tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91646174956724663312024-03-13T16:21:10.318-07:00Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project: Exploring Marfa,Texas and Environs of Far West TexasUpdates on the Marfa Mondays Podcasts and more (posts, photos, videos) about Marfa, Texas and Environs-- the Big Bend and beyond in Far West Texas. By award-winning travel writer and novel, C.M. Mayo, whose work-in-progress is World Waiting for a Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas. C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-84914747441777308412019-05-24T15:29:00.001-07:002019-05-24T15:30:22.085-07:00Update: This Blog Now Redirects to the Revamped "Madam Mayo" Blog<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The past few months have been taken up with various projects, among them, a batch of website and blog redesigns and overhauls. From here on out new posts apropos of the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project, the general region of Far West Texas / Big Bend / Traspoecos, and my various works about it, will be posted at my main blog, </span><a href="https://madam-mayo.com/texas/" style="color: #6a5a13; text-decoration: none;"><b><i>Madam Mayo</i>, and archived under "Texas."</b></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">One of the excellent things about having launched the migration of "Madam Mayo" from blogger to self-hosted WordPress is that I finally figured out how to make "pages," so there is a now a page devoted to all posts on Texas. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Again, look for new posts over at Madam Mayo, category "Texas," and with tags including "Marfa" and "Big Bend."</b></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">This blog archive here on blogger will remain as is for as long as Google allows it. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">See also the main </span><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html" style="background-color: white;">Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project</a><span style="background-color: white;"> page, with links to listen in anytime.</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.199999809265137px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">> Your comments are always welcome. </span><a href="https://madam-mayo.com/contact/" style="color: #6a5a13; text-decoration: none;">Write to me here.</a></span>C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-57372112428647466962018-07-14T06:18:00.003-07:002023-09-29T14:51:25.240-07:00Claudio Saunt's WEST OF THE REVOLUTIONIn his spendid and thoroughly original <i>West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, </i>historian Claudio Saunt does not get into Texas history (there is a lengthy chapter on an expedition out of New Mexico, however), but his book is nonetheless vital (and astonishing and entertaining) reading for anyone who would attempt to understand Texas. My review is now live at <i>Literal</i> magazine <a href="http://literalmagazine.com/west-of-the-revolution-an-uncommon-history-of-1776/">here.</a> C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-55295740574657505042018-06-27T08:36:00.000-07:002018-06-27T08:36:03.670-07:00Notes on Tom Lea and his Epic Western, THE WONDERFUL COUNTRYOver on my main blog, which posts every Monday, some notes on the great artist's novel of El Paso, that is, <a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.com/2018/06/notes-on-tom-lea-and-his-epic-western.html">Tom Lea's <i>The Wonderful Country.</i></a><br />
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The podcast series, after numerous elephantine interruptions, will resume shortly. <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">Listen in anytime </a>to the 20 podcasts that have been posted so far. Four more to go. Next up with be a visit to Bracketville.C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-88872683232134388192018-04-10T04:38:00.002-07:002023-09-29T14:54:18.105-07:00MARFA FOR THE PERPLEXED by Lonn Taylor, Illustrated by Avram DumitrescuThis is <a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.ch/2018/04/marfa-for-perplexed-by-lonn-taylor.html">a mirror post from my main blog, Madam Mayo.</a><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oDUzLc8eqI4/Wsyh7_OoMdI/AAAAAAAAKO4/1Vq8YtxCYDYWEyBFxJIEJGpdRqcs0hN0gCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-04-03%2Bat%2B2.45.29%2BAM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oDUzLc8eqI4/Wsyh7_OoMdI/AAAAAAAAKO4/1Vq8YtxCYDYWEyBFxJIEJGpdRqcs0hN0gCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-04-03%2Bat%2B2.45.29%2BAM.png" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">If you have any interest in Marfa, grab this book, and if you have never heard of Marfa, grab this book and you will be fascinated! I have yet to grab it myself, for it is </span><a href="http://www.marfabookco.com/shop/lonn-taylor-marfa-for-the-perplexed" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">hot off the presses from the Marfa Book Company</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">, but I have already read most of it, as I have been an avid and long-time reader of historian Lonn Taylor's </span><a href="http://bigbendnow.com/2018/01/the-rambling-boy-189/" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">"Rambling Boy"</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;"> columns, many about Marfa and its denizens, for the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">Big Bend Sentinel</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">> Taylor also </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/476793740/the-rambling-boy" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">reads his columns for NPR here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">Taylor is a deeply knowledgable historian-- he made a distinguished career at the Smithsonian Institution before retiring to Far West Texas-- and a most elegant writer, ever curious and clear-eyed, and one--how rare this is!-- with a gentlemanly heart bigger than the world.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">As for artist </span><a href="http://onlineavram.com/marfa-for-the-perplexed/" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Avram Dumitrescu,</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;"> two of his wild-eyed chicken paintings, red-white-and-blue like the Lone Star State's flag, are hanging on the wall in my </span><a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.ch/2018/02/on-organizing-and-twice-moving-working.html" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Texas Bibliothek</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">, exuding their magic "dino energy"! Viva!</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">From the catalog copy:</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span face="verdana, sans-serif"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marfa for the Perplexed, </i>by Lonn Taylor, is a collection of 60 essays about people and places in and around Marfa, Texas. Due to the work there of the minimalist artist Donald Judd between 1972 and his death in 1994, Marfa (population 2,000), located 200 miles from the nearest commercial airport in Texas’s isolated Big Bend region, has become an international art center and, more recently, a hip tourist destination. <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marfa for the Perplexed </i>reveals that Marfa and the surrounding country has always been a place of refuge for eccentrics and individualists, many of whom you will meet in the book’s pages. It exposes the rich mix of cultures that underlies the current Marfa art scene - the real Marfa beyond the buzz.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span face="verdana, sans-serif"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marfa for the Perplexed </i>is illustrated by Alpine, Texas artist Avram Dumitrescu. The foreword is by Marfa’s Sterry Butcher, a frequent contributor to <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Texas Monthly </i>and other publications. </span></blockquote>
<br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">I am proud to say that Taylor and Dumitrescu both granted me interviews (</span><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-17-Lonn-Taylor.html" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Taylor here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">, in 2015, and </span><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-4-avram-dumitrescu-artist-in-alpine.html" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Dumitrescu here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;"> in 2012) for my </span><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS-LISTEN-PODCASTS.html" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project,</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;"> which is apropos of my book in-progress-- despite the title of the podcast series, my book covers not only Marfa but the wider Big Bend / Trans-Pecos region, that is to say, Far West Texas.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">> </span><a href="http://marfapublicradio.org/blog/west-texas-talk/33855/" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Lonn Taylor and Avram Dumitrescu talk about their book for Marfa Public Radio</a><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">> Your comments are always welcome. </span><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/comments.html" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Write to me here.</a> <br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br />
C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-7511039524901501382018-02-08T07:44:00.001-08:002018-02-08T07:46:33.471-08:00On Organizing (and Twice Moving) the Texas Bibliothek<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; background-color: white; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; position: relative;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xXpATaoGvqs/WnPsofD0dsI/AAAAAAAAKEQ/F6uKOyveH_ojuav4-eZ06ZvWnYfdqYFjACLcBGAs/s1600/TX-l-packedup.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #1178cc; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="626" height="268" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xXpATaoGvqs/WnPsofD0dsI/AAAAAAAAKEQ/F6uKOyveH_ojuav4-eZ06ZvWnYfdqYFjACLcBGAs/s400/TX-l-packedup.jpeg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 0px 0px 0px; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 11px; text-align: center;">[ The Texas Bibliothek, Ready to Ship.<br />
Yes, it is big. Yes, I devour books like a ravenous owl.<br />
Yes, this is my process.<br />
I accumulated similar-sized working libraries<br />
in writing some of my other books, e.g.,<br />
<i>Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California</i> (2002);<br />
<i>The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire</i> (2009); and<br />
<i>Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution</i> (2014). ]</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;">File this post under Future Reminder to Take My Own Advice, and if some or all of these ideas also work for you, gentle reader, verily I say unto you: </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">Wunderbar!</i><br />
<br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Late last September, having finally rearranged and set up my working library in my new office in Mexico City-- the work in question being </span><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">a book on Far West Texas</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;">-- I had to pack it all back up </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">again</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;"> and ship it across the Atlantic. (Why? Well, that story would make an epic novel I'm not going to write).</span><br />
<br style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Now that I've got my Texas books resettled on their second set of new shelves in less than six months, I'm ready to take on 2018! But whew, I've got </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;">biceps</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;"> after this job for a Hercules. The thirty-eight boxes of books comprising what I now call the Texas Bibliothek-- I have landed in German-speaking Switzerland-- arrived in mid-January. And a couple weeks later, every tome and paperback and pamphlet and back-issue of </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-12-dallas-baxter.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Cenizo Journal</a></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;"> is in place, and I can carry my bike over head! I could scoop up and toss dessicated Christmas trees, small donkeys and their </span><a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/schmutzli--the-swiss-santa-s-sinister-sidekick/7082046" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Schmutzlis</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;"> out windows, too, should I take a notion!... </span>... <a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.ch/2018/02/on-organizing-and-twice-moving-working.html">Continue reading this post over at my main blog, "Madam Mayo"</a>C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-59948869326491435732017-11-20T15:45:00.000-08:002017-11-20T15:45:00.719-08:00Over at "Madam Mayo" Blog, "Three Fabulous Things About Ciudad Juárez"New at my main blog, <a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.com/2017/11/three-fabulous-things-about-ciudad.html">"Three Fabulous Things About Ciudad Juárez"</a>.<br />
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More anon.C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-25933336472241810282017-11-16T10:33:00.000-08:002017-11-20T15:46:34.772-08:00Some Postcards from the Border Circa 1916New at my main blog, Madam Mayo, <a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/11/more-postcards-from-us-mexico-border.html">"More Postcards from the US-Mexico Border."</a><br />
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More anon.C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-12512823635832266242017-11-03T19:20:00.005-07:002017-11-03T19:22:21.064-07:00Notes on John Bigelow, Jr., Lieutenant in the Tenth CavalryBecause of multiple household moves this year I am behind schedule with the podcasts and the book project, but it does march on. In the meantime, <a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/10/notes-on-john-bigelow-jr-and-garrison.html">here is a post over on my main blog, Madam Mayo, about John Bigelow, Jr., an officer in the Tenth Cavalry</a> and a person, as I will argue, of far more importance than has been previously recognized. He will appear in <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html">my book</a>, and also in a paper I will be presenting at this month's Center fo Big Bend Studies Conference at Sul Ross State University.<br />
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(Stay tuned for podcast 21 on the Seminole Scouts, podcast 22 on Sanderson, 23 an interview with archaeologist Andy Cloud, and 24 on the Blue Lady, Maria de Agreda-- meanwhile, as always, I invite you to <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">listen in any time to the 20 podcasts posted to date.</a>)<br />
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<b>NOTES ON JOHN BIGELOW, JR. AND "GARRISON TANGLES IN THE FRIENDLESS TENTH: THE JOURNAL OF FIRST LIEUTENANT JOHN BIGELOW, FORT DAVIS, TEXAS"</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">As those of you who follow this blog well know, I live in Mexico City and have been at work on </span><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; text-decoration: none;">a book about the Trans-Pecos (that, is Far West Texas)</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"> for more than a spell. Books on the Trans-Pecos are sparse on the ground south of the border, so when I travel to Texas I always try to scour a bookshop or three. Thus have I accumulated a working library, including not a few rare and unusual books. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">For this sort of project, archival research is also important to do-- and I have done some-- but it can be woefully expensive to travel to and spend time working through archives. So whenever an historian has taken the trouble to transcribe and publish anything relevant from any archive of interest to me, I am triply grateful for such a find.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">One example is the work by Douglas C. McChristian, a retired research historian for the National Park Service: </span><a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=449537300&searchurl=sortby%3D17%26an%3Dmcchristian%2Bdouglas%2B%2B%2Beditor" style="color: #1178cc; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; text-decoration: none;">"Garrison Tangles in the Friendless Tenth: The Journal of First Lieutenant John Bigelow, Jr, Fort Davis, Texas</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">," published as a chapbook of about 60 pages by J.M. Carroll & Co in 1985. The copy I found is in excellent condition with, halleluja, a mylar cover and autographed by the editor.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;">Why is this excerpt from Lieutenant Bigelow's diary, from 1884-1885 in Fort Davis, Texas, so interesting and important?</span><br />
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>> <a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/10/notes-on-john-bigelow-jr-and-garrison.html">CONTINUE READING</a><br />
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<br />C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-89774072835666689412017-08-28T23:25:00.000-07:002017-08-28T23:25:08.131-07:00Hiking and Haiku in the Guadalupe Mountains<i>This is a mirror post from my main blog, <a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/08/in-guadalupe-mountains.html">Madam Mayo:</a></i><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hbkWezwg7Gs/WaT_S9gvXVI/AAAAAAAAJns/6m0QhiToN7cnWi1xg7D9hTHYUcjY9SXJwCLcBGAs/s1600/McKittrick-Canyon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hbkWezwg7Gs/WaT_S9gvXVI/AAAAAAAAJns/6m0QhiToN7cnWi1xg7D9hTHYUcjY9SXJwCLcBGAs/s400/McKittrick-Canyon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">McKittrick Canyon, Guadalupe Mountains National Park<br />
Photo: C.M. Mayo</td></tr>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KlXe0nZRvK4/WaUAUfPAOyI/AAAAAAAAJn0/U8a8_cJEsUAynVABtOjLIcCLy5zH8gIMQCLcBGAs/s1600/GUMO-Haiku-high-res%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1091" data-original-width="843" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KlXe0nZRvK4/WaUAUfPAOyI/AAAAAAAAJn0/U8a8_cJEsUAynVABtOjLIcCLy5zH8gIMQCLcBGAs/s400/GUMO-Haiku-high-res%2B2.jpg" width="309" /></a>As those of you who follow this blog well know, I am <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html">at work on a book about Far West Texas</a> and, as part of this work, back in May of this year, I was the artist-in-residence at the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/gumo/getinvolved/supportyourpark/artist-in-residence.htm">Guadalupe Mountains National Park</a>. About an hour and half drive east of El Paso, the Guadalupe Mountains are little visited, especially outside of holidays and weekends in the fall and spring seasons. Although I was there for the crush of Memorial Day weekend, it wasn't much of a crush; for the rest of my stay I often had trails all to myself-- except for the rattlesnakes. I happened upon two rattlesnakes in my two weeks, one curled up in the middle of the trail; the other darted out right in front of me, rattling loudly, from the brush. It's not Disneyland out there.<br />
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I'll be writing about the Guadalupe Mountains at length, but here I'd like to share a photo of my official donation to the park. All artists-in-residence give a workshop, and donate a work or art-- in my case, it will be a framed letterpress broadsheet of seven haiku, "In the Guadalupe Mountains."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_b6mWwSiK_M/WaUBIjuuexI/AAAAAAAAJn8/Pq2I7FUZpyENMJXKPvI6l60nL0IK0H1GgCLcBGAs/s1600/GUMO-Haiku-high-res%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="78" data-original-width="247" height="126" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_b6mWwSiK_M/WaUBIjuuexI/AAAAAAAAJn8/Pq2I7FUZpyENMJXKPvI6l60nL0IK0H1GgCLcBGAs/s400/GUMO-Haiku-high-res%2B2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">The first haiku from "In the Guadalupe Mountains" by C.M. Mayo</td></tr>
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This letterpress printing was done by <a href="http://www.mkprinter.com/">Matthew Kelsey</a> of Saratoga, California. Poets and others, I warmly recommend Matt Kelsey, he is a master craftsman and a pleasure to work with. The frame, being made here in Mexico City, is in-progress.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mvfLJoQ1Zns/WaUBntI0KKI/AAAAAAAAJoE/QTpy6k1-zLA4pvstcwika-y_2l0mkxGxgCLcBGAs/s1600/GUMO-Haiku-high-res%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="77" data-original-width="218" height="141" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mvfLJoQ1Zns/WaUBntI0KKI/AAAAAAAAJoE/QTpy6k1-zLA4pvstcwika-y_2l0mkxGxgCLcBGAs/s400/GUMO-Haiku-high-res%2B3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">The seventh haiku from "In the Guadalupe Mountains" by C.M. Mayo</td></tr>
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&gt; Visit my poetry page <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/pubs-poetry-home.html">here.</a> I'll be posting the haiku there.<br />
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P.S. Last fall one of the artists-in-residence in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park was one of my very favorite painters, <a href="http://www.baxtergallery.com/about.html">Mary Baxter</a> of Marfa, Texas. Listen in to my interview with her <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-9-mary-baxter.html">here</a>. Check out her landscapes, many of the Guadalupe Mountains, <a href="http://www.baxtergallery.com/paintings.html">here</a>.<br />
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&gt; Your comments are always welcome. <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/comments.html">Write to me here.</a><br />
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<a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/05/nature-and-travel-writing-at-guadalupe.html">For the Vivid Dreamer: </a></div>
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<a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/05/nature-and-travel-writing-at-guadalupe.html">Notes for My Writing Workshop in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park</a></div>
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<a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/04/bitter-waters-struggles-of-pecos-river_17.html">My Review of Patrick Dearen's </a></div>
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<a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/04/bitter-waters-struggles-of-pecos-river_17.html">BITTER WATERS: THE STRUGGLES OF THE PECOS RIVER</a></div>
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<a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/02/q-with-paul-cool-about-salt-warriors.html">Blood Over Salt in Borderlands Texas:</a></div>
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<a href="https://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/02/q-with-paul-cool-about-salt-warriors.html">Q &amp; A with Paul Cool about SALT WARRIORS</a></div>
C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-35468230498548896062017-05-28T22:17:00.001-07:002017-05-29T08:22:04.203-07:00Nature and Travel Writing in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xetxMQnwpTo/WSrbnIHiKWI/AAAAAAAAJa4/UEUJ0ivt1skdwsGMlBmZBvEMEh9YnI2XQCLcB/s1600/pine-springs-station.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xetxMQnwpTo/WSrbnIHiKWI/AAAAAAAAJa4/UEUJ0ivt1skdwsGMlBmZBvEMEh9YnI2XQCLcB/s200/pine-springs-station.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">El Capitan from the Pine Springs Station,<br />
Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas</td></tr>
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<i>(This is a mirror post from my main blog, <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.com/2017/05/nature-and-travel-writing-at-guadalupe.html">Madam Mayo</a>.)</i><br />
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<i>This past weekend for my workshops as artist-in-residence at the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/gumo/getinvolved/supportyourpark/artist-in-residence.htm">Guadalupe Mountains National Park</a> I offered this handout which includes three brief, fun, easy-peasy and yet powerfully effective exercises to rev up your writerly perceptions.</i><br />
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We can think of the best writing ab<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman";">out nature and travel, whether fiction or nonfiction, as instructions for the reader to form in his or her mind a "vivid dream," an experience of the world. How do we, whether as readers, or as any human being (say, folding laundry or maybe digging for worms with a stick), experience anything? Of course, we experience the world through our bodies, that is to say, through our senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing-- and I would add a "gut" or intuitive sense as well... </span><b style="background-color: yellow;"><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/ARTICLES/Nature-and-travel-writing-may-2017.html" style="background-color: yellow;">CONTINUE READING</a></b><br />
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P.S. Loads more resources for writers on my <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/workshopnotes.html">workshop page.</a><br />
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&gt; Some of my travel writing is <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/miraculousair.html">here</a>, <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-PROJECT.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/pubs-essays-articles.html">here.</a><br />
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&gt; Your comments are always welcome. Write to me <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/comments.html">here.</a>C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-37236791915466382732017-05-22T08:12:00.000-07:002017-05-22T08:13:49.724-07:00Q & A with Mary S. Black about Her Book "From the Frio to Del Rio"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YPofon819OA/WSL8uRpzf1I/AAAAAAAAJac/v56udJe5iZITdiwesYBiJ3tjAGOB2XalACLcB/s1600/51i2%252B8Z7SVL._SX335_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YPofon819OA/WSL8uRpzf1I/AAAAAAAAJac/v56udJe5iZITdiwesYBiJ3tjAGOB2XalACLcB/s320/51i2%252B8Z7SVL._SX335_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Just posted over on my main every-Monday blog,<a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.com/2017/05/q-with-mary-s-black-on-from-frio-to-del.html"> Madam Mayo</a>:</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of my very favorite places not just in Texas but in the galaxy is the <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-15-rock-art.html">Lower Pecos Canyonlands</a>, so I was delighted to see that Texas A &amp; M Press has published <a href="http://marysblack.com/">Mary S. Black's</a> splendid and much-needed guidebook, </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/From-the-Frio-to-Del-Rio,8820.aspx">From the Frio to Del Rio: </a></i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/From-the-Frio-to-Del-Rio,8820.aspx">Travel Guide to the Western Hill Country and Lower Pecos Canyonlands</a>. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">From the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">catalog:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">"<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Each year, more than two million visitors enjoy the attractions of the Western Hill Country, with Uvalde as its portal, and the lower Pecos River canyonlands, which stretch roughly along US 90 from Brackettville, through Del Rio, and on to the west. Amistad National Recreation Area, the Judge Roy Bean Visitors’ Center and Botanical Garden, Seminole Canyon State Park, and the Briscoe-Garner Museum in Uvalde, along with ghost towns, ancient rock art, sweeping vistas, and unique flora and fauna, are just a few of the features that make this distinctive section of the Lone Star State an enticing destination.</span></span></blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://marysblack.com/about/">Mary S. Black</a><br />
Author of <i>Peyote Fire</i><br />
and<br />
<i>From the Frio to Del Rio</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"Now, veteran writer, blogger, and educator Mary S. Black serves up the best of this region’s special adventures and secret treasures. </span><i style="color: #333333;">From the Frio to Del Rio</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is chock-full of helpful maps, colorful photography, and tips on where to stay, what to do, and how to get there. In addition there are details for 10 scenic routes, 3 historic forts and 7 state parks and other recreation areas."</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Herewith an interview with the author:</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write this book? </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;">MARY S. BLACK: </b>I think what inspired me was the land itself, and the history. The Lower Pecos Canyonlands are not well known by most people, but the landscape is incredibly majestic and unexpected. You can be driving 70 miles per hour down the highway through the desert, when, wham, a huge canyon veers off to the left like a sudden tear in the earth. ... <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.com/2017/05/q-with-mary-s-black-on-from-frio-to-del.html"><b style="background-color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: large;">CONTINUE READING </span></b></a></span></div>
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> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/comments.html">here</a>.</div>
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P.S. For the second half of this month I am artist-in-residence at the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/gumo/getinvolved/supportyourpark/artist-in-residence.htm">Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas</a>. I'll be giving a free travel and nature writing workshop, probably over Memorial Day weekend. Details to be announced shortly. And yes, the <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">Marfa Mondays podcasts</a> will resume ASAP. Twenty have been posted to date, four more are in-process for a total of 24. Listen in anytime <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">here</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.com/2015/10/curly-tail-panther-and-white-shaman.html">Curly Tail Panther and White Shaman, </a></div>
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.com/2015/10/curly-tail-panther-and-white-shaman.html">Two Stunning Rock Art Sites in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-15-rock-art.html">Gifts of the Ancient Ones: Greg Williams on </a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-15-rock-art.html">the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands</a></div>
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.com/2016/02/blood-over-salt-q-with-paul-cool-about.html">Blood Over Salt: Q & A with Paul Cool about "Salt Warriors"</a></div>
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C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-11328074793278082892017-04-17T09:48:00.000-07:002017-04-18T14:17:42.537-07:00Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River by Patrick Dearen<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CCyhUtC0omA/WPTuiozwY8I/AAAAAAAAJUQ/-R-QZ7cobWg4FTeW_khXOjXTMzfa6MFkgCLcB/s1600/BITTER-WATERS.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #1178cc; display: inline !important; float: right; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CCyhUtC0omA/WPTuiozwY8I/AAAAAAAAJUQ/-R-QZ7cobWg4FTeW_khXOjXTMzfa6MFkgCLcB/s320/BITTER-WATERS.JPG" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="240" /></a><br />
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When I closed the cover of <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/ARTICLES/Book-Reviews/Bitter-Waters-the-Struggle-of-the-Pecos-River.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Patrick Dearen's <i>Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River</i></a> it was with both gratitude and the unsettling sense of having arrived into new territory— raw, rich, appalling—in my understanding of Far West Texas. This is no minor thing to acknowledge; for some years now I have been at work on a book about that very region.<br />
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But first, for those who don't have a jones for, shall we say, Wild Westerie, why bring Far West Texas into the cross hairs? And why give a hoededo about its skinny river so salty, to quote one of Dearen's informants, that "a snake wouldn't drink it"? <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/ARTICLES/Book-Reviews/Bitter-Waters-the-Struggle-of-the-Pecos-River.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">CONTINUE READING</a><br />
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> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-HOWDY.html">here.</a></div>
C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-68943511886359950902017-02-08T18:50:00.001-08:002017-02-08T18:50:31.902-08:00A Visit to "The Equestrian" in El Paso<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This finds me working on <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">the book on Far West Texas</a>, and about to resume the Marfa Mondays podcasts (20 podcasts posted so far, 4 more to go, <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">listen in anytime</a>). I just posted a brief video of my visit last November to see, among other wonders and curiosities, a most extraordinary and controversial statue at the El Paso International Airport.<br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;"></span>Because of the way it is placed, directly behind a grove of extra-fluffy trees, and at the entrance where most drivers, speeding in, are on the lookout for signs, such as rental car return, departures, arrivals or parking, I daresay few passersby would even notice the statue. I myself drove by it more times that I would like to admit before I realized it was there.<br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;"></span>Here's my 3 minute video:<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z8iQqttnNrI" width="460"></iframe></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">... Continue reading this post my main blog, <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2017/01/a-visit-to-el-pasos-equestrian.html">Madam Mayo</a>.</span>C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-19730158205852911322016-11-18T12:15:00.003-08:002016-11-18T12:17:00.724-08:00The Mexican Revolution at the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have been visiting Alpine, Texas for the annual Center for Big Bend Studies conference to talk about <i><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/SPIRITISTMANUAL/spiritist-manual-HOME.html">Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.</a></i> Check out the conference, which is rich with archaeology and history and more on the Big Bend but also the wider region of West Texas and encompassing parts of the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila, <a href="https://cbbs.sulross.edu/conference.php">here</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">>> <span style="background-color: yellow;"><a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/11/the-mexican-revolution-at-center-for_14.html">Continue reading this post over at my main blog, Madam Mayo</a></span></span></div>
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C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-27942814373883159472016-10-31T00:02:00.001-07:002016-11-01T20:57:36.450-07:00A Visit to Allá in Santa Fe<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, the focus of this "Marfa Mondays" blog, the podcast series, and the book-in-progress is Far West Texas or Trans-Pecos Texas. But this region is economically, culturally and altogether every way connected to that string of towns and pueblos along the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/elca/index.htm">Camino Real de Tierra Adentro</a>, and that includes Santa Fe, New Mexico. So with that as justification I present this brief blog post on Allá-- excerpted from <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/10/santa-fe-2016-women-writing-west-and.html">a longer post over on my main blog, Madam Mayo, about the recent Women Writing the West conference.</a></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A VISIT TO ALLÁ, </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">THE BEST SPANISH LANGUAGE BOOKSTORE NORTH OF THE BORDER</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">So many writers and translators over the years have told me about Allá (I mean you, <a href="http://joseskinner.com/" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">José Skinner</a>, <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-20-raymond-caballero-pascual-orozco.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Raymond Caballero</a>, <a href="http://patriciadubrava.com/" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Patricia Dubrava</a>...) I could not imagine visiting Santa Fe without seeing it. </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">I had heard that Allá was on the southwest corner of the Plaza, but on my previous visit to Santa Fe, I couldn't find it. This time, armed with the precise address, <b>102 West San Francisco St</b>, and my smartphone's map app, I discovered that it is a little ways <i>past</i> southwest corner of the Plaza, and you won't find a sign on the street. However, as you can see in the photo below, there is a reference</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">—</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> <b>Allá Arte- Libros - Música</b></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">—</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> pasted in between some steps on the stairs. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">So head on up to the second floor, hang a right, and there you may enter into the bright warren of rooms all filled with <i>tesoros</i>, both literary and scholarly</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">—</span><span style="line-height: 18px;">and if you're lucky, meet the owner himself, James J. Dunlap.</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"></span><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /><br />Yes, here you can find Mexican writers such as <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2015/12/cafe-san-martin-reading-mexican-poet.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Agustín Cadena</a> and <a href="http://www.monicalavin.com/" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Mónica Lavín</a>. And bless his <i>corazón</i>, he had books on Mexico in English by my amigos, <a href="http://www.bruceberger.net/" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Bruce Berger</a> and <a href="http://www.davidlida.com/" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">David Lida</a> and... drumrrrrrrroll... he had </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">two of <i>my</i> books sitting out on the table, </span><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/mexico.html" style="color: #1178cc; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><i>Mexico A Traveler's Literary Companion</i></a><span style="line-height: 18px;"> and </span><i style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/skyoverelnido.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Sky Over El Nido</a>,</i><span style="line-height: 18px;"> and he said he had just recently sold another title, </span><i style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/miraculousair.html" style="color: #1178cc; text-decoration: none;">Miraculous Air</a></i><span style="line-height: 18px;">, my memoir of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. </span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">[[ JAMES J. DUNLAP, ALLÁ IN SANTA FE ]]</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MWGNxZHB6x8/WBPbXf3W_DI/AAAAAAAAIr8/efc7VZvv2WwY8tmZ13f7eSSVTangrKiQwCLcB/s1600/IMG_1244.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #1178cc; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">Speaking of miracles, my luggage accommodated the pile of books I hauled out of there, </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">including some Mexican scholarly works on the Apaches and Comanches that, from Mexico City, I have been trying to hunt down for over a year. Somehow I also took home a fat hardcover first edition of a memoir of life among some indigenous people in Tierra del Fuego. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">Visit Allá at your own risk! If you dare, tell Jim that Mayo told you to ask about </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">a-gogo</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"> and </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">psícadelico</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">> See also the article by Uriel J. Garcia in Santa Fe New Mexican, <a href="http://www.santafenewmexican.com/life/features/all-bookstore-is-santa-fe-man-s-portal-to-latin/article_67ae8e0b-651d-53ba-83de-3ad268124e39.html">"Allá Bookstore is Santa Fe Man's Portal to Latin America"</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; line-height: 18px;"></span><span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">> Your comments are always very welcome. <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-HOWDY.html"><span style="color: #1178cc;">Write to me here</span>.</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> The much-delayed Marfa Mondays Podcast 21 is almost ready to post. Meanwhile, listen in to the other 20 podcasts anytime <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">here</a>.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2016/05/peyote-and-perfect-you-notes.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Peyote and the Perfect You</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-20-raymond-caballero-pascual-orozco.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Podcast #20 Raymond Caballero on </span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-20-raymond-caballero-pascual-orozco.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Revolutionary General Pascual Orozco and Far West Texas</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-13-john-tutino-looking-at-mexico-in-new-ways.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Podcast # 13 Looking at Mexico in New Ways:</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-13-john-tutino-looking-at-mexico-in-new-ways.html">An Interview with John Tutino</a></span></div>
C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-74517120244317697952016-09-18T21:38:00.000-07:002016-09-21T09:56:06.001-07:00Literary Travel Writing: Notes on Process and the Digital Revolution<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3180668697371629807" itemprop="description articleBody" style="position: relative; width: 520px;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[[ </span><a href="http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/hueco-tanks" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site</a> in Far West Texas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Confession: After I snapped this photo with my iPhone </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I checked my email</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-- just to see if I could! Alas, I could.]]</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The aim of literary travel writing was-- and remains-- to bring the reader to deeply notice, that is, get out of her head and into the world of specific sounds, smells, tastes, textures, colors, ideas, histories, geographies, geologies... In the words of Kenneth Smith, "You have to open space, and deepen place." >> <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/09/literary-travel-writing-notes-on.html" style="background-color: yellow;">CONTINUE READING AT MY MAIN BLOG, "MADAM MAYO"</a></span></span></div>
C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-89634821306622048702016-08-29T13:53:00.000-07:002016-10-30T23:55:00.346-07:00Cymru & Comanche: Cyberflanerie<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">So "Cymru," the name for Wales in the Welsh language, is pronounced <i>kum-ree</i>. (Whodathunk?)</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br />I have finished reading the excellent albeit doorstop-esque <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Last-Celts-Marcus-Tanner/dp/0300115350" style="color: #6511cc; text-decoration: none;">The Last of the Celts</a></i> by Marcus Tanner.<i> </i>If you have been following this blog, you know that I am at<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html" style="color: #6511cc; text-decoration: none;"> work on a book about Far West Texas</a>, so you might be wondering, why the interest in the Celts? Of course, many Texans are descendants of Celts-- Scotch, Welsh, and Irish, above all. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">But it's more than this.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br />Sometimes one's thinking, stuck in a cultural rut, needs to unlimber. Reading into deep and/or lateral history gives one a freshly off-kilter look at what it means to be human, and it highlights forgotten or overlooked connections among now diverse peoples. Such as among, oh, say, Texians and Comanches.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">>> <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/08/cymru-comanche-cyberflanerie.html" style="background-color: yellow;">CONTINUE READING OVER AT MY MAIN BLOG, "MADAM MAYO"</a></span></span><br />
<br />C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-55027932278005257342016-08-16T15:08:00.000-07:002016-08-16T15:10:23.070-07:00The Sierra Madera Astrobleme (What's an Astrobleme?)<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[This is a mirror post from my main blog, <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/08/the-sierra-madera-astrobleme-what-is.html">Madam Mayo</a>.]</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[[ </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sierra Madera Astrobleme. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Photo by C.M. Mayo. ]]</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As those of you who have been following this blog know, I am at work on <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html">a book about Far West Texas</a> and, apropos of that, hosting the <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS-LISTEN-PODCASTS.html">Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project</a>. So in addition to <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/pubs-bookrev-home.html">reading</a> about Far West Texas and <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/07/the-comanche-empire-by-pekka-hamalainen.html">related subjects</a>, and <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS-LISTEN-PODCASTS.html">interviewing artists and many other interesting people</a>, I've been doing a heap of driving all over the place out there. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Driving east or west on I-10 or I-20 or 90 is to barrel along with the steady flow of big rigs, pickup trucks, RVs and SUVs; driving north-south, on the other hand, it gets very lonely, very strange, very fast.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here is a photo* I took with my iPhone through the windshield while heading south </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">on US-385 from </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fort Stockton to Marathon. That jumble of hills over to the left is the Sierra Madera, which sits on the vast </span><a href="http://www.escalera.us/" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">La Escalera Ranch</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, one of the largest ranches in Texas. Although I did not know it at the time, the highway was about to blaze me right through the Sierra Madera Astrobleme.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[*Normally I would never fool around with my smartphone while driving, but I had been driving out here for sometime and not seen a single vehicle, in either direction. I daresay I could have taken got out of the car and taken a siesta in the middle of the road.]</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[ Sierra Madera Astrobleme ]</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z8v-iXVBAqg/V7IdegqKMSI/AAAAAAAAIU0/V7SJPsbcnJowJjW1e-mbjKOMNKIzevTxgCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-08-15%2Bat%2B2.52.01%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z8v-iXVBAqg/V7IdegqKMSI/AAAAAAAAIU0/V7SJPsbcnJowJjW1e-mbjKOMNKIzevTxgCLcB/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-08-15%2Bat%2B2.52.01%2BPM.png" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[ Sierra Madera Astrobleme, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">off US-385 etween Fort Stockton and Marathon, Texas ] </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Sierra Madera is indeed on Google maps, but neither of the maps I carried with me that day, the AAA and the Geological Highway Map of Texas, noted it, so I was wholly unprepared for the sight, on the open plains, well before the Glass Mountains, of the strange-looking huddle of the Sierra Madera off to the east-- and all bathed in the golden-orange glow of sunset. Alas, my photo does not do its stunning gorgeousness a shred of justice. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It turns out that the Sierra Madera is an extremely rare "cryptoexplosion structure," in this case, a crater with a central mountain range raised not by volcanic or tectonic forces, but by the rebound from the impact of an unknown extraterrestrial object. The mountains and the approximately 6 mile-in-diameter crater, so eroded over some nearly 100 million years that I did not recognize it as I drove through it, are together known as the Sierra Madera Astrobleme. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">An astrobleme is an eroded remnant of a large crater made by the impact of a meteorite or comet. The term, first used in the mid-20th century, is from the Greek <i>astron,</i> star, and <i>blema, </i>wound. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What was that object that slammed into the earth those nearly 100 million years ago? I have been searching the literature and have yet to come upon any description beyond "approximately spherical."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What was going on at the time? This would have been the Late Cretaceous or Early Tertiary, when Tyrannosaurus roamed and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/bibe/learn/nature/pterosaur.htm">Quetzalcoatlus northropi, a pterosaur the size of a small jet airplane</a>, cast his shadow from overhead. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The literature has a great deal of detail on shatter cones and various types of rock, as well as gravitational and magnetic anomalies. But as for a description for the layman, or shall we say, the average Tyrannosaurus Rex, of what the impact might have sounded like and how it might have affected the atmosphere, no dice. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Undoubtedly, the blast was analogous to some flabbergastingly large quantity of TNT.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dear reader, if you have more information about the Sierra Madera Astrobleme, please do <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/contact.html">write</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Informative links:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> <a href="http://www.utpb.edu/ceed/geology-resources/west-texas-geology/sierra-madera-astrobleme">University of Texas of the Permian Basin webpage on the Sierra Madera Astrobleme</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All the crunchy geology. Plus the <a href="http://www.utpb.edu/ceed/geology-resources/west-texas-geology/sierra-madera-astrobleme/sierra-fomation-structure">hypothetical reconstruction of the event.</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1945-5100.2006.tb00462.x/asset/j.1945-5100.2006.tb00462.x.pdf?v=1&t=irwmb10b&s=e0aa3a580c1eef3b813ab0b694c39708c73db9f3">"Hydrocone Modeling of the Sierra Madera Impact Structure" </a>by Tamara J. Goldin <i>et al.</i> <i>Meteoritics and Planetary Science</i>, 2006.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Extra-crunchy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>> <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/92269777/Geology-of-Sierra-Madera-Impact-Crater-Texas" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">"Geology of the Sierra Madera Cryptoexplosion Structure, Pecos County, Texas"</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> by H.G. Wilshire,</span><i style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"> et al.</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper No. 599, 1972.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Extra-extra-crunchy with shatter cones.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> <a href="http://impactcraters.us/sierra_madera_texas">United States Meteorite Impact Craters</a>: Page on the Sierra Madera Crater</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Good variety of photographs and information by Robert Beauford, PhD. He writes: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">This is one of the largest impact craters in the United States, and even after having worked on 4 to 5 km craters for several years, I found it challenging to take in the scale of the structure. It defines the shape of the vast, open landscape in every direction."</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> <a href="http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/Home/FamousCraters">Purdue University's Impact Earth! Famous Craters page.</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Alas, it does not include the Sierra Madera Astrobleme. But fascinating nonetheless.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> <i><a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpi/contribution_docs/TR/TR_8803.pdf">Astronaut's Guide to Terrestrial Impact Craters</a> </i>by R.A.F. Grieve,<i> et al.</i> LP Technical Report Number 88-03, Lunar and Planetary Institute, NASA, 1988</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(See Sierra Madera, p. 13.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">P.S. Wiggy synchronicity du jour: Given that the Sierra Madera Astrobleme is near the Glass Mountains, it raised my eyebrows, rather somewhat, to come upon this webpage with <a href="http://blogoklahoma.us/county.aspx?county=Major">the Ames Astrobleme Museum and the Gloss Mountains of Oklahoma</a>:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JOGVR_M9pZs/V7N-0TfvRZI/AAAAAAAAIWw/Ng6sNFzyPX4-sHGEjjysA34J9MpPB2EKwCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-08-16%2Bat%2B3.56.47%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JOGVR_M9pZs/V7N-0TfvRZI/AAAAAAAAIWw/Ng6sNFzyPX4-sHGEjjysA34J9MpPB2EKwCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-08-16%2Bat%2B3.56.47%2BPM.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> Your comments are always most welcome. Write to me <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/comments.html">here.</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> Newsletter goes out soon-ish. I welcome you to sign up <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/join-cmmayo-mailing-list.html">here.</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.com/2015/03/cyberflanerie-solitario-dome-edition.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cyberflanerie: Solitario Dome Edition</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-9-mary-baxter.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Marfa Mondays #9: Mary Baxter on Painting the Big Bend</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-16-Chaplo.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Marfa Mondays #16: Tremendous Forms: </span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-16-Chaplo.html">Paul V. Chaplo on Finding Composition in the Landscape</a></span></div>
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C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-64723227256646903592016-08-01T00:02:00.000-07:002016-08-01T00:26:24.826-07:00THE COMANCHE EMPIRE by Pekka Hämäläinen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CezY7mHeAi0/V57sNug7TAI/AAAAAAAAIRQ/0Mb2TgF4MhAMNy6_nmRUK8Zvvr4SJKiOwCLcB/s1600/CVR-COMANCHE-EMPIRE.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CezY7mHeAi0/V57sNug7TAI/AAAAAAAAIRQ/0Mb2TgF4MhAMNy6_nmRUK8Zvvr4SJKiOwCLcB/s1600/CVR-COMANCHE-EMPIRE.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(This is a mirror post from my main blog, <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/07/the-comanche-empire-by-pekka-hamalainen.html">Madam Mayo.</a>)</span><br />
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Book Review by C.M. Mayo</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">August 1, 2016</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">THE COMANCHE EMPIRE</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="color: black;">by </span>Pekka Hämäläinen</b><br />Yale University, 2008<br />ISBN 978-0-300-15117-6</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>The cover of </b>Pekka Hämäläinen's <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0300151179/cmmay">The Comanche Empire</a></i>, of a ghost-white warrior with a trio of blood-red slashes down his cheek, is as arresting as the argument that, as it opens, the Comanches' was "an American empire that, according to conventional histories, did not exist."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the United States public discourse conflates wildly heterogenous groups into easy categories— Native American, white, black, and so on and so forth— and then, with school board-approved narratives as mortar, we construct colossal political edifices. In their shadows, alas, many of us are blind to the complexities in our society and history. The complexities are riotous. And when we shine a light on but one of them— as Finnish historian Hämäläinen has in this brilliant study of Comanche hegemony— suddenly our easy categories and well-worn narratives may look strange, deeply wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As those of you who follow this blog well know, I am at work on <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html">a book about Far West Texas</a>, that is, Texas west of the Pecos River. Anyone who heads out there, especially to the remote Big Bend, hears about Comanches, e.g., they crossed the Río Grande here, they watered their horses there. But the Comanches, an equestrian Plains people who hunted the buffalo, were latecomers to the Trans-Pecos. They did not settle there; they trekked through it on the Comanche Trail (more aptly, network of trails) on their way to raid in northern Mexico. They returned driving immense herds of horses and kidnapped Apache and Mexican women and children in tow, for markets up north around Taos, New Mexico, and Big Timbers on the Arkansas, which garnered them metal tools, cooking pots, corn and other carbohydrates, textiles, and above all, guns and ammunition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Comanche were raiding south of the Río Grande as early as the 1770s, but their large-scale raiding in northern Mexico commenced in the 1820s, plunging deep into Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Durango, Zacatecas and, in the 1840s, as far as Jalisco and the major central market and manufacturing city of Querétaro. This systematic "mass violence" which left the northern realm of the Mexican economy crippled and its people demoralized, turned it into what Hämäläinen terms "an extension of Greater Comanchería." Hence, by the late 1840s, when the U.S. Army invaded Mexico, what they were really invading was, to quote Hämäläinen, "the shatterbelt of Native American power." But this is to get ahead of the story. >>> <b style="background-color: yellow;"><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/ARTICLES/Book-Reviews/The-Comanche-Empire.html">CONTINUE READING</a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> Your comments are always welcome. <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/contact.html">Write to me here.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> Newsletter <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-NEWSLETTER.html">here.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2016/05/peyote-and-perfect-you-notes.html">Peyote and the Perfect You: Some Notes</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WAClfEZTRI">Brief video of Casa Piedra Road, part of the Comanche Trail</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_dgzOEM7Rc"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Brief video of Plains Indian (and other) rock art at Meyers Spring</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-16-Chaplo.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tremendous Forms: </span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-16-Chaplo.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paul V. Chaplo on Finding Composition in the Landscape</span></a></div>
C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-24702946599605926452016-05-31T15:33:00.000-07:002016-05-31T15:35:52.117-07:00Peyote and the Perfect You: Notes<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm still working on podcast #21... stay tuned... listen in to the other 20 anytime <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS-LISTEN-PODCASTS.html">here.</a> Meanwhile, over on my other blog, Madam Mayo, a new post:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/05/peyote-and-perfect-you-some-notes.html"><b>PEYOTE AND THE PERFECT YOU: NOTES</b></a></span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9_P0D0XQVHo/V04PaKMD7QI/AAAAAAAAIC8/GMRjNP-vSQITP2P5trBY8ftZCdqwOMMSgCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-05-30%2Bat%2B2.14.49%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9_P0D0XQVHo/V04PaKMD7QI/AAAAAAAAIC8/GMRjNP-vSQITP2P5trBY8ftZCdqwOMMSgCLcB/s200/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-05-30%2Bat%2B2.14.49%2BAM.png" width="200" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">Far West Texas, an area approximately the size of West Virginia, includes a goodly patch of <a href="http://lophophora.blogspot.mx/p/geographic-distribution-of-lophophora.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">the territory that stretches deep into Mexico where peyote, or <i>lophophora williamsii</i> grows</a>... oh so very... very... very... v-e-r-y... slowly. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">A runty, dull-gray spineless cactus with wispy white hairs, when found, peyote-- an Anglicization of the original Nahautl name, <i>peyotl</i>-- is usually growing in clusters. What certain indigenous peoples have done for an eon is slice off the tops-- the "buttons"-- and eat them. Calories and dietary fiber are not the point; apparently the taste is puckerlips nasty. But adepts claim that this humble-looking plant is no less than "the divine cactus," and eaten as a sacrament, as "holy medicine," it can bring one's mind into a mystical realm where psychedelic visions can help one see across time and space and heal one's thoughts about oneself and the cosmos. </span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">As one participant in a peyote ritual reported, echoing so many others, he found "profound gratitude for his life" as it was. [>><a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/05/peyote-and-perfect-you-some-notes.html">CONTINUE READING</a>]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">Comments? I welcome your comments anytime. Write to me <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/contact.html">here.</a> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">Newsletter? I welcome you to subscribe <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-NEWSLETTER.html">here.</a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2012/06/podcast-6-marfas-moonlight-gemstones.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Marfa's Moonlight Gemstones</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2016/04/gifs-of-santa-elena-canyon-pecos-high.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">GIFs of Santa Elena Canyon, Pecos High Bridge, </span></a></div>
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2016/04/gifs-of-santa-elena-canyon-pecos-high.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Big Bend Ranch State Park, Guadalupe Mountains</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2015/06/indian-head-rock-art-site-in-terlingua.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Indian Head Rock Art Site in Terlingua</span></a></div>
C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-88920282495056763672016-05-13T09:34:00.001-07:002016-05-13T09:34:13.988-07:00Top 13 Trailers for Movies with Extra-Astral Texiness, Texiness Hereby Redefined<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over on my main blog, <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.com/2016/05/top-13-trailers-with-extra-astral.html">Madam Mayo</a>:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Extra-Astral Texiness: Definitions</b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First, what do I mean by "astral"? I don't mean "of the stars," but the old-fashioned esoteric concept of the imaginal realm. Yes, I am a mite old-fashioned, and apropos of <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/SPIRITISTMANUAL/spiritist-manual-HOME.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">my most recent book, about the secret book</a> by the leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution, I plowed through a sizable library of antique books on various aspects of the astral. So that's a word I like to sling around! Whether you, dear reader, believe in the astral or not, I think you will agree that (1) everyone has an imagination and (2) the imaginal realm, aka the astral-- or whatever you have a notion to call it-- includes works of fiction and movies. Imagine those works, if you will, floating like little bubbles through the ether. (Well, porquoi pas?)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Speaking of Texas-sized astral bubblies, apropos of my <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">book in-progress about Far West Texas</a>, <i>of course my horse</i> (as they say in Mexico) I have a long list of "to dos" that includes grokking <i>Giant</i>, that Rock Hudson-Elizabeth Taylor-James Dean mashup filmed in Marfa and parts thereabouts-- I have watched it and read the <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2015/12/top-10-books-read-in-2015.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">Edna Ferber novel</a> it was based on, too. And now I've finished reading <a href="https://www.utexas.edu/cola/english/faculty/grahamdb" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">Don Graham's </a><i><a href="https://www.utexas.edu/cola/english/faculty/grahamdb" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">Cowboys and Cadillacs: How Hollywood Looks at Texas</a>, </i>in which I first came across the term "Texiness." [<a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.com/2016/05/top-13-trailers-with-extra-astral.html">CONTINUE READING</a>]</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">P.S. I am still working on podcast #21. Listen in anytime to the other 20 posted so far <b style="background-color: yellow;"><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa">here.</a></b></span>C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-45084614547375306622016-05-02T14:37:00.000-07:002016-05-02T14:38:01.975-07:00Notes on Xavier González & etc.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Podcast 21 is (ayyyy) still in-progress. Meanwhile, a note from my other blog, Madam Mayo:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Notes on Xavier González (1989-1993), "Moonlight Over the Chisos" and My Visit to Mexico City's Antigua Academia de San Carlos, the Oldest Art School in the Americas</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">It was in 2012, when I first started on my <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">still in-progress book about Far West Texas</a>, that I first encountered the paintings of <a href="http://www.daviddike.com/artists/181-gonzalez-xavier.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">Xavier González</a> in the <a href="http://www.museumofthebigbend.com/" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">Museum of the Big Bend</a> on the Sul Ross University Campus in Alpine, Texas. I was there to see "The Lost Colony," an exhibition of works by painters associated with the summer Art Colony of the Sul Ross College (now Sul Ross State University). The works were from 1921-1950; the Art Colony, formally so-called, spanned the years 1932-1950. >>><a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/05/notes-on-xavier-gonzalez-1898-1993.html">CONTINUE READING</a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2012/03/podcast-3-mary-bones-on-lost-art-colony.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Podcast #3 Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2012/04/podcast-4-avram-dumitrescu-artist-in.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Podcast #4 Avram Dumitrescu, an Artist in Alpine</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://marfamondays.blogspot.mx/2013/01/podcast-9-mary-baxter-painting-big-bend.html">Podcast #9 Mary Baxter, Painting the Big Bend</a></span></div>
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C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-90400620134185725442016-04-25T15:04:00.001-07:002016-04-25T15:04:09.604-07:00GIFs of Santa Elena Canyon, Pecos High Bridge, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Guadalupe Mountains<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>This is a repost from my other blog, <a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.com/2016/04/gifs-of-far-west-texas-santa-elena.html">Madam Mayo</a>.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">More fun with GIFs... This one is made from my video taken just inside Santa Elena Canyon in the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/bibe/index.htm">Big Bend National Park</a> (with a glimpse of Charles Angell, owner of <a href="http://angellexpeditions.com/">Angell Expeditions</a>-- highly recommended). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">This GIF (below) is of the Pecos River high bridge just past Comstock at the US-Mexico border. When you're driving on highway 90 you don't see the gorge until you're just about about over it-- one of the wiggier driving experiences to be had in all of Texas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A GIF of the <a href="http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/big-bend-ranch">Big Bend Ranch State Park</a> entrance:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hmm for some reason this GIF isn't working. Here's a good jpeg:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm working on <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html">my book about Far West Texas</a>, and apropos of that, the <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project</a> with 20 of a projected 24 podcasts posted to date. Listen in anytime <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html"><span style="background-color: yellow;">here</span>.</a></span>C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-49442153288663402872016-03-02T11:05:00.002-08:002016-03-02T11:05:33.663-08:00The Marfa Ghost Lights<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Stay tuned for podcast #21 in the projected 24 podcasts of the <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">"Marfa Mondays" series</a>-- it is still in production. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Meanwhile, one of my verily ancient podcasts-- <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-7-lights.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">#7</a> -- has been whipped and snipped into shape as a stand-alone <a href="http://johnkachuba.com/the-marfa-lights/" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">guest-blog post for my amigo, author and Metaphysical Traveler John Kachuba</a>. Herewith that article which will, in one form or another, end up in my book in-progress, <i><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/World-Waiting-for-a-Dream/index.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">World Waiting for a Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas.</a></i></span><br style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">WE HAVE SEEN THE LIGHTS:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">THE MARFA GHOST LIGHTS</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">by C.M. MAYO</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><br /></b><span style="color: black;">If you've heard of Marfa, you've probably heard of the Marfa Lights, which are sometimes called the Marfa Ghost Lights.</span></span><br style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span><span style="color: black;">If you haven't heard of Marfa, let me fill you in on the basics. Named after a maid in a Dostoyevsky novel, it's a speck of a cow town in the middle of the sweep of Far West Texas, part of an area the Spanish called the Tierra Despoblada, and, later, somewhat frighteningly, the Apachería. Even today with the railroad and the highway, and the recently internationally famous art scene, not many people live in Marfa. But it seems almost everyone who does has seen and has a shiver-worthy story about the Marfa Lights.</span></span><br style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span><span style="color: black;">When I first visited Marfa in the late 1990s, I made an arrow for the Marfa Lights viewing area, a pullout on the highway between Marfa and the neighboring town of Alpine. About 9 miles out of Marfa, it was just a parking area with, as I recall, a couple of sun-bleached picnic tables. There was an RV parked to one the side and standing on top of one of the picnic tables, a burly man in shorts and a T-shirt, his knees bent like a quarterback about to grab the football. There was no one else there.<br /><br />It was still light out, though the sky had paled and beyond the expanse of Mitchell Flat, the mountains to the south, the Chinatis, loomed a dusky purple. I don't recall that man turning to look at me, but he must have heard my car pull up behind him, for as I opened the door, he pointed toward the mountains and began to shout:</span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;">"OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. OH …. MY… GOD!"</span></span><br style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span><span style="color: black;">As I set my shoe on the dirt, I saw that it was surrounded by a scattering of something silvery: quarters. I have found many a penny on the sidewalk, and few dimes over the years, but this was several dollars worth of quarters. I gathered them up.</span></span><br style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span><span style="color: black;">"OH MY GOD!" The man was bellowing. "OH MY GOD!!!" </span><span style="color: black;">I would have thought him barking mad except that, I too saw the lights and they were unlike anything I had ever seen. </span>[...<b><a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/ARTICLES/marfa-ghost-lights.html" style="color: #1177cc; text-decoration: none;">CONTINUE READING</a></b>]</span></span>C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9164617495672466331.post-51219292354612124832016-02-17T12:03:00.000-08:002016-02-22T10:21:02.399-08:00Blood Over Salt: Q & A with Paul Cool about SALT WARRIORS<div class="" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q0Uk8PQElqg/VrhCSx3RITI/AAAAAAAAHTg/8YqceAral0A/s1600/51S%252BGSvuflL._SX330_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q0Uk8PQElqg/VrhCSx3RITI/AAAAAAAAHTg/8YqceAral0A/s320/51S%252BGSvuflL._SX330_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="211" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm still turtling along in writing my book about Far West Texas, which has involved not only extensive travel in the Trans-Pecos and some <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">podcasting</a> but reading-- towers of books!-- and what a joy it was to encounter one so fascinating as <a href="http://www.paulcoolbooks.com/">Paul Cool</a>'s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Warriors-Insurgency-Canseco-Keck-History/dp/160344016X">Salt Warriors: Insurgency on the Rio Grande</a>.</i><i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A meticulously researched and expertly told history of the El Paso Salt War of 1877<span style="background-color: white;">,</span> <i>Salt Warriors</i> is essential reading for anyone interested in US-Mexico border and Texas history, and indeed, anyone interested in US history per se.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The El Paso Salt War of 1877 was sparked by "Anglo" businessmen staking claim to the<a href="http://www.nps.gov/gumo/learn/historyculture/saltwar.htm"> massive salt bed </a>that lies just west of what is now the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/gumo/index.htm">Guadalupe Mountains National Park.</a> Local Mexican-Americans, known as Paseños, considered the salt deposits community property, in accord with Spanish Law.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While the salt may have been free to anyone who would shovel it up, that required an arduous journey across the desert with carts pulled by oxen, and under constant threat of Indian attack. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For Paseño farmers who eked out a living in this drought-prone region, the salt they could harvest was vital for curing food, pelts, for livestock licks, and above all, as a cash commodity-- much of it sold to mines in Mexico, where it was used for refining silver. The Paseños were outraged when Judge Charles H. Howard, a recent arrival from Virginia, informed them that they would have to start paying his father-in-law, a German businessman based in Austin, for the salt.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[Photo I took through the windshield,<br />approaching Guadalupe Mountains National Park<br />from highway <span style="text-align: left;">US 62, which goes through the salt lake.]</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the wake of the El Paso Salt War, several people on both sides of the conflict had been killed, some horribly (Judge Howard was murdered, and his body mutilated and thrown down a well), the town of San Elizario sacked, several reputations ruined-- some fairly and others unfairly, as Cool argues-- and a wedge of suspicion and resentment driven between communities that is still, more than a century later, not entirely healed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paul Cool is a former Army Reserve officer and resident of Arizona with an avid interest in the US-Mexico borderlands. He kindly agreed to answer my questions via email. </span><br />
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<b style="color: blue; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><br /></b><b style="color: blue; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When and why did you develop your avid interest in the US-Mexico border?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Paul Cool: </b>It came late in life, but traces back to growing up in Southern California and marrying a young lady whose paternal grandparents came to El Paso during the Mexican Revolution. Unfortunately, I spent nearly two decades trying to write a book about the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic era, and only recently turned to the borderlands for material.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What prompted your interest in the Salt War?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have always been drawn to historical eras marked by the collapse or relative absence of order, justice, and social restraint, periods when ambitious or unscrupulous individuals are more able to give free rein to their personal desires and vices at the expense of the larger community. The late Roman Republic. Revolutionary France. The frontier West. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 1999, I drove from Seattle to Baltimore via El Paso, where I happened to purchase Walter Prescott Webb’s history of the Texas Rangers. His book contains a chapter on the Salt War. It was obvious there was an interesting story here, but it was buried beneath the ethnic bigotry running through Webb’s take. I then read C. L. Sonnichsen’s little book on the Salt War. The writing was vivid, and his account grabbed me in a way Webb’s had not. I felt closer to what happened, but the characters were still archetypes and stereotypes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Outside the region this conflict is almost unknown. Why do you think this is? </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Several reasons. The Spanish-speaking losers in the conflict disappeared into Mexico, and were in no position to write the history. As for the Anglos, many of the protagonists died, and they were soon replaced as by others who came to El Paso with the railroad, lacking any concern for the past. The story was buried because it was about a world that no longer existed, and no one cared about. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Second, the story did survive as a chapter in Texas Ranger history, but since the Rangers surrendered to an enemy repeatedly characterized as a “howling mob,” Texans generally considered the Ranger performance a thing of shame and no one made any effort to expand our knowledge of the episode for that reason.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Third, from the perspective of Anglo sources, no iconic Anglo figure arose to grab our attention and turn the story into the stuff of legend north of the border. I think the 1916-1918 Arab Revolt illustrates what can happen with a hero. Think of Lawrence of Arabia’s impact on Western understanding of the Arab Revolt. Without Lawrence, no newspaper coverage by Lowell Thomas, no <i>Seven Pillars of Wisdom</i>, no David Lean film, no Omar Sharif as Ali <i>or</i> Zhivago! Lawrence's story, and all that followed, is a misreading, to be sure, but corrective history is now available. It is possible that Mexican sources will reveal the existence of a hero, possibly Barela, possibly someone who we don’t yet know, and the information needed to provide the foundation of a heroic narrative. The romantic in me hopes that further research uncovers such a figure who can raise awareness of this popular yet tragic rebellion, south of the border first, then migrating up here.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Latino historians are and have long been aware of the Salt War and its place in Mexican American history. When I asked <a href="http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/delgre">Dr. Arnoldo De Leon</a>, a preeminent authority on Tejano history, why Latino scholars had never tackled the subject, he explained that they are playing catch-up, that there are so many stories still in need of telling, so many that continue to wait their chance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of the results of the war, you write (p. 4) "In the long term, the distrust and marginalization of Paseño citizens by Anglos was deepened." Your book does an excellent job of showing why this was but at the same time, you show that the insurgency was not "a bloody riot by a howling mob but in reality a complex political, social, and military struggle." After your book came out, did your argument meet any notable resistance?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The academic community has generally applauded the appearance of <i>Salt Warriors</i>, although some reservations about my approach have been expressed. For example, one reviewer justly criticized the book for its reliance on north-of-the-border sources, to the exclusion of any archival material inside Mexico. I do not speak or read Spanish, and did not have the resources to hire others to dig through material that might or might not tell the story I wanted to <span style="color: black;">tell. I had a choice: I could leave the story untold because I could not do a so-called “definitive” version (which is always elusive anyway), or I could </span>tell this story to the best of my ability and hope that others would follow up to provide new perspectives. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One other criticism I will mention is that I gave my opinion of the key participants, of their individual responsibility for the chaos and destruction that took place, and even of their moral failings. Some said that is not the historian’s job. It is best to just state the facts and let the reader decide. That may be true, but in this case, I felt that the story of the Salt War had been so repeatedly twisted over time that a clear statement of who was responsible was in order. One can never really know the hearts and minds of people who died more than a century before, but I feel confident in my opinion of who was most responsible for the tragedy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What lessons does the Salt War offer us today? I am thinking of some of the dynamics we see played out with other insurgencies and their repression, and the dynamics that ensure. On p. 235 you write "'Throughout history,' today's U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers learn, many defeated insurgent movements 'have degenerated into criminality.'" My understanding is that this would apply both to some of the defeated Mexican-American and allied Mexican insurgents, as well as to many ex-Confederates who were then coming into the Southwest and taking up careers as rustlers, and bank and train robbers.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Any population is always going to include “hustling individualists” who are most interested in getting what they want, whether it is inordinate power or wealth at the expense of the larger population, or the satisfaction of some baser need, including taking something from someone else in a violent or disturbing manner. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The question is, does the presence of an equally applied law and a just order prevent or at least put a damper on that? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the first instance, one group, whether it's Gilded Age entrepreneurs and their political allies, or their 21<sup>st</sup> century heirs on Wall Street and in government, uses “law” to corral wealth and power at the expense of the general population. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the second, violent criminals trade on the lack of “order” to achieve much the same ends, perhaps more bloodily, but not necessarily on a smaller scale. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What transpired in post-Salt War El Paso, in terms of increases in criminal activity by gangs and individuals, was probably not much different in nature than what happens any place the authority structure collapses, whether in Iraq, Revolutionary France between Louis XVI and Napoleon, or the Soviet Union after Gorbachev. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But something additional happened in El Paso, new to the American West but not uncommon in world history. There, the sheriff hired mercenaries to enforce order against perceived enemies, in this case the Mexican American population. Those mercenaries included career criminals led by John Kinney. What happened in El Paso became, for a few years, the way sheriffs did business in the American borderlands, and was repeated during the Lincoln County War (again with Kinney leading a band of criminals) and in Cochise County, Arizona during the final stage of the so-called Earp-Cowboy troubles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You were a former Army Reserve officer. How did this inform and color how you saw some of the individuals in this story?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The event had largely been treated as an ugly civil disturbance requiring military policing. I decided to approach it as a “war” brought on by clashing cultures, economic drivers, and untrammeled ambition. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My own military career was slender, but my first thirty years were spent as the son of a decorated combat hero and, as a Reserve officer, in close association with officers and men who also met that definition. The military is made up of people from the general population. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen are, in that sense, much like the rest of us. But in addition to military knowledge, i.e., how to fight and win, the military honestly attempts to inculcate certain ideal qualities, including honor, integrity, reliability. People, whether the population you’re sworn to protect or your buddy in the next foxhole, suffer and die unnecessarily when these qualities are forgotten or ignored. The military I knew does try to adhere to them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is, of course, so much more to the military ethos, but I mention these factors because they influenced the course of the Salt War. There were army officers, such as Lieutenant Rucker and Colonel Hatch, who attempted to use their influence and authority to prevent violence and to quickly, peacefully put a lid on it. But it just so happened that, at the critical point, the officer on the scene, Captain Thomas Blair, possessed probably less integrity than any other officer in the U.S. Army. He was a smooth charmer, and no one realized his lack of character. Had Rucker not been replaced by Blair, or had Blair possessed ordinary integrity, it seems to me likely that some of the violence might have been short-circuited. Who knows? It was only later, through Blair’s bigamy, that the value of his word was revealed to all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The military also attempts to instill discipline, to convince young soldiers to follow the rules, something that goes against the grain for many, from teenagers to independent-minded middle-age men. Discipline enables a unit to carry out its missions and prevents the naked exercise of power in service to personal wants. The Salt War illustrates the importance of discipline and leadership. We read that the various companies of the Ninth Cavalry occupying the <i>Mexicano</i> towns carried out their pacifying mission without any complaints, whereas soldiers from the company of the Tenth Cavalry engaged in a variety of violent personal and property crimes. The difference was the discipline instilled by the leaders of the Ninth Cavalry, but not the Tenth, both prior to and during the military action. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo:</b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A modern recounting of the Salt Wars usually makes Judge Charles H. Howard into a simple character, an arrogant, stubborn and greedy villain, the outsider who swiped the community's salt and then, even to the point of endangering both himself and others, insisted on pressing his client's claim. One of the things I appreciated about your book is that you explained in more depth some of Howard's probable motivations and, in particular, the mid-19th century Virginian concepts of honor to which he would have ascribed. The fact that he was bereaved after the death of his wife and deeply indebted to his father-in-law, the purported owner of the salt lakes, was another crucial factor you point out. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It seems to me that you have made a powerful effort to objectively present the different points of view in the conflict. Was this something that came easily or did it take a while? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Were there any individuals whose motivations were particularly obscure to you, or even now remain so?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While I don’t subscribe to the “great man” theory of history, I do believe that individuals make a difference, whether it’s Jean-Paul Marat steering the French Revolution along a more violent course or young Charlotte Corday who feels bound to save France from Marat. I believe that the Salt War was filled with such characters, whose personalities and behaviors were instrumental in leading the county into a downward spiral. That was not fully evident from the published record, because Salt War history was for decades largely a matter of historians regurgitating the same tale: largely nameless, faceless, hapless Texas Rangers surrender to a Mexican mob led by the evil Chico Barela. Nothing worth investigating further. But once I dug into sources not previously used, such as the federal government’s records, or personal correspondence that popped up in newspapers or located in the governor’s records, a different story emerged. At some point, for some reason, I decided to investigate the lives of key players before and after the Salt War. And that’s where I found the keys to their actions in 1877, most notably in the cases of Blair and Kerber.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Howard is a figure out of Greek tragedy. He wore his arrogance on his sleeve, but arrogance is a trait, not a motive. What was his motive? What impelled him to send a county over a cliff? It had to be something deep and personal. Howard himself spoke and wrote of his debasement by the Paseños, of his overriding debt to his father in law, of his depression after the loss of his wife. Losing his honor, he wanted only to regain it, and it did not matter who he harmed in the process. He was raised in a society that educated him to believe that personal honor trumped all. I don’t believe that he saw that he had any choice. He could only act as he did. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tNUtA29KVng/VsKGOAqaNHI/AAAAAAAAHU8/hsj5dnZFL3o/s1600/51-a2JXt32L._SX306_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tNUtA29KVng/VsKGOAqaNHI/AAAAAAAAHU8/hsj5dnZFL3o/s200/51-a2JXt32L._SX306_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="123" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That realization took me some time to reach, and it came by happenstance. I caught an interview with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Affairs-Honor-National-Politics-Republic/dp/0300097557">Dr. Joanne Freeman, who wrote a book on the highly ritualized duels in the early Republic</a>. (Think Hamilton and Burr.) She stated that, as the 19<sup>th</sup> century progressed, the formalities fell away, and those who felt their honor attacked were far more likely to just start shooting and caning one another. I thought she was describing Howard feeling empowered to beat or kill Cardis on sight. That led me to some readings on ante-bellum notions of honor and shame, and to discussions with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Death-Comes-Chief-Justice-Slough-Rynerson/dp/0870812122/ref=la_B001IQWMFQ_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1455588953&sr=1-2">Dr. Gary L. Roberts, who has written about codes of honor in the South and West.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am afraid that, despite the best efforts of New Mexico historian, Dr. Rick Hendricks, I never quite got a handle on Father Antonio Severo Borrajo, the man most demonized by contemporary Anglo sources. Toward the end of my work, I did add a paragraph that attempted to make sense of Father Borrajo, based on Dr. Hendrick’s guidance, but then in the final flurry of chopping and editing the manuscript, the passage got deleted from one spot and not replaced in another. I didn’t notice until the book was published. I tell myself that these things happen, but it’s a mistake I’d rather sweep under the rug. I’d love to revise <i>Salt Warriors</i> after Dr. Hendricks publishes his Borrajo biography. I think that would fill a large gap in the story I’ve told.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Paseños were a tough nut to crack. They did not write the histories, their thoughts are largely absent from the written record, and the victors universally denigrated their motives and characters. I got past that in two ways. First, I decided to make the Paseño community a character. Who were these people at the Pass of the North? Faced with a century-long relative isolation from Spanish, Mexican, and American authorities and support systems, what kind of community did they establish and build? How did it function? What did that maintenance and development of a community say about its leadership? Guesswork on my part was necessary, but traits did present themselves and a portrait I trust did emerge. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Second, in the case of the Paseno’s leaders, I was able to draw conclusions about their leadership skills based on their military actions, which were quite elaborate. One thing that the evidence revealed is that the Paseños had a long history of self-defense, whether against Apache raiders or the demoralized Confederates who retreated from New Mexico. It was obvious that the Paseño community had a core of leaders they turned to, men who had previously considered how best to respond to threats, and had put their lives on the line to lead those efforts. I had no direct evidence enabling me to get inside the minds of Chico Barela (or “Varela”), Sisto Salcido, or other leaders, but the reports of what actions they took was very revealing. For example, the traditional Anglo account is that Barela was a man not given to keeping his word. A different reading is that he was a master of using deception to misdirect his enemy’s attentions and actions. He could spot an opponent of weak resolve and then guide his actions by telling that opponent what he wanted to hear. He played his opponents no less than Napoleon, Robert E. Lee, or Rommel. That’s something you do in war, if you can. Ultimately, Barela and his little army bit off more than they could chew, but they conducted a skillful military operation that achieved short-term results no one among the Anglos expected.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>C.M. Mayo:</b> About Father </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Antonio Severo Borrajo, who as you say was "most demonized by contemporary Anglo sources," would you like to share the lost paragraph?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Paul Cool:</b> U</span>nfortunately, whatever paragraph I had on Borrajo was in some unknown spot in some unknown draft that never got indexed. However, whatever I put in was influenced by <a href="http://newmexicohistory.org/people/antonio-severo-borrajo-spanish-mexican-patriot-priest">this 2002 corrective view by Dr. Hendricks, who, since 2010, has been New Mexico's State Historian.</a> I do think Borrajo's intolerance of the Protestants and the French-based Catholic teachings of the then current parish priest, Father Pierre Bourgade (later archbishop of Tucson), helped to keep the population stirred up, even if he was not the greedy demon falsely portrayed by his enemies. Unfortunately, Borrajo's appearances during 1877, the climax of the crisis, are few and references to him at that point are probably less reliable than usual. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Louis Cardis, the Italian-born businessman and stagecoach owner is a most intriguing character. Was it possible to find out more about his origins other than that he was from Piedmont and might have served as a captain in Giuseppe Garibaldi's army? </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: #2d2d2d;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There was more about his life story and others that just had to come out to get the book down to size. Anything I found that explains his actions did stay in the book. He is another character who, where the written record is concerned, is largely seen through the eyes of others. I detect no bigotry toward his constituents, none, but he did not do all he could to protect them from the power structure that was moving to seize their grandfathered rights in the salt lakes. For example, he signed his name to the 1876 Texas Constitution that enabled private citizens to own saline deposits, but never after, as far as I can tell, spurred his constituents to take legal action to forestall Anglo ownership. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As you proceeded with your research, what most surprised you?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This project started as a planned 2-3 chapters in another book. I was surprised by the complexity and the epic sweep of the story, and by the characters who could leap off the page in the hands of writers much better than me. (If there were a viable market, this story deserves a ten-hour TV miniseries starring Russell Crowe and Edward James Olmos, among others.) If I could have made <i>Salt Warriors</i> twice as long, I would have. Pity the poor reader had I owned my own publishing house. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue;">You were able to talk to several of the descendants on both sides of the conflict. Were you surprised by how they saw it?</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The families that remain in San Elizario knew they had reason to be proud of their ancestors, but over the years, exposed only to increasingly vague oral tradition and the Anglo-centric writings of later historians, they had largely lost the details of what really happened. In some cases, I had to reject the tradition, but in other instances, I thought tradition held up and explained what the records obscured. It was the first time I had to make sense of oral tradition, to treat it as evidence that deserved to be weighed rather than ignored.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On an early visit to San Elizario, a leader of the local historical and genealogical society showed me where tradition said certain key events happened. My research often showed otherwise, and a few years later I was happy to return the favor, incorporating the written evidence. We still had doubts about this and that event and had a great time trying to make sense of the surviving evidence, including tradition.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In reading about the organized crime in El Paso in the wake of the Salt War-- in particular of cattle rustler John Kinney and his alliance with Sheriff Kerber-- it's tempting to make modern day comparisons with modern day drug trafficking, etc. Would you? Or was it something very different?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, it was much, much, less organized, and the crimes much more impromptu than we see with modern drug traffickers. My subsequent research has led me to believe that a better analogy would be the Bahamian pirates of the early 18<sup>th</sup> century, those who established a base of operations on Nassau temporarily free of British authority. (El Paso had a government, but totally ineffective keeping order.) There were criminal leaders (Blackbeard, for example), but individual pirates were more or less free to sign on to this piratical raid or that. They had to strictly follow orders during any voyage—at sea, everyone’s life depends on it—but otherwise were independent contractors who, between “jobs,” had no duty to follow anyone. Likewise, men might follow Kinney or not. That they raided with Kinney today did not prevent them from riding off to commit their own crimes tomorrow, or just sit around playing cards and drinking rot-gut till they went broke.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of the most astonishing things to me about the entire episode is that nearing the end of the book (p.280) we learn that the government never granted Zimpleman ownership of the salt lakes! So what happened after that? Who took possession of them? Who owns them now?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I too was astonished by that. I did learn that some business did extract salt into the 20<sup>th</sup> century, but more than that could not tell you. I simply had to move on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue;">Anyone who drives east out of El Paso en route to Carlsbad NM passes right through the salt lakes. But to really see them, what is the best place to view them? </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If one is simply traveling east or west, on the way to or from El Paso, one can get a good view at several points along Highway 62/180. My book’s cover painting, by artist Bob Boze Bell, is based on a photograph (found inside on the page facing the Introduction) that I took from this highway. A more immersive experience can be gained at the Gypsum Salt Dunes inside Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The lakes stretch for 100 miles, so I imagine there are any number of good sites for viewing.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of the stops on one of the routes from the Rio Grande out to the salt lakes is Hueco Tanks, an oasis with some important rock art that is now a State Park and Historic Site. For anyone interested in the history of the Salt War, is there any place there that would be especially relevant to see?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Among the signatures carved into the rocks of Hueco Tanks is that of Santiago Cooper, one of the Texas Rangers who survived the siege and battle of San Elizario. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.sanelizariohistoricdistrict.org/">A walking tour of San Elizario</a> is essential. Many of the buildings date from 1877 and before. With the benefit of the bird’s eye view painting in my book, it is possible to follow the course of the actual fighting, as well as place other events that took place in town. A walking tour guide is also available at the museum, giving historic and architectural details on surviving structures. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the city of El Paso, a very few buildings survive, most notably the Magoffin House. One should also visit nearby Mesilla, New Mexico, near Las Cruces, where A. J. Fountain published the newspaper that gave the fullest, if one-sided, reporting of the events inside El Paso County. The town square dates from before the salt war.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: blue;">C.M. Mayo: </b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anything else you think I should have asked?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: #2d2d2d;">Paul Cool: </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There was one other sound criticism of my book that deserves comment. In part because I did not use Mexican sources, I did not link the Paseños to Mexican national thinking and traditions regarding liberty, property, justice, and the right to rise in defense of one’s rights. Instead, I quite clearly linked them to traditions of New England’s minute men and the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I did that for two reasons. First, I know more about U.S. traditions, and can stand on more solid ground. Second, I intentionally attempted to make a point to an American audience.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The political philosophy driving the Paseños was of a universal nature but could be and was expressed at the time by them (page 141) in terms that New Englanders of 1775, Continental Congress delegates of 1789, and the Anglos who moved to El Paso could understand, had their minds been open. However much the Paseños acted within the traditions of the long Mexican quest for justice within the law, they certainly acted within the U.S. tradition.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> Visit Paul Cool's website <a href="http://www.paulcoolbooks.com/">here.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/comments.html">here.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A note about the <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/MARFA-MONDAYS.html">Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project: Exploring Marfa, Texas & Environs in 24 Podcasts.</a> Twenty podcasts have been posted, most recently, an interview with <a href="http://www.cmmayo.com/marfa/podcast-20-raymond-caballero-pascual-orozco.html">Raymond Caballero about Mexican revolutionary General Pascual Orozco and Far West Texas</a>. The remaining four have been scheduled. Stay tuned for podcast #21, which will be about the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts; 22, about Sanderson; 23 about María de Agreda; and the final podcast, #24, back to Marfa. </span><br />
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<a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2016/02/on-writing-about-mexico-secrets-and.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2015/11/raymond-caballero-on-mexican.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ray Caballero on Revolutionary General Pascual Orozco and Far West Texas</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://madammayo.blogspot.mx/2015/07/the-pecan-history-of-americas-native.html"><i>The Pecan: A History of America's Native Nut</i> by James McWilliams</a></span></div>
C.M. Mayohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01652658684711290919noreply@blogger.com