Jack Loeffler is a folklorist, ethnomusicologist and radio producer. His best-known work is
Adventures With Ed: A Portrait of Abbey
.
Loeffler will speak about and sign his newest book,
Survival Along the Continental Divide: An Anthology of Interviews
at 5:30 pm, Friday, May 23, at Collected Works Bookstore, 208 W. San Francisco St.
SFR: You've been living and writing about the Southwest for decades, yet you are a West Virginia native. Why did you settle in New Mexico?
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JL:
The first time I saw it and fell in love with it and I knew I'd have to be here. The question next was how to become indigenous to it. I lived in a state of reciprocity with it. And that happened. And I did several years as a fire lookout, which is a spectacular way to spend three or four months a year for anyone who likes to be alone a lot. It's hard to get those jobs anymore. Four of my best friends have been fire lookouts. Three are dead now.
The cover of
Survival Along the Continental Divide
discusses the relationship between water, land and cultural rights. Give me a reading list for understanding New Mexico water issues.
Actually, one of the best sites to visit is the New Mexico Mines and Technology. It's located in Socorro. To me what's a good source for hard data is the US Geological Survey publication of the atlas of aquifers of the United States, focusing on the American Southwest. There are several publications available through the school in Socorro. Rather than try to give you a reading list, I'd advise you to go to the source. It's the USGS's water atlas of the American West. That gives lists of different kinds of publications.
How do you address people's concerns that if they conserve water they'll lose their water rights?
That's a good question. Only thing I could say is that there needs to be an extraordinary shift in both attitude and the law of the land. The whole use-it-or-lose-it mentality is invigorated by legislative procedure. And that is now erroneous. Present-day law, which is hard to make sense of, is not all-inclusive. It excludes so much of the bigger picture. The only way we're going to get there is through nurture of a cultural attitudinal change. In my lifetime-and this is a scary thing-the human population of this planet has more than tripled. And you think about that. It's pretty profound.
Are things as bad now as you predicted 40 years ago?
Fifty years ago my attitudes came into sharp focus. As a young jazz musician drafted into the Army, part of my job was to go play for atomic bombs being fired off seven miles from where I stood. It was total insanity. Totally nuts. And I realized that our culture has absolutely zero understanding of the ramifications of our presence on habitat itself. I don't always practice what I preach because I drive a car, I take showers. I can see what's likely to occur and I can't see around some major hard times coming up. If we have a purpose on this planet, it's to evolve as much consciousness as we possibly can. And it'll be hard to develop much consciousness with what's coming down the line. We're going to be busy trying to survive.
You recently published an article in El Palacio on hippiedom in New Mexico. Is the counterculture here still vibrant?
It's very vibrant. It's wended its way very much into the grassroots environmental movement. It's an offshoot. It's true I'm not seeing the young cadre of radical environmentalists that I'd like to see, but that was very much part of the hippie scene. I watched the growth of the modern environmental movement. One reason I'm doing this work is that I really want to ensure that [the counterculture] still stands in juxtaposition to the cultural juggernaut that prevails and is currently dominated by an economic paradigm that is totally erroneous. That's the bottom line! [Laughs.]
Don't hold your feelings back.
Well, it's such a mini-factor compared to what's coming down. The whole political factor is generating white noise. The last political debate I watched really disgusted me. But because I was really curious…I watched as the New Hampshire primaries were about to occur. And out of both parties only one person focused on the paramount issue of our time, which is environmental considerations, and that, believe it or not, was Bill Richardson. And for that I laud him. I think that one of the things he said was, 'It's a good thing, for those of us who are running, that Al Gore isn't running.' Because obviously Gore would've taken the day.
Random question: Why do you think so many religious types descend on New Mexico?
That's an interesting question, although the wacko factor happens everywhere. But a lot of people are drawn to New Mexico by virtue of the quality of life. I have a made-up word, the 'geomythics' of this state. This is a landscape that provokes, or evokes, a spiritual response, or at least a very conscious response in the hearts and minds of people who are ready to receive it. It spits people out too. I know an awful lot of people who came and couldn't make it. The question is, 'How do we become individually indigenous?' That requires going out in areas where we can actually listen to the flow of nature. And that's the most beautiful part.
Tell me something about Edward Abbey that I might not know.
His compassion factor was infinitely wider than he's given credit for. He felt very deeply for people and when you read his writing, sometimes you don't get the depth of compassion he was capable of. What I know about Ed Abbey was that if he was your buddy, he would back you to the hilt, right down the line, man. We both had the same model and caliber pistols and ammo. So that if it came down to it, we could deal the best we could.
