is heightened when you throw 'em up on a wall and invite people-you know, the community-to come see them.
But here's the other thing with individuality, its blessing and its curse: Artists, in being beautifully consumed with their own thing, tend to stick to their own, with what's most comfortable to them and most crucial. It's sort of like a bobsledder who's so focused on getting down the track he doesn't even consider skiing-a focus so all-consuming it might lead to gold, but denies him an entire other world.
Almost every creative or progressive group in our town embodies such aspects. There are, for instance, pockets of queer folks carved into cliques. There is rivalry amongst tattoo artists. And there is division between musicians.
In fact, the music scene in Santa Fe may perhaps be most marked by such a separateness. There are so many subsets of genre and subgenre, touches of tension and general apathy toward the music that is not one's own. There is, for instance, the Warehouse 21 "scene," carved into even smaller scenes of the metal group, the indie rock group, the hip-hop group.
Then there's the dance scene-we have the queer DJs who stick with the queer-friendly DJs; the house DJs who don't dig electroclash and the hip-hop DJs who don't like house.
And we have the college students and the townies. College of Santa Fe students have been putting on the best lineup in town, but we would all rather go to the Cowgirl on a Friday night because it's familiar, it's less threatening and it's comfortable.
Ah, yes, the comfort zone. I thought about it Friday night at LISP, Cooper Lee Bombardier's very queer, very trans, often very uncomfortable monthly montage of poets, spoken-word artists, performance artists, musicians and other often indescribable acts. I thought about it because city councilor and mayoral candidate David Coss was there engaging in a touch of campaigning, sitting stiffly in his chair and looking uncomfortable. The thing with LISP is, even for someone more used to/comfortable with its aesthetic, it can be an awkward, hit-or-miss thing. Some acts prove artful, powerful, hit something deep inside you and there's meaning there. Other times it exudes the scrabble of a high school talent show. Either way, LISP jolts you quickly out of your comfort zones.
Coss was clearly out of his comfort zone but, dammit, he stuck around for a while. He got up and said a few words and sat back down and caught the first act and part of the second, and appeared pretty damn uncomfortable to me but he stayed through tenuous poetry and a poorly lip-synched number and ya gotta give the man mad props for that, because frankly I wanted to leave before the foam on my PBR had settled.
But the awkwardness gave me hope. After all, upon exiting LISP, I thought about LISP; I talked about LISP; I wrote about LISP. So here's our assignment, Santa Fe: This week let's choose one event out of our comfort zones and attend it. It doesn't have to be something as drastic as LISP. It can be one venue you've never been to, a genre of music you might "hate," or venturing out on a night of the week where you'd rather order pizza and sit on the couch and watch
Lost
. Need a little more prodding? I've got some suggestions:
If you're over 30 and/or have never attended a show at College of Santa Fe, check out Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (8 pm Tuesday, March 7. $5 non-CSF students. CSF SUB, 1600 St. Michael's Drive, 473-6133), the one-man, keyboard-oriented project of Owen Ashworth. Ashworth melds sweet, vocal melodies and dark Interpol-esque synth lines and lyrics with just the proper amount of angst. Those of us of, uh, a certain age might find his '80s references comforting, but Ashworth keeps the nostalgia fresh. Case in point is his song "Lonesome New Mexican Nights," with its simple synthesizer parts and electronic beats barely masking the fact that it's actually a country song.
If you're under 30 and/or never go to museums, the W21/MOIFA Pajama Party (7 pm Friday, March 3. No cover. MOIFA, 207 Camino Lejo, 476-1200) might be just the thing. Knife the Hero's poppy emo might be a more familiar aesthetic for you, but the show takes place at the Folk Art Museum, one of the most wondrous places in Santa Fe and rarely noticed by Generations Y or Z. Throw on your jammies, leave your iPod at home and check it out-hitting a museum on a Friday night might feel weird, but if you hate it, at least you'll have something to talk about next week.
