Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Familiar faces out in the middle of nowhere..


Altered States of Agoraphobia. 

Page 24 – (Bridge)



These pictures were taken at the Jesus Nazareno Cemetery in Taos, New Mexico, at the final resting place of Dennis Hopper, about a month after I arrived in Lenexa, Kansas, at the end of April 2018. My friends Don and Gene Hudson picked me up on their way through, driving down from Michigan. They were on their annual trip to visit family and friends that they had out there and Lenexa, Kansas was going to be on their way. It was not unusual for us to rendezvous like this and over the years we have met up several times on the road, close to wherever both of our paths were going to be crossing and it was always good to see their friendly and familiar faces out there in the middle of nowhere. It had been about a year since I last saw them and I was looking forward to catching up. I was still shell shocked from my recent experiences in south Missouri and the idea of joining them on a road trip was a good one. That rolling mosaic of distraction and focus that only a long car journey with a camera can bring was going to be the perfect medicine for my restless spirit. I was far away from myself in every way I could think of, but knew I’d be safe in the company of those I considered to be family and the soundtrack was guaranteed to be fantastic..

Note: Facing the above photographs, if you now look over your right shoulder you’ll see the grave of Dennis Hopper and below is a picture I took of Don taking a photo of it. The photo he took is on the left.




5 comments:

  1. all those decorations on the cross are an expression of peoples interest in Dennis Hopper...perhaps respect? rememberance? People dismiss cultures where coins, jewellery, food, personal items are put in/on the grave as primitive but nothing much has changed. We still do things like that in graveyards and express our longing to join our deceased family one day. A culture is not primitive because it buries a necklace with its owner and nor is it primitive because they didnt have mobile phones or microwaves. Infact doing something like building a pyramid without cranes, and modern surveying devices makes them MORE intelligent than us. - Paula Martin

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Paula. Yes, his grave was covered in gifts, tributes and offerings. I'm going to say a lot more about Dennis in the next post. (this is Simon)

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