SFR Picks—Week of August 18

Storytellers in the woods, a trumpet legend returns and how two people capture the passage of time

Tall Trees

Local wordsmiths tell tales in the literal forest

“The theme of the event,” local author E.A. Gray (aka Lisa Gray Fisher) tells SFR, “is to show how closely we are all tied together as humans, and with so many other species in this world.”

At Gray’s upcoming Words in the Woods event, five local artists of various genre, age and media take to the forest, not only to bring people together but help them connect with the natural world more directly.

Jack Loeffler, whom Gray calls, a “legendary elder,” spent his earlier days as a counterculturist, sometimes working with legendary environmentalist Edward Abbey and Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Snyder to defend nature from consumption. He’ll share his account of these days by reading from his memoir, Headed into the Wind.

Representing a younger generation, Natachee Momaday Gray, granddaughter of another Pulitzer Prize winner, N. Scott Momaday, reads her poetry accompanied by her husband Kyle Perkins on guitar. Her poetry draws on the intimacy of connection.

Finally, E.A. Gray reads from her new novel, Memory’s Fire, accompanied by the voice of her son Eliot Gray Fisher. In the book, protagonist Alex Mann loses his town to a fire before embarking on a journey to recreate himself.

As for the venue, Group Site #2 on Hyde Park Road, Gray tells us, “it’s -surrounded by pines and aspen, feels very secluded and there’s wind in the trees.”

While nature is aplenty, parking is limited, so consider carpooling—it’s more in line with the theme of being together, anyway. The official festivities are scheduled to run for an hour or so, but the time to get there needn’t be only for the reading. Gray encourages potential visitors to bring their own victuals, but even more so, to bring their hiking boots to explore the surrounding nature and their own relationships with it. And why not? It’s free.

“We do it just because we want to do it,” Gray says, “because we would like to share the work, and we’d love to have people take part in it and respond to it as they see fit and as they are moved to do.” (Campbell Lozuaway-McComsey)

Words in the Woods: Memoir, Poetry, Fiction Presented by Local Writers: 1 pm Saturday, Aug. 21. Free. Group Site #2, Hyde Park Road.

Horn Homecoming

SITE Santa Fe and the Santa Fe Music Collective come together to produce the monthly series JAZZ at SITE once again, and in this rendition, organizers present one of the most celebrated trumpeters to ever hail from Santa Fe. J.Q. Whitcomb returns home from the Big Apple to show off some of what he learned while picking up his master’s degree from Juilliard. Expect passion as he covers the jazz styles of Fats Navarro’s students Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan and Woody Shaw. The show must be indoors to stop his fiery playing from starting a blaze in the wilderness. (CLM)

Fats on Fire: A Musical Retrospective Tracing the Trumpet lineage of the Legendary Fats Navarro featuring J.Q. Whitcomb: 5 pm Friday, Aug. 20. $25-30. SITE Santa Fe, 1606 Paseo de Peralta, 989-1199, sitesantafe.org/event/fats-on-fire/

Get Your Pick on Route 66

The farther we move from our history, the better it starts to look—especially now. In order to escape present-day America’s troubles, the Historic Santa Fe Foundation hosts Willie Lambert, a retired itinerant worker turned amateur historian, to share his Americana history for two days under the portal at El Zaguán. Lambert has retraced most of Route 66 in New Mexico over the last 16 years, compiling and creating a one-of-a-kind record blurring the line between history and folk art. The project includes nearly 500 hand-drawn maps and then-and-now photographs, plus over 1,000 postcards sent from that famous road. (CLM)

Route 66 in New Mexico: 11:30-3 pm Tuesday Aug. 24 and 31. Free. El Zaguán, 545 Canyon Road, historicsantafe.org

Photography of the Ages

Rania Matar grew up in Lebanon before moving to the US as a young woman. Drawing from this experience, as well as from watching her own daughters grow up, Matar trained her eye to capture the subtle moments as girls across the globe turn into women. Her subjects range from her own daughters and strangers on Instagram to the women she meets on the street, both in the US and Middle East. Matar’s new exhibit SHE shows the parallels between two seemingly disparate worlds and how the transition from girlhood to womanhood really isn’t that different, no matter where it happens. (CLM)

Rania Matar: SHE Reception: 5-7 pm Wednesday, Aug. 25. Free. Obscura Gallery, 1405 Paseo de Peralta. (505) 577-6708