Introduction: Loomings
Begin transmission.
As extra-Venusian research
continues on our distant and watery celestial neighbor, I find it necessary to
elucidate the following anecdotal data. It is fervently hoped that such
information, if properly disseminated, will result in the continued, though
oft-maligned interest in our inevitable and glorious conquest of the third
planet.
On that world, in the anomalous
expanse of desert initially surveyed by our predecessors as a place of
potential colonization (prior to the advent of instantaneous multi-dimensional
communication), there are numerous human settlements concentrated along a
narrow band of liquid, mostly potable water, known to some as a river and to
others as el rio.
Linguistic variations aside, inhabitants
of the area commonly refer to this geologic phenomenon using adjectives
alluding to its immensity, although many are quite aware of the irony such
descriptions invoke.
One of the larger settlements in
this region is known as Albuquerque, New Mexico.
More than three quarters of a
million sentient beings (non-inclusive of the millions of dogs and cats who are
surreptitiously working with our clandestine forces toward colonization) occupy
this complex network of buildings, roadways, agricultural areas and other
planned structures, situated at the edges of said river and sprawled out
wantonly, along its course to the sea. The settlement also diffuses eastward to
a series of large granite outcroppings whose names refer to fruit or
fruit-bearing plants and thereby allude to the importance humans place upon the
sustained production and consumption of food.
Recently, this place called
Albuquerque has also spread westward, out into a desiccated plateau.
Interestingly, this area of relatively new activity does not bear a name
suggesting or alluding to the edible parts of vegetative growth. Its leathery
dryness is supplanted by importing water from the narrow and beckoning stream
detailed above, or by drilling deeply into the earth itself, tapping the underground
aquifer which sleeps temporarily beneath the city.
The production and consumption of
food and the consequent need to maintain a sustainable water supply to
facilitate such frail activity seems to hold a preternatural fascination among
the current inhabitants, who, by the way, refer to themselves variously as
Albuquerqueans, Burqueños or pinche carpetbaggers.
Besides its notable presence in the
naming of physical landmarks, this inherent interest in food (Burqueños and
their "pets" must eat to live, unlike the misty and non-corporeal
beings found in the void surrounding their planet) and its numinous
associations may be seen in the naming of specific meals utilizing the fruit of
the much adored chile plant.
The highly prized berries of this
relative of nightshade, datura and potatoes are lovingly and gloriously cooked
and eaten when either red or green coloured. Separately, each has a fervent
following; when presented together however, a ritual religiosity may be noted.
Consumers refer to that interaction as “Christmas”, ascribing to the
consumption of the two the name of an important winter holiday which apparently
celebrates the potential for the divine within the strictly corporeal.
Further examples of this tendency
to associate divinity with the native cuisine have been widely reported. The
spontaneous manifestation of holy images on another deeply revered foodstuff,
the tortilla, have been carefully and precisely documented.
In order to continue this important
line of research and make a determination about the probable connections
Albuquerqueans have to the sublime nature of the universe - and therefore their
amenability to colonization - it is highly recommended that this researcher be
given time and opportunity to investigate the templar edifices where such rites
of consumption are known to take place. It is felt that, in these lofty
locations, known locally as “New Mexican Restaurants” or “Restaurantes Nuevo
Mexicano”, important observational discoveries regarding the nature of this
group of humans residing in the desert may be made.
I would also like the opportunity
to examine the coming water crisis these humans or their successors will one
day face. They need the water to perpetuate the cult of chile and the temple of
tortillas, as I have affectionately come to call this cluster of cultural units
- though it has come to me through my handlers (such as they are at this most
distant and dusty outpost of the empire) that after initial contact is made, we
may direct esta gente towards the moon, as a reward for being compliant.
Part One: The Carpet Bag
So it's Saturday afternoon
in the duke city and I'll be good and god-damned if I can no longer take my
life into my own hands by driving north on San Mateo Boulevard for lunch or
dinner at Pancho's Mexican
Buffet. The pinche place is closed and that closure has been
announced in the classic Burque fashion for businesses in these parts that have
given up the ghost. Someone left a ragged piece of notebook paper taped
crookedly to the door with the word closed scrawled upon it in black nail
polish.
No one is answering the phone over yonder,
either, so I am sure it is over. I know most of you are okay with that and I
will be the first one to admit that Pancho's had seen better days. The chile
rellenos had gotten dull and mealy. Who could possibly take pleasure in raising
a flag that brought anxious eaters sopapillas that had been repeatedly reheated
in la microondas?
Visits there had always
been an exercise in sentimentality, anyway. Really, I'd only been to the
northeast heights incarnation of Pancho's a few times. I mostly used those
visits as a reference point for remembering their main location on Central and
San Pedro. I had fond memories of that dive and would still stop to raise the
flag long after it became run down and drunks from MG's Grand Liquor or Foxes Booze and
Cruise wondered blindly through the parking lot or passed out in
front of the take-away entrance.
Ultimately, I'll have to
add Pancho's Mexican Buffet to the list of Albuquerque restaurants I shall,
alas never dine at again. There are a lot of those, but if you wanna know the
ones that really break my heart, I thought I'd finish out this essay with a
short list. Try not to languish in despair as you peruse the following fateful
outline.
Of course, it nearly killed me when Shakey's Pizza left town.
Try as I might, I've never been able to recreate the sublime experience
encountered when presented with thin crust pizza, bright green-colored soda pop
and continuously screening Laurel and Hardy shorts. When I was really young and
unaware of the mechanical nature of the universe, I was convinced that the
player piano in the corner was haunted.
In high school, I took a girl I was dating to the Morning
Glory Cafe, because I heard it was a hip joint. It was musty, smoky and filled
with dirty hippies, but they had a hell of a grilled cheese sangwich and coffee
refills were free, too. There were always interesting treasures crammed under
the seat cushions in that place. I ended up breaking off the affair with that
young woman, who I recall was named Patricia. That was a sad time, but I
assuaged my aching soul with a copy of Zap Magazine and an authentic coin from
Cuba that I had hauled out of the boothy abyss where we sat.
Goody's was the local diner where every table-top featured
its own toaster. Those bright and shiny electronic symbols of consumer
convenience became harbingers of doom, ultimately. Daring citizens with mouthy
appetites and a distinct lack of scientific or entrepreneurial oversight began sticking
forks in the damned things, trying to retrieve their golden prizes early. I
still have the university ID from my freshman year to testify to that fact;
it’s the only record that remains of my youthful experiments with curly hair. Enough said.
Speaking of my undergraduate years is painful enough,
especially given the fact that I went to art school at UNM at a time when Joel
Peter Witkin was still sleuthing the hallways for new models and their pets.
That authentic aesthetic despair was only heightened by the demise of the The Purple Hippo
Ice Cream Parlor on Harvard. It will forever be sorely missed. In
particular, I languish over my consequent inability to get a decent corn or
wood flavored ice cream cone in this town.
Growing up on the Rez, we got used to and were familiar
with folksy joints that had names like Earl’s or the Ranch Kitchen, so
permanently trucking the entire Carrillo family out to the faraway and
exotically bifurcating urban arcadia that we imagined Burque to be was a font
of amazement for sublime and indescribable gastronomic fascinations.
In trying to reconcile that transformative experience with
the my current engagement with hyper-local cuisine, I recall The Spaghetti
Machine, a dark, multi-level universe of pasta dishes whose realm was also
filled with first-generation video game consoles and servers who wore red cloth
napkins on their heads, perhaps as an indication of their participation in the
creation of my future. Or something like that.
And then there was the Big Valley Ranch Company, a top-tier
steakhouse on Menaul. Someone with a huge brain, perhaps from the same world
that had telegraphed Herman Cain into the American restaurant scene, came up
with the absolutely brilliant idea for this garden of eatin’. They had devised
a floor plan wherein each of the tables were enclosed in separate, discrete
plexiglass cubes. I was astonished at first, but after eating there a few times
with the old man, began earnestly praying that the same folks would take over
Earl’s and the Ranch Kitchen too - mostly because of the mental abuse I had
suffered in those roadhouses when witnessing local sheep-hands dig into their
mutton-head stew with a carnality and exuberance that I was convinced was
demonic, or at least very sloppy and ill-mannered.
There are
plenty of eldritch and woeful tales concerning the long disappeared and
potentially possessed eateries I have been in contact with over the years, here
in Burque and beyond. I would yet reveal them to this genteel audience, but I
note that the clock I am carrying in my pocket is now indicating that
snack-time is nigh.
End
Transmission.
