In Search of the Roman Whammy

Michael Levy poses an interesting question in his new blog post – follow the link and let him know what you think!

Did the Romans Invent the "Whammy Bar"?

New blog just posted on my website, about a fascinating potential new musical discovery from a detailed painting of a Roman Kithara found in Herculaneum, which seems to amazingly show the 1st century CE equilvalent of a pitch-bending "whammy bar!"

Here is the link to this new blog:

http://www.ancientlyre.com/blogs/did_the_romans_invent_the_whammy_bar

Your thoughts and comments to this blog are most welcome!

Let's Just Suck That Pesky Carbon Out Of The Air With Our Giant Vacuum Thingee

There has been a lot of talk (and study) recently about the concept of carbon sequestration, the idea that CO2 gas could be pulled from the atmosphere and stored in sedimentary layers underground, or even under the seafloor. Some very smart geologists are working on this problem, and we may see an attempt to implement the idea within the next few decades. But I'm always curious when I hear about these sorts of projects, because I wonder just how much non-geologists understand about faults and fractures in the Earth's crust, even the non-geologists who have a financial stake in what their geology experts tell them.

Okay, maybe especially these guys, since money folk and bureaucrats tend to be people who think in terms of deadlines and progress reports: this phase of the project was completed on schedule, this other phase is over schedule, the cost breakdown is this, etc. They're thinking weeks ahead, sometimes decades ahead for some aspects of a project. But geology is often reckoned in millions, even billions of years. What's even trickier is that, despite this immense time scale, geology can also change suddenly and catastrophically, in a matter of seconds. Thirty feet of sediment can be deposited by a flash flood, tons of volcanic ash can hurtle toward a town at 100km an hour. And in the case of carbon sequestration, the problem is that faults move.

CO2 is heavier than the mix of gases that make up our atmosphere. If a large amount of it is suddenly released, it will flow and pool almost like water at ground level. It is invisible and odorless, so it overtakes unsuspecting people and animals and suffocates them before they realize that anything is wrong. Eventually it will mix with the other gases and be reabsorbed into the atmosphere, but not before killing every oxygen-breathing creature in its path. Villages next to lakes that have formed near the continental rift in Africa have suffered from accidents like this from gases generated by volcanic activity under the lakes, releasing the CO2. So when geologists are trying to advise people about where sequestered CO2 could safely be stored, they have this possibility in mind.

Yet the geologists can only advise, very few of them are in a position to make the final decisions about whether a project will go forward and where it will happen. And when it comes to faults, we're mostly engaged in guesswork. This became very plain to me when I recently toured Kartchner Caverns, in Southern Arizona, with the head geologist for the State Park Service. He said that they could see where a few of the faults in the landscape were by looking at the mountains and valleys on the surface. But once they went underground, they found many more faults and fractures that could never have been seen without the benefit of a cave system.

Improved seismic monitoring has proved that the Earth's crust is constantly moving, shrinking, expanding, fracturing, dissolving, collapsing, and getting pulverized, thanks to the titanic pressures of the surrounding rock and the heat generated in the mantle. What appears to be motionless to us on the surface is actually dynamic.

So theoretically, tons of CO2 could be stored somewhere, a fault could move, and gas could escape and suffocate people and animals. So they have to find a place that seems relatively stable, but they also have to find one that isn't too close to human habitation, because no place on the Earth's surface is 100% guaranteed to be stable. Storing the gas in the ocean floor, where the immense pressure of the ocean will keep it dissolved in those sediments, is a safer bet, but then you have the added cost and difficulty of getting it down there.

So where will the gas end up? If they get to be too good at pulling the CO2 out of the atmosphere, will people say, Whoopie! We can generate as much CO2 as we want! Will it trick us into keeping old technologies that are causing problems?

If the sequestration process works, it may have an interesting side effect – it may cause calcite to form when moisture enters the soil. In Arizona, moisture reacts with CO2 in the soil to form CaCO3. Who knows, maybe a whole new generation of caves will sport formations resulting from reactions with the CO2 we placed in overlying beds.

That alone might make it worthwhile . . .

Michael Levy in the American Harp Journal

More wonderful news from Michael Levy:

I have been featured in the American Harp Journal!

A quick bulletin to let you all know that I have finally been featured in a full length article in the American Harp Journal - a PDF of this fascnating article by Diana Rowan, entitled "The Universal Lyre: Three Perspectives", can be downloaded here - enjoy!

Arizona Geology Magazine, 2013 Issue

The 2013 issue of Arizona Geology Magazine is now online, covering a variety of topics. Check out the link!

Another Live Gig, With Roman Cuisine

Check out Michael Levy's Calendar section on his blog for the date of his next live gig – I'm sure he's just kidding about the stuffed door mouse . . .

My next live lyre gig at the British Museum!

I have just this minute confirmed another last minute live lyre gig at the British Museum! I will be providing live lyre background music, to set the mood for the a three-course meal inspired by Roman cuisine from "The Classical Cookbook" by Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger.

With its subtle mix of sweet and sour flavours, its fragrant herbs, cheesecakes and red wines, the cuisine of the ancient Mediterranean is sure to whet the appetite of every modern gourmet.

Sample authentic recipes, translated and adapted for modern dining. The authors will give a short introduction to the dishes, painting a vibrant picture of living, wining and dining in the ancient world.

£35, includes glass of Prosecco on arrival, booking essential

Booking: bmrestaurant@benugo.com or Tel. (+44) 020 7323 8990

Full details about this event can be found here and also in the "Calendar" section of my website. 

Hope to see you all there...I hope someone saves me a suitably stuffed door mouse! 

Politics – I'm Gonna Have To Put You Down

I have a confession to make. For the last ten months, since the 2012 presidential election, I have been relentlessly searching the web for articles using some particular keywords: polls were right, Republicans were wrong in 2012 election and Mitt Romney lost.

I'm a Democrat, so you may think I've been doing this surfing because I want to revel in the defeat of my enemies. But ten months of gloating would not be reveling, it would be crazy. And the “enemy” in this case is a group that includes many people I care about, both friends and family. So Mitt Romney's gut-punched expression as he conceded the election did not give me the satisfaction you might think it would. It puzzled me.

The puzzlement only grew as the days went by. I could understand why voters were fooled before the election – I was confused by the conflicting polls until my brother turned me onto Nate Silver (I eventually discovered Sam Wang at Princeton, too). Silver averaged polls together, so his numbers were more likely to be close to how people were really planning to vote. I also felt very suspicious of Rasmussen and the “Unskewed Polls” guy, because their weighting seemed more like wishful thinking to me. I had engaged in just that sort of wishful thinking myself, back in 2004, so I could spot it a mile off. What I couldn't fathom was why Romney had been fooled.

A lot of people are blaming the conservative media for his inability to see the numbers, as well as the people in his campaign who should have used the scientific method to see where the numbers really stood so they could plan their campaign accordingly. But Romney was a man who presumably had experience running big companies, and a state, and the Olympics. His shtick was that he knew how to delegate and he knew how to keep an eye on things to make sure they were really going the way they were supposed to.

Then – BOOM.

So I started searching the web. I wanted to hear what he had to say about it, what his campaign guys had to say, what columnists were writing about it. I found a lot of spin, a lot of anger, a lot of gloating. I also found a lot of doom predictions, Republicans saying that the country is going to descend into anarchy and destruction, and Democrats saying it's the Republican Party that is actually suffering that fate. Several articles were about how the Republican Party will have to change to be relevant in the 21^st Century. Many of them were thoughtful and smart, written by Democrats, Moderates, and Republicans. Ten months ago, I thought I might actually witness the transformation of a party.

Ten months later, I know that's probably not going to happen. Congress is shaped in a different way from the Presidency. Those folks aren't going to stop their destructive behavior until we vote them out. In fact, even that won't help until we outlaw campaign contributions and gifts to members of congress. I don't know if that's ever going to happen, so after ten months of looking for answers, I realize I am now starting to chase my tail.

Don't get me wrong – it was fascinating to dig up stories from different viewpoints. I feel like I learned something. And I enjoyed the hunt. But the razzle-dazzle of the election has worn off, people are no longer talking about trying to evolve, politicians from gerrymandered districts are openly talking about destruction and obstruction as if they were legitimate tools for governing, and I'm starting to lose sleep over the whole mess.

The bottom line is this: though I was fascinated by the articles I read about those misunderstood poll numbers and the guy who thought he was going to be President, after ten months of reading them, I'm still puzzled. I now have a pretty good idea why the Republican Party has taken its current shape. I think Fox news and the Republican Pundits have a lot to apologize for, though to them all this anger is pure gold. The angrier their audience is, the more money they make. But I still don't know why Romney was surprised by his loss, why he actually seemed to believe that he was a shoe-in. So I finally had to cobble together the best answer I can.

My answer is based largely on my experience. I'm a low-income, working-class woman with a science background, slowly pursuing a degree in Geology with very little money to spend and even less time. I'm also a science fiction author, and inclined to see things from odd angles. Though nine of my books were published by NAL/ROC, I never earned enough income as a writer to quit my day job – and I have worked for guys like Mitt Romney. They are smart, they are educated, they have power and influence in their communities, and they often see themselves as hard-working nice guys. They think they see the world as it really is. They don't realize that they're from another galaxy. Their experiences are so different from mine (and probably yours) that they are blinded by them. A man so blinded will write an acceptance speech for an election even when the numbers should have warned him that he is losing.

So – no more Mitt Romney lost and Republicans were wrong in my searches. Six months from the 2014 elections, I'll see what Sam and Nate have to say about the polls. I'll be inclined to believe their calculations, even if they aren't going the way I want them to. I'll put my politics down and work at my job, study my geology, do my hiking, tend my garden, and live my life. I hope you will too, even if we're on the opposite side of the argument. Short of voting and spending our money where we think it ought to go, that's most constructive thing we can do as American citizens.

Wherever you are Mitt Romney – that goes for you, too.

UPDATE, OCT 2013: my plan to get on with my life was blown to smithereens by the Shutdown.  Now my search keywords are polls who do Americans blame for shutdown (though technically that should be whom do Americans blame, but apparently most of us don't know that).  Fox pundits are wearing sh*t-eating grins and referring to the Shutdown as "the Slimdown," which is my clue that Boehner and his allies do not plan to end it -- ever.  As for the default that's looming, I see it this way: the guys who don't get to drive the bus have decided to wrench the wheel away from the driver and crash the bus.  

The unreality bubble in which the GOP existed prior to the 2012 election is still there, stronger than ever.  So politics, when I put you down I didn't expect you to turn around and pick me up by the scruff of my neck.  But you did, and now you're shaking me like a rag doll.

Dang.       

Once again, I stole a bunch of art from Ernest Hogan. Don't rat me out.

Free Concert and Authentic Roman Food! Be There Or Be Square!

Michael Levy has a couple of live concerts coming up in September – see the links below!

Live lyre concerts in September...Live lyre concerts in September...

I am pleased to announce that I will be performing 2 live lyre concerts this September, both within a week of each other!

All the details, dates, prices and venues can be found in the "Calendar" section of my website:

http://www.ancientlyre.com/calendar

I will be performing a free lunchtime concert at Brecon Cathederal in rural South Wales on Monday 2nd September at 1pm, and on Saturday 7th September from 7.30pm, I will be performing at a Roman Extravaganza evening at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire - featuring authenitc Roman food, prepared by ancient food expert and author, Sally Grainger...

Hope to see you there!

“The SUPERMAN Movie Bugged Me” Bandwagon

I am one of those rare creatures, a girl who loved superhero comic books, including SUPERMAN, back in the 60s, when most SUPERMAN fans were boys. Girls who liked comics were more likely to read ARCHIE and MILLIE THE MODEL (I liked those too – I contain multitudes). I am aware that this makes me a nerd, possibly even a dweeb. But I'm not necessarily a purist – I'm willing to entertain alternate visions of my favorite heroes. So when I agreed to go see the Superman movie with some friends, it was with an open mind.

I actually ended up liking it more than they did. In fact, I would give it three stars. But that's mostly because I liked the guy who played Superman; I liked his character, and I think future movies about him could be quite entertaining. What bugged me about SUPERMAN was the way the Kryptonians were handled in the story.

Now I'm really venturing into nerd territory. Yes, I am actually going to kvetch about a bunch of imaginary people and how they were misrepresented. Here's my main complaint: these folks are presumably an older race, very advanced both technologically and socially, and yet they apparently cannot survive unless they're on their homeworld. This despite the fact that one guy goes somewhere else and develops superpowers.

Not buying it.

And yet, I can see how this might be the case if the script had managed to make a few points. (NOTE: writers of scripts are not always or even usually to blame for story problems – studios always are, since the buck stops with them.) Way back in the 60s, some guy on an iconic TV show made the point that superior abilities breed superior ambitions. In the case of the Kryptonians, this could mean that they've reached a pinnacle in their development and would like to maintain that high position. I would assume they have the know-how to select for attributes they consider to be superior when engineering their children. The fact that they would even consider engineering their children in the first place suggests that they are a race that focuses on their achievements as a group rather than on individual freedom and the pursuit of happiness. It's a control-freaky kinda attitude, and I can accept it as an interesting possibility.

But something would have to drive them to be this autocratic. Long-term war could be a factor, though they made the point that they had never encountered another race in their space travels (except for us, and we look exactly like them – sheesh). So they must have been fighting with each other all this time. A long-term conflict between bitter enemies with their kind of intelligence and abilities would be truly epic. The losers in this conflict might all have been killed and/or dissenting opinions stifled. They could have pursued that angle, and it would have fit in with the idea of a bunch of hardliners chasing after Kal-El and going all world-engine on his ass. And maybe that was what they were trying to convey, but they failed.

So here's what I would have done differently. I would have cut out most of the special-effects-ridden conflict near the end and replaced it by salting backstory throughout the rest of the movie. They had an interesting plot device (also a REAL device) in the old starship that Kal-El discovers, and it could have helped to do that. He's been raised as a human by a farmer in Kansas, and that's the most important point of the story – it explains why he's so full of possibilities while the people he came from are so severely limited in their choices.

And that brings me to the other major stumble in this movie. I loved the special effect of the tornado, but I don't believe that farm dog would have huddled in the car while his masters ran off to the overpass. One whistle would have called that dog. And I also don't believe that a farm wife would sacrifice her husband to save the dog. I DO believe a good farm dog has value, both emotional and monetary, but the scene was unbelievable and clumsily contrived.

I won't even get into how many millions of people must have been killed in that attack on Metropolis, or the dopey heat-ray-vision, I-can't-bring-myself-to-kill-the-bad-guy scene. Both of Kal-El's fathers would have agreed: the response to the deadly force represented by Super Bad Guy needed to be as swift and decisive as possible.

I also believe that the people of Earth would feel very paranoid and freaked out about the fact that they were attacked by aliens. It would be hard to go back to Business As Usual. And as was so beautifully illustrated in The Incredibles, there would be law suits. Another good reason for Superman to have a secret identity.

So – it was a mixed bag. And they could have done a much better job. With the amount of money and know-how the Movie Moguls have at their disposal, it's pretty scandalous that they can't handle the most important (and most low-tech) component of a movie: the story.

Too bad. Maybe they'll do better next time.

I didn't even try to get the rights to any images from the SUPERMAN movie.  Instead I just stole a bunch of art from Ernest Hogan.

Gila: the Life and Death of an American River

It's easy to get the wrong impression about rivers in Arizona, even if you've lived here for many years. As a desert dweller, you cross so many dry river beds on the highway that you think every river in Arizona, except for the Colorado, is dry most of the time. Sometimes it takes a geography class to teach you that the story of Arizona rivers is more complicated. That's where I first heard of the Gila River. So when I found this book, my curiosity was piqued.

One thing you can't doubt, no matter where you live, is that water is highly political. This will become increasingly obvious to everyone as the 21^st Century progresses, and groundwater disappears. This process is well documented in Gila, The Life and Death of an American River, by Gregory McNamee. You may choose to see it as the diatribe of a conservationist about the destruction of one desert river, but the proof of his arguments can be found in the ruins and canals of ancient tribes in Arizona. Like us, these people suffered from too much success. They irrigated fields with river water, which led to the concentration of mineral salts in their soil, until they had to abandon those fields.

The story of a river is also the story of the people, plants, and animals that live alongside it – and this book does an admirable job of telling it, from the formation of the Gila River, to its discovery by various tribes and immigrants, to its mismanagement and destruction by modern men, and finally to the current signs of hope for its recovery. In these pages you'll find out why the slaughter of beavers may have been one of the two most damaging things ever done to Arizona rivers (the other thing being the construction of large dams, behind which tons of sediment are currently piling).

It may seem that the story of one desert river is irrelevant to anyone but the people who live alongside it, but reading this book may change your opinion about that. All over the world, people are beginning to realize that the way we manage our water resources must change, drastically. Reading this book will inform you in that argument, and possibly give you some ideas about what can and should be done. At 232 pages, it's a well-paced and punchy read, and makes my yearly list of top ten recommended books.  We've got it at the Heard Museum Book Store, so come in and see us.  You will be dazzled.

You're Using the Wrong Part of the Mesquite

When white people came to Arizona back in the 19^th Century, they saw plants in the desert regions that seemed absolutely useless to them. The Indians who farmed and gathered in the riparian areas near the rivers tried to tell them otherwise. But white people know everything, and they figured they could just enlarge the ancient Hohokam canals and irrigate fields full of non-native crops. So they bull-dozed huge chunks of desert land and started farming. Being greedy cusses, they also appropriated river water that Indian farmers had been using, and now the Gila and Salt rivers are just dry, eroded beds in Central and Western Arizona.

In the years since, it has become apparent that there is a good reason why those Hohokam canals were abandoned. River water is full of salts that eventually saturate the soil it irrigates. Ground water, which is really fossil water that has been underground for thousands and even millions of years, has been drastically depleted in most parts of our country, thanks to persistent drought conditions. Our crops need tons of fertilizer to produce food, and more tons of insecticide to keep the bugs from eating them first. And the big agribusinesses are relying on narrower and narrower genetic strains for our food, engineered to resist the pests that feed on them, but even more reliant on fertilizer and water.

In the mean time, the humble desert still plugs on. It's seriously under siege by invasive species (including us), but parts of it still thrive. A few people eventually listened to the Indians, and now people in the Southwest are beginning to become aware that we have native plants that have been growing right here all along that are better food crops than the alien stuff we imported. In fact, one of those plants can be found in the barbecue section of any grocery store: the mesquite. But they're using the wrong part of that plant.

The mesquite was called the “Tree of Life” by Indians for good reason. It grows fast, requires little water, needs no fertilizer – and the bugs that attack it eat some of the seeds inside the pods that are produced every summer. And that's just fine, because the edible part is the pod.

Yes, those pods that people think are such a nuisance to rake up every year can be ground into a flour that is gluten free, higher in protein than most other flours (1g of protein per 2 TBS), low in carbs, and naturally sweet. They are gathered when they're dry, then ground into flour. The seeds are discarded. I had an Arizona Geography teacher who liked to mix the mesquite flour with buckwheat flour and make pancakes. There are many recipes online, as well as sources to purchase mesquite flour or even to get your own pods ground if you don't feel like doing it yourself.

Like the palo verde (which has an edible seed), the mesquite is from the pea and bean family, so people with a peanut allergy should avoid it. It's an excellent food source for the rest of us, along with prickly pear (the pads and fruit are edible), agave (edible hearts, like the artichoke), as well as tepary beans and other heirloom food seeds that are native to the southwest and our arid growing conditions. (Check out Native Seed Search for more information about them.)

Does that mean you shouldn't buy the mesquite wood for your barbecue? If you've got seed pods, you actually don't need the wood. You can put the pods in a foil pouch, make some holes for the smoke to escape, and set them on your barbecue coals. They'll give your BBQ the same mesquite flavor as the wood chips.  

So you see, we've been using the wrong part of the mesquite all these years, and ignoring an important food crop.  Does that mean we shouldn't grow other, non-native crops?  I don't think so.  We just shouldn't grow them on such a large scale.  And we should be using southwestern heirloom seeds first, adapting our farms to fit our climate, instead of trying to force our climate to fit the crops.  Maybe we'll figure that out before it's too late.

Go and Buy On Spotify

Check out Michael Levy's albums on the up-and-comer, Spotify. See the link below!

A quick bulletin to let you all know that now absolutely ALL of my albums are now also available from Spotify! This relatively new digital store is fast catching up with iTunes & Amazon digital music stores.

The main advantage streaming audio digital stores like Spotify has to the strugging independent artist like myself, is exposure...it only takes the right person to hear one track to make all the difference!

This happened last year, when the author Naomi Alderman happened to buy an imported CD of one of my sadly poorest selling albums, "Lyre of the Levites" - despite the poor sales I have had of this particular album, clips of 2 of the tracks ended up being used in a BBC Radio 4 "Book At Bedtime" series, featuring her book "The Liars Gospel", on Roman occupied 1st century Judea!

Here is the link to all my albums now up on Spotify:

https://play.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v

Thanks for all your support in "spreading the word"!

The Good (And Affordable) Stuff

In the last quarter of the 20^th Century, a gal used to be able to find wonderful little shops in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos. These shops carried handmade jewelry, unique clothing and shoes, art and folk art, perfume and lotions, books and nick-nacks, pots, plates, wind chimes, fossils – you name it. The cost of the items started at $2 and went up to a few hundred dollars, but you could get quite a lot in the $15 to $45 range. My mother and sister and I looked forward to visiting these shops every time we visited New Mexico.

But many years have passed since those days, and recently a woman came into the Heard Museum Book Store during my regular shift and asked me if there was a shopping district like that in Phoenix. She told me that visiting those quirky little shops used to be one of the highlights of her trips in the Southwest. Lots of cities had them; locally we had the Mill Avenue shops in Tempe, and Tucson had its own shopping district near 4^th Avenue. Flagstaff still has something resembling a cheap-and-fabulous shopping district, but not to the extent you would have found back in the 1970s and '80s. “What happened?” the traveling lady asked me. “Was it the economy?”

I suspect it was the opposite. Those shops were enormously popular. I think the landlords who owned that property decided they should raise the rents. They raised them so high, the owners of those little shops couldn't pay. In New Mexico, expensive jewelry, rug, furniture, clothing stores, and art galleries moved into those spaces. The top 5% of the population can afford to shop there now. The rest of us seem to be out of luck.

It's sad to see our paradise lost, but there are some alternatives for those who are willing to hunt a little harder. My search always starts with thrift stores. Prices there usually run from $1 to $15 for clothing, and quite reasonable for a gamut of other stuff. Places that advertise themselves as consignment stores or vintage clothing shops often charge more, but their items still cost considerably less than what you'll find in the expensive stores in the shopping districts. Second hand shops also run the gamut, price-wise, but are always worth investigating. And some of them carry new work by local artists and artisans.

Antique stores are also a mixed bag. We have a lot of them in Arizona, and almost all of them are low-priced. I walked into an antique shop in Taos on my recent trip to New Mexico, and I had to conclude that the place was too close to the pricey downtown district. The item I looked at (a gorgeous buddha) was $550. But you don't know until you look – that's part of the adventure. What sort of treasure you find depends on how much you're willing to dig, and whether or not you're bothered by dust. My tolerance for weirdness and unexpected adventure is high, and I've waded through worse things than dust to find the fabulous – on a recent journey in the Cave Creek foothills for garden rocks I fended off swarms of thirsty yellow jackets. Fortunately, bug swarms are rare on the thrift store circuit, and most shoppers can find a few places they like.

Here are some of the places my mom and I have discovered in New Mexico:

BOOMERANG THRIFT BOUTIQUE in Española carries a wonderful variety of hip clothing, including smaller and larger sizes. While we were there, they were running a sale, so we got our items for even less. The price range was $2.50 to $9.50. They carry an eclectic selection of other second-hand items as well. They're on the southbound side of HWY 84-285, near the southern end of town.

ENCHANTING BARGAINS THRIFT STORE in Española is also on the southbound side of HWY 84-285, a bit farther north than BOOMERANGS. Just drive until you see DANDY'S BURGERS and then pull into that little plaza. Their price range is $1 to $10. On this last trip I found 2 pairs of pants and 3 blouses I liked, and my mom found 5 fabulous blouses. Our tastes are quite different, yet we both found things we liked. (My husband bought 4 books.)

THE WATER STORE in Española is under new management and hasn't re-opened as of this publication, but they used to have an upstairs thrift section stuffed full of clothing priced from $1 to $4. They were my mom's favorite place, and she's hoping they'll be open again when we visit next year. If you're in the area, it's worth checking to see what's going on with them – they're on the northbound side of HWY 84-285 that leads through the town to Taos.

In Taos we always check out the COMMUNITY AGAINST VIOLENCE store on 1046 Paseo Del Pueblo Sur. From the road, you simply see a sign that says CAV. This year they only had half as much clothing as they did last year, but my mother and I both found a few things we liked, and they're worth checking out. On the other side of the street at 1024 is a consignment store called PIECES that is pricier than my mom likes, but that still has a lot of interesting stuff in it. My mom doesn't like to spend more than $5 for anything, so don't let that discourage you from looking at them.

TREASURES, located much farther North on Paseo Del Pueblo, is always worth a visit, though we have only bought a few items of clothing there. They also carry antiques and folk art from local artists, and they have a lovely little garden out front. Just up the road from them (going north) are a couple of affordable import stores, like the CAMINO REAL IMPORTS AND GIFT SHOP. They must have sold out of all their Jesuses by the time we got there (see photo), but I got a lovely urn-style garden pot and my husband Ernie bought a faux-alligator-skin wallet and a nifty t-shirt. (That was the only time I saw him get excited about an article of clothing on the whole trip.)

As you're headed out of town toward the High Road To Taos Scenic Highway, you'll see THUNDER LIZARD DIRECT CORAL IMPORTERS. They specialize in beads, so if you're a bead junky in recovery, don't go in there.

In Santa Fe, there are a lot of thrift stores on the southern end of town on Cerrillos Road, and you don't have to drive near the complicated tangle of the main plaza to visit them. These shops include GOODWILL, one of my favorite thrift store chains. I love the way they organize their stuff by color. GOODWILL discount days vary from place to place, so expect blouses to cost about $4.99 to $5.99 when they're not on sale.

The HOSPICE CENTER THIFT STORE AT 1303 Cerrillos Road offers clothing and antique/collectible items, and their clothing is always 2nd-hand fancy stuff. They were having a 50% off sale the day we visited, so we got several gorgeous items for a steal. Call them at 505-473-0972.

If you want a break from clothing shopping try A BIT OF EVERYTHING at 1836 Cerrillos Road. They don't have anything you can wear, but they're a 2^nd hand/antique /collectible emporium that offers – you guessed it, a little bit of everything. You can call them at 505-983-0665.

So yes, the halcyon days of cheap and fabulous, quirky and hip shopping districts are gone. But it's possible to roll with the punches. And though people who have to shop for smaller and larger sizes sometimes don't have as much luck when shopping for second hand clothing, thrift shops usually offer more than just apparel. These are the places you might find pretty dishes, garden décor, books, etc. Second-hand book shops are always worth investigating, and they could use your patronage. Try BOOKS AND MORE BOOKS on 1341 Cerrillos Road in Santa Fe (505-983-5438), just down the road from HOSPICE CENTER THRIFT STORE. They're an honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned book store, and if Ernie and I had spent any significant time in there we would have bought way more than the 4 books we did.

By the way, we were there 10 minutes. Paradise Found.