Billy The Kid as an Economic Stimulus Package

I drove into Fort Sumner – the village not the fort – there is no longer any fort at the site. The site is occupied by the Redondo Basque Memorial Museum dedicated to the Apache and the Navajo who were detained here during the Civil War. Billy the Kid’s grave in the old military cemetery has plastic flowers and is surrounded by a wall – you must pay to get in. Billy the Kid is one big museum and he is an economic resource. I should be taking my curatorial duties serious and visiting and reporting on all the sights. But Billy the Kid was not the reason I drove into town – I wanted to buy some beer and the dog needed more hot dogs.

It is somber and overcast
And occasionally the sun
     Comes out
And shines in through the glass
It is then that a Pendleton
     Is a little too much
But it doesn’t last for long
     And then the gloom returns
God bless woolen ware

The role of the artist is… first of all, one who ‘sees’; second, one who ‘names’ (and, more importantly in modern literature, renames) in order to re-create life when only dust has survived – Linda Welshimer Wagner – The Prose of William Carlos Williams, 1970 p 76

Stupidity is a temporary state of affairs. To be stupid one has to be capable of not being stupid.

One only loves that in which one pursues the inaccessible – Marcel Proust – The Captive

I was expecting it to be cold this morning. Snow without accumulation had been predicted, but it was 34 degrees. There was light covering or frost on the windshield and there were a few slick spots on the porch but that was it. It could have been much worse.

In a work of art place is everything… First we have to see, be taught to see. We have to be taught to see here, because here is everywhere, related to everywhere else – William Carlos Williams

The windows fog up
The first snow dusts the pines

      Just below the timberline

LA HIRE: Some people don’t like it. Some people like to make a little garden out of life and walk down a path. / JOAN: But they never know what we know. Death has to be waiting at the end, of the ride before your truly see the earth, and feel your heart, and love the world – Jean Anouhihl – The Lark

The Hawk – that’s the wind – the windy city – a dead end with nothing to knock down the hawk – knocking me on my butt. Winter is coming.

So at any given moment you’re only the sum of your life to then. There are no big moments you can reach unless you’ve a pile of smaller moments to stand on. That big hour of decision, the turning point in your life, the someday you’ve counted on when you’d suddenly wipe out your past mistakes, do the work you’d never done, think the way you’d never thought – it just doesn’t come suddenly. You’ve trained yourself for it while you waited – or you’ve let it all run past you and frittered yourself away – Lillian Hellman – The Autumn Garden

In a period of fundamental change to fine-tune one’s concepts and tactics is insanity – it is a form of cognitive dissonance

There are lots of things in the world which are not allowed to be done but can be done. The main thing is that everybody should try to do what he’s not allowed to do so that it can be done – Janoslav Hasek –The Good Soldier Svejk p538