By Rudolfo Carrillo
Órale, carnales! Welcome to post number seventy nine at Things in Light. This week, I've got some very fancy stuff to tell you about regarding the ginchiest state of the union, que se llama New Mexico. I wanted to let you all in on all the groovy polemics, units of discourse, experiences, and wanderings that I thought you'd find at least mildly entertaining as you passed through this site, looking for evidence of a scene; relics from the age of the hegemony of hi-fi; or a translucent indication that cada cabeza really is un mundo. Or a discrete quantum bubble whose precise position can never really be determined. Something to think about, eh? But if you'd rather, I do have what follows.
The Trinity Site is open to public inspection, detection and rejection este Sabado. I think that's a big fracking deal because I'm one of those weird SOBs that uses the first atomic explosion as marker for the advent of postmodernism. Plus which, this year's open house is the day before Pascua, and also falls during the first twenty four hours of Passover. Hmm...add in Oppie's reference to the Bhagvad Gita and dayum! Think about that all you want, but not long enough that you forget to pack your ermines and haul it down the 25 to the San Antonio exit early enough in the day to have lunch at the Buckhorn and then drive out to the site to get a good look around. It takes about two hours each way, I reckon. Definitely essential, travel-wise. The Jornada del Muerto in spring is gorgeous, the relics and monument of the blast profound. Serio.
If you feel like making it an overnight trip, and prefer scientific to mystical overtones, exit in Socorro on the way back, get on NM Highway 60 headed west. Out there, on the plains of San Augustin is the Very Large Array. If you are into deep questions concerning cosmology, the nature of the universe, and dig super badass machinery and technology directed towards unlocking the very secrets of our existence, I highly recommend you take a tour there. I rate the experience as super padre, or chido and a half.
When you're done, get a room in Socorro. It's a friendly place with a world-class engineering school embedded near a mysterious volcano on the west side of the town. For dinner, check out one of the really decent and homestyle restaurantes available, tambien. Just don't ask any of the locals about Lonnie Zamora, sabes...because if we get UFOs involved in the mix now, then this damn post is going to be to hard too follow.
So, just to catch you up, I went down to the Trinity Site once so far, about a year after I met my wife. We drove out there with some crazy hipster friends of hers and my dog, all of us, in my Saturn 4. Y. You know about la perrita, but the other folks you probably don't, excepting Samantha. Anywho, that was round about 2004. We got there at the end of the day, and were among the last group of cars they let into the fenced area surrounding Trinity. There was no wind and there were no clouds that day, with bright blue sky forever and everywhere. We all stood around and smoked cigarettes (except for Rosie, who just sat at the monument and barked at it a couple of times, suspiciously) and thought about what happened on explosion day.
We've got pictures of the trip somewhere among a million other photographs stored here at mi chante, and I couldn't find them tonight. And though my thoughts sometimes turn to the starry possibilities manifest at the VLA, that doesn't seem to matter because the memory of what lies beyond the Stallion Gate on a dusty New Mexico road floats around my head como un espejo fumeroso, just about everyday.
There is a fragment of Jumbo just off of the plaza in Socorro. The army core of engineers blew it up with TNT after it was discarded on the trinity site.
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