A fond farewell to Santa Fe and its surrounding environs. See you again soon.

Above, somewhere over New Mexico. Or Arizona. Turns out, those state lines are hard to see six miles up.

We traveled north of Santa Fe today to visit Bandelier National Monument, “over 33,000 acres of rugged but beautiful canyon and mesa country as well as evidence of a human presence here going back over 11,000 years.”

In addition to the wealth of natural beauty the park holds, it also boasts a rich history, much of which is evidenced to this day by way of ancient ruins, cliffside dwellings, and petroglyphs carved into the soft, sandstone-like volcanic tuff.

We took this shot from Alcove House, a ceremonial cave reached by climbing 140 feet worth of stone stairs and steep wooden ladders that was once home to 25 Ancestral Pueblo people.

Click the image to zoom in; you can see more images from our trip on our Instagram feed.

Moving light at night, shot with a Polaroid Land Camera 420 years ago in the Outer Banks, North Carolina.

Late afternoon amber light, as seen through a very lovely IPA.

An impressive cartographic map as art, employed by Portland, Maine’s Hunt + Alpine Club, a cute, new-old-world craft cocktail joint that serves predictably not-so-vegan-friendly Scandinavian fare…but great pickles.

We were particularly impressed by the Bonescrusher—a spicy, smokey concoction of mezcal, lime, agave, and red pepper created by Boston-based mixologist, Josh Gertsen.

We’re also clearly fans of their branding, thus the…borrowed map/menu. Designed by Portland’s own Might & Main, as we’re informed by Briana at H+A.

Niagara Falls, circa 2002.

A friend sent me and a few other Los Angeles-area people a message a few days back about this local visual artist—Joe Sola—and his recently opened solo exhibition, A Painted Horse by Joe Sola, at TIF SIGFRIDS in Hollywood. According to a recent Huffington Post article, Sola was inspired by a horse he saw painted like a flower at the Kentucky Derby a few years back.

The gallery’s write-up on the exhibit goes out of its way to explain how well Riba, the horse, is being treated, stating that she “will only be in the installation for opening hours.” They continue:

“For the duration of the exhibition she will be shuttled to and from her loving home in the San Fernando Valley by a professional horse wrangler who will look after her general health and provide her with fresh water and choice hay throughout the day. During the exhibition she will receive daily Reike treatments to both measure and support her well being. The artist, working with a leading professional animal groomer, used creative grooming hair dye specifically designed for use on animals. Only four visitors at a time will be permitted into the gallery to view the exhibition.”

On a friend’s Facebook post regarding the exhibition, someone tied to the show/gallery explains further: “Both the gallery and the owner of Riba could not love animals more, we would never dream of putting an animal in a situation where he or she is not completely comfortable and happy.”

We could go back and forth until the end of time, I imagine, as to what we think the animal thinks about all of this. The closest analogy I can personally make is how my dog would feel if I did this to him. I have no doubt that I could use these special vegetable dies designed for animal use to get him looking pretty funky in a similar manner without harming him or causing him much discomfort. And he might even like it—as far as I could figure, since he can’t tell me—assuming we gave him enough dog treats and told him he was pretty enough, Pavlov-style.

But I think that’s all a bit beside the point and gives clarity to the gallery + artist’s need to oversell the lack of cruelty by hauling in an animal grooming specialist and Reike practitioners. It’s not about physical harm; it’s about exploitation and humiliation. We’d never do this to a human who couldn’t communicate consent or lack thereof because it would be a clear violation of their free will and violent disregard for their humanity—it’d be active humiliation of another being.

Violence doesn’t have to include the use of physical force—though I imagine Riba would have walked away if given the option to do so while being painted and prepped for this exhibit and likely had to be physically restrained. Point being though, violence can and does, every day, involve both physical force and/or power to harm or deprive a being of its rights.

One can argue humanity—or a similar concept—is one that remains unique to humans and even that animals have no inherent rights. But that’s where my ilk in the animal rights + ethical vegan community would diverge from anyone holding such a point of view. That’s why we don’t eat animal flesh, it’s why we don’t partake in animal milk or other products made from it, and it’s why many of us see this exploitation of animals for the sake of humans’ entertainment as abuse and violence, regardless of all the good intentions, well-meaning words, carpeted floors, air conditioning, and channeling of equine healing energy in the world.

It’s violent and wrong.

The exhibition itself ends after this Saturday. I’m not usually one to wish negativity on others and certainly don’t for anyone involved in the show, but here’s hoping it did terribly and travels nowhere.

Photographs by Joe Sola.

Posting our eighth consecutive monthly mixtape today, featuring new songs from some longtime favorites like Oxford’s Foals, Danish prog-rockers Mew, and Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr, newly renamed Jr Jr (which evidently the real Dale Earnhardt Jr is kinda bummed about).

We’ve also got some great songs from newcomers like Swedish folk trio Small Feet, North Carolina’s emotively, blissfully chaotic Adjy, and Stolen Jars, who we interviewed early this year and who’s planning their full-length debut later this month (free downloads of the three singles from that album on the band’s site, by the way).

Enjoy!

Another from our old Web site’s photo portfolio—a manually overlapped panoramic shot shot with a Holga of the California coast near San Francisco, circa 2004 or so.

From our photo archive—the former portfolio of photography that we culled from our old Web site design: Flowers + light in Brooklyn.