The latest in a string of memorials, in the company of The Heart of Santa Fe music compilation, is a sculpture by local artist Bates Wilson. The piece was commissioned by John Simmons and Gwyn Madeen, parents of victim Rose Simmons after the grieving parents saw Wilson’s artwork at the Recycle Santa Fe art festival in November. The outer rim of the heart has been left blank, and at a ceremony this Saturday, family and friends of the teens are invited to engrave their thoughts and messages on the metal. (Click the image above for a larger version.)

The permanent home of the sculpture, according to Warehouse 21 Executive Director Ana Gallegos y Reinhart, is to be determined. “At some point in the near future,” she writes via email, “the winged sculpture will be installed at Cathedral Park at the current yet temporary memorial site.”

SCULPTURE DISPLAY AND ENGRAVING

Noon-5 pm
Saturday, March 13

Warehouse 21
1614 Paseo de Peralta
989-4423

By Chloe Davis, SFR Intern

With drippy old-school punk sounds, Low On High brings a breath of fresh air to punk rock fans in Santa Fe. While the band’s sound doesn’t fall far from the tree of the prettier of Velvet Underground’s songs, one could say that Low On High is more active and energetic; it induces wild dancing and head bobbing, rather than shoe-gazing.

With LOH, Santa Fe filmmaker Jon Moritsugu and his wife Amy Davis have formed a band that tests its audience but is simultaneously totally listenable. Now this mixture of old-school and nu-wave plays at Corazón on Sunday along with Venus Bogardus, Rainbow Arabia and Broken Water as part of Corazón’s SXSF Transit Music Fest (Rainbow Arabia and Broken Water are on their way to Austin for SXSW).

Learn more about LOH and get the details on the performance below the jump.

The couple met at a party when Davis was only 17 years old and Moritsugu 20. “He was so ratty and hardcore-looking,” Davis says. “I couldn’t help but follow him for the rest of the night. It was so superficial.”

The band started almost 16 years and went through too many names to count. Some of the more memorable ones were Skipper Six and Monster Golanca (meaning monster sausage). It played shows all over the West Coast (California and Washington) until Moritsugu and Davis moved to Hawaii. (As for Low On High, don’t look for deep meanings; “We found the name on a bathroom stall in Seattle,” Moritsugu and Davis explain.)

“When we were in Hawaii, we became more of a studio band, and we had a lot of music on the radios,” Moritsugu tells SFR. After living in Hawaii for a few years the couple moved to Seattle, where they landed a record deal for the band, which by now was called Low On High. Morsitsugu and Davis, are the only members of the band. Between the two of them they cover vocals, guitar, bass and drums.

Red Cell of The Process, the institution known for bringing off-the-beaten-path shows to Santa Fe, is the one responsible for the band’s gig at Corazón. “I paired them with Venus Bogardus because this is Low On High’s first show, and Venus Bogardus just had a CD release. As for [Rainbow Arabia and Broken Water], they compliment the sound to no end,” Cell tells SFR.

Davis’ soft, sweet voice compliments the washed-out, distorted sound of  Moritsugu’s guitar. The guitar’s distortion is on so high and the drums are so faded-out that in comparison the vocals are so clear they sound almost eerie. It’s not unrelated that Moritsugu has been making experimental films since 1985; you can almost hear the influence of his films in LOH’s music in the way it strays from the beaten path and revamps the hardcore sound.

LOW ON HIGH, BROKEN WATER, RAINBOW ARABIA, VENUS BOGARDUS

$5

Corazón
401 S. Guadalupe
983-4559

This Thursday yours truly will be an ambassador at Bamboo Asian Cuisine, which I personally believe is the best Chinese food in town. Come by, enjoy some fried rice and say hi!

Below the jump, learn more about Kitchen Angels, and get a full listing (addresses, websites and phone numbers included) of where you should go eat on Thursday.

Kitchen Angels, established in 1992, delivers hot meals to more than 200 clients every weekday, all year. More than a dozen routes around town are driven by volunteer drivers every week and go to every neighborhood, from Tesuque to Eldorado to Airport Road. KA caters primarily to those ineligible for Meals On Wheels (mostly, those who are too young), and focuses on providing the most nutritious food humanly possible. Between the drivers and chefs, volunteers donate a total of 19,329 hours annually (Kitchen Angels only has 3.5 paid staff members).

And I, for one, can say that the meals are divine. If one of our clients forgets to call ahead of cancel and we accidentally arrive to deliver a meal to an empty house, the driver is required by law to eat it. (Seriously.) While I always hope I get to see all the awesome people on my route, every Monday night I find myself praying that someone won’t be home so I can eat the food for myself. It’s always made completely from scratch (even the salad dressing!) by a band of volunteer cooks every afternoon, and a full meal includes bread, soup or salad, an entree, dessert and fruit.

So go out this Thursday and stuff yourself for a good cause.

Remember that many restaurants book up pretty fast for this festive night; call ahead to your favorite spots, but be ready to have a second or third choice if they’re all full up! And it’s also good to take note that Bamboo is huge, so there will probably be room for you—and plus I’ll be there, so what more do you need?

Andiamo!
322 Garfield St.
995-9595

Bamboo Asian Cuisine (come say hi to Charlotte!)
2400 Cerrillos Road
983-3600

Counter Culture Café
930 Baca St.
995-1105
No reservations

Cowgirl BBQ
319 S. Guadalupe St.
982-2656

La Boca
72 W. Marcy St.
982-3433

Osteria d’Assisi
58 S. Federal Place
986-5858

O’Keeffe Café
217 Johnson St.
946-1065

Mariscos Costa Azul
2875 Cerrillos Road
473-4594

Plaza Café Southside
3466 Zafarano Drive
424-0755

Pranzo Italian Grill
540 Montezuma Ave.
984-2645

Café Pasqual’s
121 Don Gaspar Ave.
983-9340

Ristra
548 Agua Fria St.
982-8608

Pizzeria Espiritu
1722 St. Michael’s Drive
424-8000

India Palace
227 Don Gaspar Ave.
986-5859

Josh’s Barbecue
3486 Zafarano Drive
474-6466
No reservations

El Mesón
213 Washington Ave.
983-6756

Vinaigrette
709 Don Cubero Alley
820-9205

Garbo’s at RainbowVision
500 Rodeo Road
428-7777

Show us what has left the back of your eyelids burning. Send pictures of visual trespass and peculiarities to copyeditor [at] sfreporter.com, subject “eyedropper.”

Personalized Glitter Graphics

There are tons of chances to catch SXSW artists in Santa Fe this week; Corazón, for one, is holding the first (annual?) SXSF Transit Music Festival from March 11-15, bringing in tons of stellar acts on their way to Texas. Cowgirl has a bunch of shows this week as well, some of which we were able to feature in this week’s paper, but one of which slipped through the cracks (it got confirmed past our press deadlines): Anamieke Quinn will play the Girl this Friday, March 12, along with ABQ rockers Ants Have Voices.

Quinn is pretty much totally badass. She’s presently based in Phoenix, so she’s really coming out of her way to play for us, and we here at SFR are quite chuffed that she’s making the trip. While she’s played in bands since college and may perhaps be best known as the yodeling cowgirl that played with Phish for the band’s Vegas ‘96 show, Quinn is now a decidedly solo act. Lady-led bands are all well and good, but there are few things hotter than a girl onstage with an acoustic guitar (this, coming from a nothing-but-straight female), and that’s precisely what Quinn is.

Go below the jump for more about Quinn, plus a rundown of a slew of acts that are on their way to the Motherland.

Her voice, while strong, is not overpowering. She retains that slight throaty cry that speaks to an often-overrun innocence; while her words may come forcefully from the diaphragm or dissolve into a heady vibrato, Quinn keeps it down to earth. In songs like “Float Away,” she gives the listener the what-for with no bullshit but still could pass for an abnormally talented 12-year-old if she really tried. Between an infectious piano swing and Quinn’s voice going into a disarmingly low register, “Robin Has Rhythm” shows a different side of the pensive girl of the slow “The  Beaten Path.” (All these songs are available streaming on Quinn’s website, by the way.)

A versatile and undeniably awesome vocalist and musician, Anamieke Quinn is yet another face in the string of performers ushered into Santa Fe via SXSW. Let’s show them a good time in hopes that they’ll come back before next March, no?

Quinn, in addition to playing at Cowgirl, also will be on Radio Free Santa Fe (98.1 FM) with Honey Harris for an in-studio session around 10:30 am on Thursday, March 11. Ants Have Voices AHV members Eleanor Carbett and Danny Trujillo will be in the studio as well.

ANAMIEKE QUINN

5-7 pm
Friday, March 12

Cowgirl
319 S. Gualadupe St.
982-2565

(Click the flier to enlarge)

If you haven’t yet heard about Corazón’s SXSF Transit Music Fest (other than earlier in this post, that is), you should damn well know that the folks at the Zón are bringing in acts from far and wide to provide the best week March in Santa Fe has pretty much ever seen, ever. Here’s the lowdown:

LA JUNTA, SAPPHIRE, RE-FLEX, DJ WILLIE K
Hip-hop from Santa Fe—plus local promoter Felix Cordova’s birthday party!
9 pm
Thursday, March 11
$7

DAEDALUS, RAY CHARLES IVES, DJ BACON
Experimental electronica from Los Angeles (Daedalus) and Santa Fe (RCI, Bacon)
9 pm
Friday, March 12
$10-$13

ABE VIGODA, LOWERS, DJ MAYNARD DEL MAR
Alternative rock and post-pop-punk from LA, the UK and Santa Fe, respectively
9 pm
Saturday, March 13
$7

BROKEN WATER, RAINBOW ARABIA, LOW ON HIGH, VENUS BOGARDUS
Post-punk etherial experimental electronic post-modern goodness
8 pm
Sunday, March 14
$5

NICE NICE, TV GHOST, NOBUNNY
Electro art-rock, psychedelic post-punk and pop-punk, respectively
9 pm
Monday, March 15
$7

Corazón
401 S. Guadalupe
983-4559

Santa Fe’s catching a few other acts that will be at SXSW this month; here’s the short (short short) list:

TAWNY ELLIS

8 pm
Thursday, March 11

$3

Cowgirl
319 S. Gualadupe St.
982-2565

THE TEXAS SAPPHIRES

9 pm
Saturday, March 14

$5

Cowgirl
319 S. Gualadupe St.
982-2565

And again for Beats on the Basin…

Noon-3 pm
Saturday, March 14

No cover

Totemoff’s Mid-Mountain Lodge
Ski Santa Fe, Hyde Park Road
955-9858

Dee Gragg, who teaches crop circles and extraterrestrial life at New Mexico State University, scoffs at news that the British government plans to destroy records of UFO sightings. Gragg says civilian databases are expansive enough to fill the void—and as for the things only governments know, “They’re never going to release that [anyway],” Gragg tells SFR.

In the absence of government’s admission that UFOs and ETs exist (what those in the know call “disclosure”), then, Gragg is writing a book on the subject, and he was kind enough to send us the Epilogue, which explains why extraterrestrials will keep coming to earth: They’re worried about our environment! Read excerpts after the jump.

Epilogue, by Dee Gragg

…Besides, who would disclose this? Not President Obama for he not only doesn’t have this information, he has no need to know! This was illustrated dramatically When President Ronald Reagan asked Vice President George Bush about UFOs and ETs and he was told he had no need to know⁶. The President of the United States, the Commander-In-Chief, had no need to know! Presumably, Bush was aware of this from having previously served as Director of Central Intelligence….

ETs Nuclear Concerns

Now, to what seems sure to happen. The ETs will be forced to appear and take charge of our planet in order to protect their continuing research. Notice, I didn’t say come down to earth. They are already here so they don’t have to come from anywhere!

ETs Pollution Concerns

However, the pollution problem has not been solved nor is there much hope that it ever will be. The United States and other developed nations have pledged little more than lip service to reducing pollution. As I write this President Obama has just returned from Copenhagen from another Let’s Pretend We Are Going to Do Something About Global Warming summit…

[W]ith pollution producing global warming, how long can the ETs wait before we force them to intervene? Of course, anything at this point is just a guess albeit an intelligent guess. They must intervene before an irreversible tipping point occurs.

THE DREAM WITHIN THE DREAM

5-6 pm
Saturday, March 6

Free

Collected Works Bookstore
202 Galisteo St.
988-4226

This weekend at Collected Works Bookstore, Kelly Sullivan Walden, a hypnotherapist and dream analysis expert, joins San Francisco-based poet Joan Gelfand to discuss those nocturnal musings and just how they can influence the creative process.

From ancient shamans to modern-day rock ‘n’ rollers, creative types have used their dreams to further their art. It’s a well-known tale that Paul McCartney dreamed the melody to “Yesterday,” which went on to become the most-recorded song in the history of recording. It’s a lesser-known tale that Keith Richards recorded the main riff to “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on a tape recorder next to his bed in the middle of a half-delirious alcohol-induced stupor, only to find the tape the next morning with no memory of the event whatsoever. That’s kind of like dreaming, right?

Either way, I’m quite a dreamer myself, so I decided to call Sullivan Walden up and tell her about the single strangest dream I’ve ever had—then get her take on whether or not I’m completely crazy.

Sullivan Walden lives part-time in Santa Fe (she divides her time between Los Angeles and Cerrillos) and is the author of I Had the Strangest Dream: The Dreamer’s Dictionary for the 21st Century. Gelfand’s most recent book of poetry is The Dreamer’s Guide to Cities and Streams.

Below the jump, get the scoop on my dream (which involved, among other things, Ron Jeremy, water parks and moldy ears of corn) and what Sullivan Walden thought of it.

First off, the dream:
I’m in Italy, wandering through a beautiful villa. There’s a painting in the house that I desperately want, but the painting is owned by Ron Jeremy, and the only way I can get it is if I…well…you know. Do the thing that Ron Jeremy is known for. I’ve decided that the painting is worth it, and I go to seek Mr. Jeremy out. I find myself—still in Italy—in a water park (at this point it becomes clear to me that I am also an Iraq War veteran in this dreamworld) ISO the man himself. I am holding two moldy ears of corn like infants, and somehow I know that the ears of corn will grow up and become my (human) children.

Now, Sullivan Walden’s take on some of the most important images:

Here and there, there’s a parenthetical interjection from me, answering one of Sullivan Walden’s questions. Now, keep in mind: Sullivan Walden does preface her analysis with: “Every person is the best interpreter of their own dreams. No one else can tell you what your dream is, but I can make suggestions and go with my hunches and say, if it was my dream, what I would say about it.”

General Theme
“The theme feels like there’s something about compromise. Compromising what you want and how you go about getting what you want.”

Italy
“If it was my dream, my association with Italy is phenomenal creativity, brilliant minds are from Italy. It’s a place of creative genius and mastery. You’re wanting access to that. And what does it take to get there? You believe you can’t just have it—you have to jump through hoops.”

The Painting
“You’re a writer, you’re an artist. You have an appreciation for beauty and art, so it feels like, in order to get this, you have to access your sexuality in some way that feels like a compromise. It’s grappling with that—’Will I?’ And, ‘Yes, it’s worth it, so I’m going to.’ For now, I’m choosing to go after it, because I really want this beautiful thing, or what this thing represents.”

Ron Jeremy
“Do you secretly lust for Ron Jeremy? Is he your dream man? (No, but I loved him on The Surreal Life—he was one of the funniest people I’d ever seen. But it’s not like I’m on his email list or a member of his fan club or anything.) But you liked him? (Yeah, I thought he was great.) He was. So there’s a positive connotation—it’s not a bad thing, but you’d rather just be able to get the painting.”

Ears of corn
“Do you have a connotation or a stigma with ears of corn? (No, none whatsoever.) The ears stand out to me more than the corn. It’s about listening. An intuition. Your ability to listen has to do with your ability to understand.”

Ears of corn as moldy children
“Whenever there’s a baby in a dream, I feel it’s showing you that there’s a whole new way of being. A whole new opportunity that’s available. So it feels like there’s something moldy, something antiquated, it’s not working. Out of something moldy comes a brand new opportunity.”

Conclusions
“It’s pointing to a whole new way of being that would have you access your creativity, your genius, your mastery—all that that painting represents, beauty and life on a higher level. There’s certain things that are being vented out so that you can have this new opportunity.”

…Yes, you read this right. Sullivan Walden took my crazy Ron Jeremy dream and made it a totally intelligent and arguably accurate analysis of my life. How the hell did she do that?!

Sullivan Walden has been interested in dreams her entire life; since they were children, she and her sister were deeply connected on a psychic level, she says. They often had the same dreams and would wake up in the morning and talk about them together. As she grew up, Sullivan Walden was going to be a psychologist, but she got interested in hypnosis and hypnotherapy and accessing the unconscious. The rest is history.

As for teaming up with Gelfand, Sullivan Walden says the pairing was natural. “Joan and I are both avid dreamers,” she says. “We both believe in the power of dreams to assist you in your creative process. Some of the most amazing art and best ideas come through dreams or through the dream state that you can access even when you’re awake. Joan will literally roll out of bed and do some of her most beautiful poems right in the dream state. And when I’m working on a book, that’s exactly what I do—when the sleepy state is still foggy, there’s just so much magic.”

Meet Sullivan Walden and Gelfand at Collected Works Bookstore this Saturday and tell her your own weird dreams—I dare you to top mine.

THE DREAM WITHIN THE DREAM

5-6 pm
Saturday, March 6

Free

Collected Works Bookstore
202 Galisteo St.
988-4226

By Chloe Davis, SFR Intern

Everyone loves puppets. They may not breathe, move on their own—or even be alive, for that matter—but they can make both children and adults alike smile as they dance on strings. Wise Fool New Mexico, known for its whimsical performances, is having a four-weekend in March dedicated to these strange creations.

Puppet Tales includes puppetry, music, folktales and circus performances for youth and adults alike. Yes, adults are invited and may even have more fun than their younger counterparts! “Puppet shows let adults transcend what is real, and suspend your disbelief for just a little while,” Amy Christian, co-founder of Wise Fool, tells SFR. (In an interview for puppetshowplace.org, Carl Weiting was asked why adults should attend these puppet slams and the answer was comical. “Because the Internet can’t heckle you back,” and “Because where else can you see 4,083 uses for felt & the common coat hanger?” were just two of his answers, as far as why adults should go see a puppet show.)This event takes place annually, and this year will be held at the Santa Fe Wise Fool Studios on Saturdays and at the Peñasco Theater on Sundays (times, dates and addresses below).

Wise Fool’s puppets range from tiny, hand-held creations to creatures 10 feet tall. This weekend a presentation explains all about verities of puppets and masks, then after you have a look at what kinds of puppets are out there, you may feel the uncontrollable urge to make a puppet. Luckily, there is also a workshop on puppet building.

Wise Fool was founded in 1989 in San Francisco, and its members started by making giant street performance puppets. Soon, however, the urban bustle was burning out the collective, and soon enough, two of the original members of Wise Fool ended up in Santa Fe. Around the time that they moved to New Mexico, the puppet focus shifted and they entered an era of circus performance, for which the troupe is still very popular—but these last few years have marked the return of the puppets.

This weekend, March 6 and 7, is a Look Inside Show, which consists of a lecture on puppets and masks, a hands-on puppet creation workshop and then a movie screening of Handmade Puppet Dreams in the evening. The whole first weekend is dedicated to being hands-on and fun for the younger attendees of the event.

Looking into the future, Puppet Tales continues on every weekend in March with a variety of shows, workshops and activities. The last weekend, March 27 and 28, features a Puppet Slam. The “Puppet Slam” circuit is part of a national network, which consists puppet shows focused toward adults all over the country. A Puppet Slam is kind of like a variety show, only a number of the acts happen to include…well…puppets. The mini-plays can be funny, satirical, political, poignant, dramatic, musical, or any other variety of adjectives.

This is the third year of Puppet Tales, so if you need a break from the everyday troubles of being a grown up, don’t wait another 12 months. Find your way over to Wise Fool and get your puppet fix.

PUPPET TALES

Look Inside Show: 4 and 6:30 pm Saturday, March 6 at Wise Fool Santa Fe
2 pm Sunday, March 7 at the Peñasco Theater

Puppet-making workshop: 5-6 pm Saturday, March 6 at Wise Fool Santa Fe
5-6 pm Sunday, March 7 at the Peñasco Theater

Screening of Handmade Puppet Dreams: 7:15 pm Saturday, March 6 at Wise Fool Santa Fe
7:15 pm Sunday, March 7 at the Peñasco Theater

Events continue through March 28

$5-$8 at Santa Fe studio
Free at Peñasco Theater

Wise Fool Studios
2778 Agua Fria Road
992-2588

The Peñasco Theater
15046 Hwy. 75, Peñasco
587-2726

Show us what has left the back of your eyelids burning. Send pictures of visual trespass and peculiarities to copyeditor [at] sfreporter.com, subject “eyedropper.”

SFR spoke with Gardner about the book. On Thursday, Gardner will perform cowboy songs, some original and some classic, at the Santuario de Guadalupe. On Friday, he reads and speaks on the book at the Palace of the Governors (for full event info, check out the bottom of this post).

SFR: So, Billy the Kid. That story’s been told before, huh?

MLG: Obviously there’s a gazillion books on the Billy the Kid story, but I never really felt like the dramatic potential of that story—the action, the drama, the backstories—I felt like it hadn’t been fully told before. The fear is that people will say, ‘Oh, I’ve already read about Billy the Kid,’ and that kind of stuff.

What makes your book different?

It’s the first dual biography of Billy the Kid and his killer, Pat Garrett. The subtitle is The Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West, but to me, personally, that has two meanings. It’s not just a legal justice. I feel like my book does justice to the legacy of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Maybe moreso Pat Garrett, because his story’s not as well-known. That was my goal, and that’s what I hope makes my book a little bit different.

That it gives time to both of them?

Yeah, and I think it was written as a fast-paced narrative. I wanted people to really enjoy it as a good read, as well as learning something about those two important Southwestern characters. It gets you sucked into that time, that place.

Reading it, I totally sided with the Kid.

Oh, really?

Completely.

No matter what I write in that book, Billy the Kid always steals the show. There’s just something about him. It happened historically, and it happens today. It’s like—if you ever watch a movie about Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday steals the show. Val Kilmer or Dennis Quaid, anyone who gets to play Doc Holliday, is going to upstage the guy that plays Wyatt Earp.

Do you side with one or the other?

Not really. I’m sympathetic to Billy the Kid, and as a historian, I wanted to be objective. But a lot of people have this misconception about Billy the Kid today—most people, when I would tell them I’m writing about Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, the first thing they’d say is, ‘Wasn’t Billy the Kid a psychopath?’ or ‘Wasn’t he a serial killer?’

No, he wasn’t. He lived in a violent time and place, and some of his killings were justified to survive. Sometimes, in the gang he was hanging out with, you had to kill to survive. It was a pretty bitter feud that was going on in Lincoln County—a lot of people were dying, and it wasn’t just Billy doing the killing. And you can read in the book that he had great charisma, he was beloved by most of the native New Mexican population. So I don’t know if I side with one over the other. I try to do both of them justice, and I am sympathetic toward Billy. I don’t dislike him.

But I guess I feel a little more sympathy for Pat Garrett in that I feel he hasn’t gotten his just due over time. I feel like he lived under the shadow of killing Billy the Kid for 27 years. The tragic thing was that initially, he was lauded in the press as a hero, but within his own lifetime he became transformed into the villain as Billy’s legend as the romantic Robin Hood of the Southwest takes off. It’s one thing for that to happen after somebody’s dead, but for Pat Garrett to have to live with that in his own lifetime I thought was really tragic.

You’ve worked and written a great deal on 19^th-century Southwestern history. What is it about territorial history that interests you?

I was born and raised in Missouri, and it was a complete revelation to me, as I was getting into the local history of Missouri when I was in college, and I discovered that so many Missourans had been involved in the famous Santa Fe trade. I felt a connection to that history in the Santa Fe Trail, so I really got into the history of New Mexico and how New Mexico changed with the opening of the Santa Fe trade. And then I learned how important Missouri troops were when they took new Mexico in 1846, and I thought—man, this is such great history, and it all involves my fellow Missourans. I was hooked on New Mexico history from that point on.

Do you think part of your interest in the West is augmented by the sense of romance out here?

When I start the book, I say New Mexico is full of stories. That’s the romance, and that’s what’s so appealing about New Mexico. It has wonderful, wonderful stories. The thing is, they start from the very beginning—colonial times on up, and if you want to go before that you have American Indian stories and legends. New Mexico is just so rich with its history and the different cultures that were there. And I think New Mexico, unlike a lot of other states, because of the different cultures and because of the conflicts between those cultures, it created an even more dramatic and romantic aspects to its history, and tragedy as well.

I, personally, can’t get some of the images of Billy’s last night out of my mind. Lots of weird stuff happened that night. Is there one thing that really puzzles you?

Yeah, there’s one thing. I thought that was such an unusual chain of events that led to Billy’s death that night. And what I thought was very revealing was that John Poe couldn’t even make sense of it, and he was there. John Poe—he thinks about this for his entire life. ‘Why didn’t Billy shoot me? Why did all these things fall into place like this?’—and Poe just gives up in the end and says ‘Well, I just decided it was fore-ordained.’

I was really struck by the image of Billy in the peach orchard. Is there one moment that affects you?

John Poe said that when Paulita Maxwell came into the room, she showed no emotion and just stared at Billy. And she was supposedly the one that Billy came and stayed at Fort Sumner for. I mean, she was his sweetheart. And she did not show any emotion. And I wonder what was going through her mind when she saw her dead lover there on the floor. That puzzles me and I still wonder about that.

And I don’t know, it’s those things that make history so exciting. I tell people, history that’s not controversial is kind of dead. If there weren’t those unanswered questions, we wouldn’t be so excited about history. Maybe it’s better that some of those things we don’t know and can’t explain, because that makes it exciting and gets our imagination going. If we know everything, like Washington crossing the Delaware on a certain date, the drama is gone. But to have some of those mysteries out there, that makes the history very interesting and fascinating.

MARK LEE GARDNER PERFORMS COWBOY SONGS

7 pm
Thursday, Feb. 25

Free

Santuario de Guadalupe
100 N. Guadalupe St.
955-6200

MARK LEE GARDNER READS FROM AND SIGNS HIS BOOK

Noon
Friday, Feb. 26

Free

Palace of the Governors
113 Lincoln Ave.
476-5200