I’m back after a couple of months’ hiatus to working on Ribbons of Green, the new book Bob Berrens and I are finishing up for publication next year by UNM Press. The current task, putting together the final package of art, is a blast. There’s more than a little tedious technical work (sorting out copyright …
This week’s newest U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Rio Grande runoff model runs have triggered a string of “wait, what?” conversations this afternoon at the Utton Center. possible drying through Albuquerque as early as June, with a good chance of drying even earlier we may already have passed the spring runoff peak irrigation supplies, already short …
Unincorporated margins, interior islands void of activity, oversights, these areas are simply un-inhabited, un-safe, un-productive. In short, they are foreign to the urban system, mentally exterior in the physical interior of the city, its negative image, as much a critique as a possible alternative. -Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubió, “Terrain Vague” In his essay “Terrain Vague,” …
Sitting on our front porch the other day, Lissa and I were trying to remember when we planted the garlic. We’ve been in this house for more than three decades, and the garlic in the front yard was an early experiment. So at least a quarter century, we figure. It’s been feral for years, along …
I left for my Sunday morning bike ride today as early as an alarm, coffee, and breakfast would allow – to beat the heat. To structure the route, I set myself a puzzle: to ride from Albuquerque’s Old Town, paralleling the Rio Grande to the north, all the way up the valley to the north …
Continue reading ‘Finding Albuquerque’s Northeast Passage’ »
I’ve been a) Playing with Datawrapper as a tool for displaying data here on Inkstain, and b) Thinking about Albuquerque’s aquifer as bad summer river flows force us back onto groundwater (City #2, in the North Valley, is one of a quartet of groundwater monitoring wells drilled in the late ’50s as Albuquerque’s population …
The graph uses day-long averages. The actual peak yesterday was over 3,000 cfs at the Central Avenue Bridge. Here’s what it looked like around noon:
This remarkable image by Roberto Rosales, my former Albuquerque Journal colleague now taking pictures for City Desk ABQ, captures a sharp reality of Albuquerque. We built our city in a flood plain, and in particular downtown beginning in the 1880s in a low area that was part Rio Grande flood path, and part swamp. That …
Continue reading ‘“sad havoc” – what happens when you build a city in a flood plain’ »
My city councilor, Tammy Fiebelkorn, gets it. Here’s what she said about the city of Albuquerque’s purchase of an old motel in our neighborhood to use as transitional housing for young people (18 – 25) on the edge of homelessness: The San Mateo Inn is across the street from a bus stop, a short drive …
Continue reading ‘Capability, Dignity, and Albuquerque’s San Mateo Inn’ »
Lissa has been nurturing this hedgehog cactus since we brought it back from Tucson a couple of years ago, wondering if it would survive our Albuquerque winters. This morning, it started putting on a show.