Joe 

Joe Hayse, The Man!

Ok, when I was a little girl and lived in Albuquerque, I would visit my Grandparents (and Mexican food stand couple/family friends Rocky and Mona) in Santa Fe. Here in this artistic haven resides a famous storyteller, Joe Hayes. Now, when I was small, my family would take me to go listen to Joe, whether he be at an art museum, a park or at an evening party. I can just remember the stones we sat on as the sun set and the air became brisk. I remember a fire. I remember hot blue days where the smell of pinon trees settled in the blistering heat, and I sat and listened to Joe with all the other children.
He would tell us about Coyote and the mice, and Buzzard and Rabbit with his pitch and Horn Toad inside a stomache. I can remember how magical it was to listen to this elderly handsome man with his amazing expressions and voice.

Anyway, I would recomend that everyone should check up on Mr. Hayse if you are ever in Santa Fe. I know I will when I visit this summer.

A little bit about Joe Hayes:
Joe Hayes is one of America's premier storytellers-a nationally recognized teller of tales from the Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America's storytellers. His books and tapes of Southwestern stories are popular nationwide. Joe's tales combine the traditional lore of the American Southwest and his own imagination. The traditional part is based on things people have told him and on what he has learned from reading the work of folklorists and anthropologists. Most of the material he uses was collected fifty or more years ago, before radio, television and movies began to replace the old stories. Joe's own contribution is based on his instincts as a storyteller and what his experience tells him listeners need in order to feel satisfied with a story. The stories reflect his own values and sense of humor, as well as the values and humor of Southwest cultures, which is made up primarily of Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures.




By Master Storyteller Joe Hayes
From his book “The Day It Snowed Tortillas”

Once in a small mountain village there lived two men who were good friends. The one man’s name was Pedro. The other? Well—no one remembered his name. You see, no one ever called him by his name. Instead, they used his nickname.
Back when he was only 7 or 8 years old, everyone had started calling him El Diablo—The Devil—because he was so mischievous.
In school, if there was some prank being played on the teacher, you could bet that El Diablo thought the whole thing up. He would get all the other boys involved, and they’d all get caught and get in trouble. And even when they were grown men and should have known better, it was still happening. El Diablo was leading Pedro astray.
For example, there was the time that El Diablo said to his friend, “Pedro, have you noticed that the apples on Old Man Martinez’s tree? They look wonderful. Let’s go steal some tonight. There’s no moon. No one will see us.”
Pedro said, “Oh, no! Old Man Martinez has that big dog. He’ll bite my leg off!”
But El Diablo told him, “Don’t worry about that dog. He keeps him inside at night. Come on. Let’s get some apples.” And he talked his friend into it.
That night the two friends got a big gunnysack and crept into Old Man Martinez’s yard. They filled that sack with apples, then slipped back out onto the road.
Pedro whispered, “We’ll have to find some place to divide these apples up.”
Of course El Diablo had a great idea. “I know. We’ll go to the camposanto, to the graveyard. Nobody will bother us there!”
So they went down the road until they came to the cemetery. They went in through the gate and walked along the low adobe wall that surrounded the graveyard until they found a dark, shadowy place right next to the wall.
They sat down and dumped out the apples and started to divide them into two piles. As they divided the apples, they whispered, “One for Pedro—one for Diablo … One for Pedro—one for Diablo …,” making two piles of apples.
Now it just so happened that a couple of men from the village had been out living it up that night—dancing and celebrating and drinking a little too much. In fact, they had got so drunk they couldn’t make it home. They had fallen asleep leaning against that wall right over from where Pedro and Diablo were dividing up the apples.
One man was a big, round, fat fellow. The other was old and thin, with a face that was dry and withered-looking.
A few minutes later, the old man woke up. From the other side of the wall, over in the graveyard, he heard a voice saying, “One for Pedro—one for Diablo … One for Pedro—one for Diablo …”
The poor man’s eyes popped out like two hard-boiled eggs. “Aaaiii, Dio Mio!” he gasped, Saint Peter and the Devil are dividing up the dead souls in the camposanto!”
He woke his friend up, and the two men sat there staring, their mouths gaping, too frightened to speak. The voice went on: “One for Pedro—one for Diablo … One for Pedro—one for Diablo …”
Until finally Pedro and El Diablo got to the bottom of the pile of apples. The two men heard Diablo’s voice say, “Well, Pedro, that’s all of them.”
But Pedro happened to notice two more apples, right next to the wall. One was a nice, round, fat apple. The other wasn’t so good—it was sort of withered up.
The two men heard Pedro say, “No, Diablo, there are still two more. Don’t you see those two right next to the wall—the big fat one and the withered-up one?”
The hair stood up on the back of those men’s necks! They thought they were the ones being talked about. They listened for what would be said next, and they heard Diablo say, “Well, Pedro, you can take the fat one. I’ll take the withered-up one.”
Then they heard Pedro say, “No, Diablo. Neither one is any good. You can take them both!”
When the two men heard that, they thought the Devil would be coming over the wall any minute to get them. They sobered up in a hurry, jumped to their feet and ran home as fast as they could. They slammed the doors and locked them up tight!
And from that day on, the people say, those two men stayed home every night. And they never touched another drop of whiskey for the rest of their lives!

Sophie's favorite picture of Sophie (and puppy Ziggy) just in case anyone here likes to gush over baby photos- I was cute once wasn't I 

Memorization Feat

For my memorization feat, I memorized the poem "Darkness" by Lord Byron. If you want to hear it for some reason please proposition me with chocolate or puppies... or chocolate covered puppies... either way

Here it is in full form:



I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos,and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless--
A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge--
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd;
Darkness had no needOf aid from them--She was the Universe.