Santa Fe (NM)

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    Santa Fe’s Secret to Happiness: The Annual Burning of Zozobra

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    For most of the millions of travelers who make the trek each year, there is no reason to go to Santa Fe except to go to Santa Fe. Just about everything that needs doing can and should be done somewhere else, someplace easier to get to than this tiny city 7,000 feet in the air, whose airport terminal is a fraction of the size of a typical American grocery store. But this town of 90,000 residents strives to ensure that its singularity is reason enough.Which makes it remarkable that Santa Fe’s most distinctive motif is left inscrutable to outsiders. A towering ghoul points down from a mural on one of the city’s busiest streets with no context. At a local confectionery, a scowling white figure in a cummerbund is rendered in chocolate — why? Even if you clock that the big-eared goblin tattooed on the biceps of a local electrician is the same creature depicted (being consumed by flames) on the cab of a municipal fire truck, you will encounter nowhere an explanation of who or what this monster is — unless you happen to be in Santa Fe on the one evening a year when locals construct a building-size version of this thing and set it on fire.The explanation is a touch nonsensical: This is Zozobra, a beast who lives in the mountains nearby. The people of Santa Fe invite him into town every year on the pretext of a party in his honor. He arrives at the party dressed in formal attire, thrusts the town into darkness and takes away “the hopes and dreams of Santa Fe’s children,” whom he also kidnaps. The townspeople try and fail to subdue him with torches. But then the Fire Spirit, summoned by an atmosphere of cooperation among the town’s citizens, appears and, flying high off the good vibes, battles Zozobra until he is consumed by fire.Zozobra sightings around Santa Fe.Thomas Prior for The New York TimesIf you are fortunate enough to be around on the exactly right night in late summer — the Friday before Labor Day — you may find yourself surrounded by, and even join in with, the screaming citizens of Santa Fe as they string up this enormous, writhing pale-faced humanoid on a pole on a hill overlooking their homes and burn him while he moans until dead.“Burn him!” demand the children onstage. “BUUUURN HIIIIIM!” roar the adults from the crowd, a portion of whom are inebriated. Unseen, a local judge howls into a microphone, providing the voice of a gargantuan puppet being cooked alive. It is possible that, one century ago, the forebears of the current population discovered the violent secret to happiness in their high, dry town — and that it is annual, ritualized killing by flames. Just in case that’s right — in fact, proceeding on an assumption that it is — the local citizenry have recommitted the monstrous puppet’s murder every year for 100 years straight, so far. The aim is to incinerate their gloom.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Before the Alec Baldwin Trial’s End, 2 Jurors Had Doubts About His Guilt

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      When the judge threw out the case, the jurors said, they had doubts that Mr. Baldwin was guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust.”When the judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin earlier this month after finding that the prosecution had withheld evidence that could have helped his defense, it left key questions that have hung over the case for more than two years unresolved.But two members of the jury who spoke about the case publicly for the first time on Saturday said in interviews that they had been far from convinced — given the evidence they had heard before the trial was brought to its abrupt end — that Mr. Baldwin was guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a film set.“As the week went by, it just didn’t, it didn’t seem like a very strong case,” Johanna Haag, known to the court as juror No. 7, said in a phone interview on Saturday.Gabriela Picayo, who was identified in court documents as juror No. 9, said that she too had been having serious doubts about the case against Mr. Baldwin before it was dismissed.A critical moment for her during the trial, she said, was when she learned that the armorer who had loaded a live round into the gun that day, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, had already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter. “I’m still here, I’m still open to hearing and obviously trying to stay unbiased,” Ms. Picayo said of her thinking at the time, “but I was starting to move towards the direction of thinking that this was very silly and he should not be on trial.”The trial centered on what happened on Oct. 21, 2021, when Mr. Baldwin was rehearsing on the set of the film “Rust” in New Mexico with a gun that he had been told was “cold” — meaning that it should have contained no live ammunition — when it suddenly fired a bullet that killed Halyna Hutchins, the movie’s cinematographer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Denies Alec Baldwin’s Bid to Dismiss Manslaughter Indictment

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      The ruling increases the likelihood that Mr. Baldwin will stand trial this summer in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust.”A judge in New Mexico denied Alec Baldwin’s bid to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge he faces in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust,” ruling on Friday that the case had been properly presented to a grand jury.The ruling by Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer increased the likelihood that the trial of Mr. Baldwin would move forward this summer.Lawyers for Mr. Baldwin — who was rehearsing with an old-fashioned revolver on the set in 2021 when it fired a live bullet, killing the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins — have lodged numerous objections to how the case against the actor has been handled, arguing that the prosecution had not sufficiently showed jurors evidence that could have supported Mr. Baldwin’s case. They claimed that the prosecution had “steered grand jurors away” from witnesses who would have testified that it was not Mr. Baldwin’s responsibility to check that the gun was safe to handle on set.In a written order, Judge Marlowe Sommer, of the First Judicial District Courthouse in Santa Fe, N.M., ordered that the indictment would stand, finding that the prosecution had not operated in bad faith and that the grand jurors had been properly alerted to the existence of the defense’s witnesses and evidence, though they decided not to examine them.“The court is not in a position to second-guess the grand jury’s decision in this regard,” Judge Marlowe Sommer wrote.In a statement on Friday, lawyers for Mr. Baldwin, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said, “We look forward to our day in court.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More