Did you miss it?
Just Another Sunday in the Jemez
November 29, 02020
After brewing coffee, I settled into the Sunday New York Times and Santa Fe New Mexican. The first clue was on A13. And again on A17 (but in black and white the second time). The coffee hadn’t really kicked in. I missed the clue, definitely the first time (A13). It was subtle and wasn’t just the lack of coffee, but the second clue (A17) — definitely deja-vu, then a double-take, but I still just thought it was weird.
The article about folks in Stonesfield trying to save their pub “The White Horse” was compelling and interesting (enough for a once-through, but not twice). After reading through the rest of the NYT and going through the Santa Fe paper it was time for the crossword puzzle. Not the most challenging Sunday puzzle but there were a few interesting clues. 27 Across (4 letters) “Drake’s Output” made me think immediately of SETI (I thought of the Drake equation) and 59 Across (7 letters) “Haphazardly organized” – after the A13 and A17 “misprint” I thought of NYTIMES.
Then many pieces began to fall into place…
The White Horse was the steed of the first of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. We recently rewatched Good Omens, which portrays the White Horseperson (not all men, in the modern telling) as Pollution, who had recently (since antibiotics and vaccinations came into favor) had replaced Pestilence. But in 2020 – perhaps Pestilence is making a come back? The tie to the current pandemic was strange.
When shopping at the local co-op a few days ago, I was really taken by the beautiful Taos Hum Hot Sauce Van that was in the parking lot. Check the plates on that sweet ride.
What is the Taos Hum? Spend a few minutes with google, but this was more than just another moment of New Mexico weirdness, with the pile of clues starting to come together. Taos Hum hot sauce? I recommend you give it a shot – but what is the tie to this narrative? Well, all the peppers for the hot sauce are grown on the Walking Trout Farms. Still don’t see the connection? Read on.
“Walking Trout Farm is situated on a southwestern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Northern New Mexico along the Rio de Truchas. The river is a high quality, cold water stream with brown trout that runs for less than a kilometer across the farm before disappearing into the sandy river bed. Legend has it that every year the trout walk up the four-mile dry arroyo from the Rio Grande to spawn in the cold clear waters of the Rio de Truchas.” – from https://taoshumhotsauce.com/pages/the-farm
So we know that just because something ends up in the desert where you don’t think it should be, doesn’t mean it didn’t just walk there. Or couldn’t walk away. Or perhaps it does take some magical realism to all work out – how do you think the trout get there?
Don’t forget the 27 Across clue (in case you did: Drake’s Output) – this is New Mexico we are trying to make some sense of. Roswell. Below are a few photos of one of my favorite road signs seen all around the Enchanted Circle (including Taos)
How does this connect? What was the NYT covering up on A17 of the New Mexico version?
The article about the disappearance of the Utah monolith did not appear (either Saturday 11/28 or Sunday 11/29) in the New Mexico print versions of the New York Times. Was this the missing page A17?
I went to twitter to track down the author and ask, but found…
Did you catch the John McCracken connection? See the NYT article, also supposedly by Bryan Pietsch, at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/arts/design/john-mccracken-utah-monolith.html I’ll let you noodle on that one, but (as wikipedia tell us), McCracken lived and worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Take a look at some of his artwork http://www.artnet.com/artists/john-mccracken/ and read about what he thought about aliens and SETI.
How does the White Horse fit into it all? Still your part of the puzzle to figure out, but chip in a few bucks (or pounds) to the cause while you sort it out – maybe we’ll meet there for a pint someday? https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/back-the-white-horse
Was the Taos Hum Hot Sauce truck making a “delivery” in Utah recently?
Just another Sunday in the Jemez. Just another 2020 Sunday, that is..
Bonus (dis)connection:“The strange mystery of the Taos Hum has been solved! Only some can hear it, we promise you will taste and feel it, and no one can MAKE IT STOP!” https://taoshumhotsauce.com/.
Do you think this is a coincidence? https://imgur.com/gallery/ZtoNYlM?s=sms