Prison riot inspires museum plans

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. » New Mexico might open a museum at the site of a 1980 bloody prison riot.

State Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel says strong public interest in tours of the closed "Old Main" prison offered during last year’s New Mexico centennial celebration sparked the idea for a permanent museum.

Old Main was closed in 1988, eight years after the February 1980 riot in which inmates killed 33 fellow prisoners in a violent clash that included beheadings, amputations and burned bodies. Officials say the museum south of Santa Fe could include tours, a restaurant and an inmate-staffed hobby shop.

The planned museum follows a trend in "dark tourism" to transform tragic sites into tourist attractions. Retired Corrections Capt. Marcella Armijo says any museum needs to be truthful about events there.

London gallery shows Dylan sketches

LONDON » Portraits by Bob Dylan are on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The 72-year-old singer-songwriter has been exhibiting his artworks for the past six years, but these 12 new pastel sketches have not been shown before.

The display is a departure for the gallery, which showcases portraits of prominent Britons. Art historian John Elderfield, who helped bring the works to London, said Monday the paintings were "products of the same extraordinary, inventive imagination" that wrote Dylan’s songs.

"Bob Dylan: Face Value" runs through Jan. 5.

Zeppelin tours offer sweeping views

PARIS » Tourists seeking an original way to take in France’s famed countryside have a new way to do it: in a helium-filled zeppelin.

Airship Paris’ 250-foot-long, 5-story airship has begun flights over forests and villages northwest of Paris. The zeppelin has room for 12 riders, who can move about the large-windowed cabin during the flight.

On clear days, the Eiffel Tower is visible in the distance. Tourists can also see the Seine river and the Chateau de Versailles from 1,000 feet up.

—Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times