Update: This Blog Now Redirects to the Revamped "Madam Mayo" Blog

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, Madam Mayo, and archived under "Texas."

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. 

Again, look for new posts over at Madam Mayo, category "Texas," and with tags including "Marfa" and "Big Bend."


This blog archive here on blogger will remain as is for as long as Google allows it. 

See also the main Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project page, with links to listen in anytime.


> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Avram Dumitrescu, An Artist in Alpine (The Transcript of Marfa Mondays Podcast #4 Now Available)

Transcript now available for 
ye olde podcast #4
Avram Dumitrescu, 
an Artist in Alpine

The Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project proceeds.... as those of you who follow this blog well know, the most recent of the projected 24 podcasts is #17, an interview with Texas historian Lonn Taylor in Fort Davis. 

Meanwhile, I've been working my way back to the beginning, posting transcripts of 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and now... drumroll.... 4, Avram Dumitrescu, an Artist in Alpine. About his chicken portraits, Dumitrescu says:

"When we moved to Alpine, our landlords had about 30 chickens. Patty and Cindy, they're on the west edge of town...that's where I had my first experience being around chickens, because until then it was just stuff I'd eat. They're basically mini-dinosaurs. Every time I go in, I'm always worried if I fall, and they start pecking me to death like in some horror movie... because they see red, they run to it and attack it. They're very interesting characters, and I think what really made me laugh was Patty and Cindy had named them after characters from "The Sopranos." 


+ Read the complete transcript of this podcast or, better yet, listen in to "Avram Dumitrescu, an Artist in Alpine" (on either podomatic or iTunes, both free).

+ All Marfa Mondays Podcasts (and most transcripts)

+ Your comments are always welcome. The newsletter will go out soon; to opt-in, click here.

New Transcript Just Posted for Marfa Mondays #7 "We Have Seen the Lights: The Marfa Ghost Lights Phenomenon"

The Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project proceeds and, yes, I am writing the book, World Waiting for a Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas. 

Last week, podcast #17, an interview with historian Lonn Taylor, went live, and over the past few days I've uploaded several transcripts of older podcasts, including that of podcast #7, "We Have Seen the Lights," about the Marfa Ghost Lights. 

Herewith an excerpt:

FROM THE TRANSCRIPT OF PODCAST #7

"WE HAVE SEEN THE LIGHTS"

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. 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:

"OH MY GOD... OH MY GOD... OH …. MY… GOD!"

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.

"OH MY GOD!" The man was bellowing. "OH MY GOD!!!"

I would have thought him barking mad except that, I too saw the lights and they were unlike anything I had ever seen.  

[...CONTINUE READING... includes interviews with residents...]

> Listen to the podcast

> Listen to all the Marfa Mondays podcasts

> Your comments are always welcome, and for updates you are very welcome to sign up for my free every-other-monthly-ish newsletter. 

Marfa Mondays Podcast #17 Under Sleeping Lion: Lonn Taylor in Fort Davis

From the "secret historians" to the Propeller Man to the Filippino restaurant: you'll learn about a myriad unexpected people and stories of the Big Bend and Marfa, Texas in my interview with historian Lonn Taylor, the "Rambling Boy" columnist for the Big Bend Sentinel. Recorded in Fort Davis in March 2015.

> Listen in anytime right here.

> Read the transcript

"Everybody kind of has a stereotype of Marfa either as the cattle town where they filmed “Giant” or a contemporary art center. I like discovering things that don’t fit into that stereotype. "                                                                --Lonn Taylor

> Marfa Mondays home page with all 17 podcasts (of a projected 24)

> Your COMMENTS are always welcome, and you are also most welcome to sign up for my newsletter which goes out every other month-ish.

Transcript Now Available for Marfa Mondays Podcast #16: "Tremendous Forms: Paul Chaplo on Finding Composition in the Landscape"

Marfa Mondays 16: "Tremendous Forms: Paul V. Chaplo on Findng Composition in the Landscape"  was posted as podcast (listen in anytime on podomatic or iTunes) back in January, but the transcript has just been posted here.

I'm aiming to post transcripts of all my podcast interviews, both the Marfa Mondays and Conversations with Other Writers (for the latter, so far, transcripts are available for Rose Mary Salum and Sergio Troncoso). Stay tuned for Marfa Mondays 17, an interview recorded in Fort Davis with Texas historian Lonn Taylor.

>Your COMMENTS are always welcome.

A Batch of US-Mexico Border Mini Travel Clips

Just posted a batch of what I call "mini travel clips," that is, super brief videos, nothing fancy (taken with my iPhone), but edited and with audio—clips by that jaw-droppingly prolific clangy-bangy soundmaestro of Bridport, U.K., Ergo Phizmiz.


FAR WEST TEXAS MINI CLIPS

Casa Piedra Road, Far West Texas 
(with a view of a fire in Mexico)
(1:06)




> Listen in anytime to my podcast. "A Visit to Swan House." Swan House, a unique adobe teaching house inspired by the legacy of Egypt's greatest architect, Hassan Fathy, is on Casa Piedra Road.

> Read my article in Cenizo Journal, "A Visit to Swan House."


Over Burro Mesa and Into Apache Canyon 
(Big Bend National Park)
(1:06)

 

> Listen in anytime to my "Marfa Mondays" podcast, "Over Burro Mesa / The Kickapoo Ambassadors"

> Read the essay, "Over Burro Mesa."


Pecos River Crossing (Highway 90, near the US-Mexico border)
(:41)
West of the Pecos is Far West Texas. The end of the video is a gaze south into Mexico.

And I did some slight edits on a video I had posted a few weeks ago, Descent into Eagle Canyon (:53), near Langrty, Texas— Eagle Canyon flows into the Rio Grande on the US-Mexico border.




> Listen in anytime to "Gifts of the Ancient Ones: Greg Williams on the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands."


AND AWAYS YONDER WEST

Finally, almost the border (well, a two hour drive) is Joshua Tree National Park in California (2:24). Herewith my mini travel clip of that:




> More mini travel clips here and
> Mini clips of Far West Texas (apropos of my book-in-progress) here.

> Watch Ergo Phizmiz starring in "I Am the Music Man," a video by Martha Moopette.




>Your COMMENTS are always welcome.

Marfa Mondays Podcast #16: Tremendous Forms: Paul V. Chaplo on Finding Composition in the Landscape

Happy 2015! Just posted, Marfa Mondays podcast #16 (of a projected 24), an interview with photographer Paul V. Chaplo, author of Marfa Flights: Aerial Views of Big Bend Country (Texas A & M University Press). Recorded at the Texas Book Festival in October, 2014. 

Marfa Flights was published to coincide with the opening of the exhibition of Chaplo's large format color photographs in the Museum of the Big Bend, in Alpine Texas. That show is open through January 18, 2015. Don't miss it!

Listen in anytime here.

Listen in to the other Marfa Mondays Podcasts here.

Find out more about Chaplo's magnificent Marfa Flights here.

***UPDATE*** The transcript of this podcast is now available here.

Marfa Mondays Podcast #15: Gifts of the Ancient Ones: Greg Williams on the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands

Marfa Mondays Podcast #15 is now live. Listen in anytime to my interview with Greg Williams, Executive Director of the Rock Art Foundation. Though the Rock Art Foundation's tours and website have been spreading the word, it still seems a well-kept secret that some of the most spectacular rock art in the world is tucked into the nooks and crannies of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Far West Texas (and into Coahuila, Mexico). I had the great privilege of being able to view some it, specifically, the rock art at Meyers Springs, through the tour offered by the Rock Art Foundation. My interview was recorded in the Meyers Springs Ranch house kitchen, just after the four hour tour (and target shooting had commenced).

Recommended reading:


Painters in Prehistory: Archaeology and Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, edited by Harry J. Shafer

Rock Art of the Lower Pecos, by Carolyn E. Boyd



Your COMMENTS are always welcome.

Harry Crosby and Baja California's Magnificent Cave Paintings

12 Tips for Summer Day Hiking in the Desert or, 

How to Stay Cool and Avoid Actinic Keratosis, Blood, and Killer Bees

Marfa Mondays #14

Over Burro Mesa / The Kickapoo Ambassadors

Marfa Mondays #13

John Tutino: Looking at Mexico in New Ways

Marfa Mondays # 12

"This Precious Place" An Interview with Dallas Baxter

> Listen in anytime to all the Marfa Mondays podcasts here. 

Lifting the (Very Heavy) Curtain

on the Leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution

Why Translate? The Case of the President of Mexico's Secret Book

Marfa Mondays 13: John Tutino: Looking at Mexico in New Ways

Marfa Mondays is back… with some bigger than Texas perspective.

Anyone who knows Far West Texas knows how close Mexico is, in every sense. From Marfa, it's ony a little more than an hour to the Rio Grande; hop over, and you're in Mexico.

Put your seat belts on: John Tutino says, "The whole big picture of where we thought Mexico fit in the world is somewhere between wrong and mythical." He's professor of History of Mexico and the Americas at Georgetown University and the author of the paradigm-smasher Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajío and Spanish North America.

Listen to the whole show (about an hour an 14 minutes) here.

>UPDATE: Transcript now available here.

> Read my review for Literal of Tutino's two books, Making a New World and (as editor) Mexico and the Mexicans in the Making of the United States.

Listen in anytime to all the Marfa Mondays Podcasts. Follow along on Twitter @marfamondays

Recent Marfa Mondays podcasts include: 

Dallas Baxter, This Precious Place; 

A Visit to Swan House;

We Have Seen the Lights; 

Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony.

Stay tuned, Apaches next.

COMMENTS

Marfa Mondays Podcast #12, Dallas Baxter, Founding Editor of Cenizo Journal, "This Precious Place"

***UPDATE 3/25/2015: TRANSCRIPT NOW AVAILABLE.

A metaphorical asteroid took out the past few months, but (whew) the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project resumes today with podcast #12, an interview with Cenizo Journal's founding editor, Dallas Baxter.

Baxter had just turned over Cenizo Journal to its new owner when I interviewed her last February 2013 in Alpine (about an half hour's drive from Marfa). She had arrived from New York just around the time of 9/11, and as editor of a journal covering the arts and history of the Big Bend / Trans-Pecos region of far West Texas, Baxter has an usually rich experience and perspective. If you wonder how a print publication can make it in this crazy digital age, and what it's like to live in such a remotely beautiful place, listen in. 

There will be 24 podcasts, and the project now extends through 2015.

Listen in to all the podcasts anytime at www.cmmayo.com/marfa

COMMENTS? Always welcome.

Marfa, Texas, "Capital of Quirkiness," According to 60 Minutes

In a segment that aired on Sunday, "60 Minutes" calls Marfa, Texas "The Capital of Quirkiness." The sweetly artsy spirit of this remote small town of far West Texas was precisely what appealed to me when I first came across it more than a decade ago-- and what drew me to start writing a book and podcasting about it back in January 2012. But as I delved in, reading and traveling and interviewing a wide variety of artists, scientists, business people and others, I soon realized that there's a far larger, more complex story, or rather, stories, to tell about the Big Bend region. Start with the fact that the Spaniards called it the Despoblado (Empty Quarter), and on pre-20th century maps it appears only vaguely as "La Apachería..." It's one of the earth's "Thin Places," to steal an Irish term-- and with a frightening history, a starkly beautiful swirl of landscape, border country. . . Watch "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" for an idea of what it looks like.

So far, of the projected 24, I've posted 11 podcasts about the region. A few favorites:

Cowboy Songs by Cowboys

A Visit to Swan House

Mary Baxter, Painting the Big Bend

We Have Seen the Lights

Charles Angell in the Big Bend

Listen in to all the podcasts anytime at www.cmmayo.com/marfa

Next podcast: an in-depth interview with Dallas Baxter, founder of Cenizo Journal.

Boquillas is Big News for the Big Bend

After much rumor and anticipation, the Boquillas border crossing into Mexico from far West Texas's Rio Grande Village in Big Bend National Park has just-- today-- thanks for the tip, Charlie Angell-- reopened for the first time since 9-11. This is one of the most remote places in the Lower 48, and in northern Mexico's state of Coahuila, and though the number of people crossing was always a mere trickle, the border's closing after 9-11 had devastated the Mexican town of Boquillas (which means "little mouths").

>Read more in the San Antonio Express-News

I'll have a lot to say about these remote areas of the US-Mexico border in my "Marfa Mondays" podcasts and in my work-in-progress about far West Texas. Recently I visited the remains of the  long demolished informal bridge over the Rio Grande at Candelaria. The river there was maybe 15 -20 feet across as I recollect, and I saw paw prints in the mud on both sides, going down from Mexico and coming up into Texas: a coyote, I mean canine, had crossed.

I'm also working on a podcast and an essay about the Big Bend National Park-- one of the most geologically varied and starkly beautiful places I have ever seen. Stay tuned.

Marfa, Marfa & More Marfa

Oh, this country has such beyond splendid skies! Apropos of my book-in-progress, World Waiting for a Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas, I recently returned from my latest journey through Marfa, Van Horn, Presidio, Terlingua, and the Big Bend National Park, and will be posting scads more "Marfa Mondays" podcasts...

Pending: an interview with Enrique Madrid of Redford; interview with Dallas Baxter, ex-editor of Cenizo Journal; a journey up Pinto Canyon Rd and another up Casa Piedra Rd (a branch of the old Comanche war path); a visit to Cíbolo Creek Ranch, a trek over Burro Mesa (ayyy, 3 hours each way, no shade) to Apache Canyon and a very remote arrowhead quarry; and a bit about the strange battle of Zapato Tuerto (Spanish vs Apaches); and (yep), "Cowboy Is a Verb."

Oh, and more about the glorious Chisos and Spanish painter Xavier González.

>Listen in to the latest podcast, A Visit to Swan House
>The archive of all the "Marfa Mondays" podcasts  is here. Listen in anytime.

From Pinto Canyon Rd
www.cmmayo.com

Lone Cloud, Paisano Hotel, Marfa
www.cmmayo.com

Pinto Canyon Rd
www.cmmayo.com

Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center, Fort Davis
www.cmmayo.com

>Listen to the podcast with Chihuahuan Desert pollinator expert, Cynthia McAlister

Waiting at the Marfa Lights Viewing Station
www.cmmayo.com

>Listen to the podcast "We Have Seen the Lights" about the Marfa Lights

Near the Cubes, Marfa
www.cmmayo.com

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Podcast #10 A Visit to Swan House (C.M. Mayo Reading for PEN San Miguel de Allende)

Recorded live, my lecture for PEN San Miguel on January 29, 2013 in San Miguel de Allende's Teatro Angela Peralta, about literary travel writing in the digital age and-- starting at about 15:00--  "A Visit to Swan House," my article in the current issue of Cenizo Journal, about adobe visionary Simone Swan's mysteriously beautiful teaching house near Presidio, on the US-Mexico border in Far West Texas.

"A Visit to Swan House" is #10 in the 24 podcast series.

#9 Mary Baxter, Painting the Big Bend
#8 A Spell at Chinati Hot Springs
#7 The Marfa Lights: We Have Seen the Lights
#6 Marfa's Moonlight Gemstones
#5 Cynthia McAlister, the Buzz on the Bees
#4 Avram Dumitrescu, An Artist in Alpine
#3 Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony
#2 Charles Angell in the Big Bend
#1 Introduction and welcome

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Podcast #9 Mary Baxter, Painting the Big Bend

Just posted: My October 2012 interview with painter Mary Baxter about her luminous landscapes in her Marfa, Texas studio. This is #9 in the 24 podcast series, "Marfa Mondays."

>>Listen in here.

Mary Baxter came to Marfa years ago for the horses and cattle business and stayed to paint the sky-haunted landscapes. Recently returned to Marfa after a decade in (relatively nearby) Marathon, Texas, Mary Baxter talked to C.M. Mayo in her sun-filled studio in October 2012.

The Marfa Mondays podcasts are apropos of a work-in-progress about far West Texas.


Recent Marfa Mondays Podcasts include:

>A Spell in Chinati Hot Springs

>We Have Seen the Lights (about the Marfa ghost lights)

>Marfa's Moonlight Gemstones, an Interview with Paul Graybeal

>The Buzz on the Bees, an Interview with Cynthia McAlister

>Avram Dumitrescu, An Artist in Alpine

>Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony

>Charles Angell in the Big Bend

>Ye Olde Introduction and Welcome

Read all about the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project here.

Not sure what a podcast is? Want to know why I'm doing this? Want to learn to make one yourself? Click here.

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Podcast #8 A Spell at Chinati Hot Springs

Elvis. The private art gallery. Lithium. And even better: no email.

Listen in to #8 in the 24 podcast series here.











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Podcast #7 We Have Seen the Lights (Marfa Ghost Lights)

Podcast # 7 in the 24 podcast series has been posted, listen in anytime:

here.



My experiences with the eerie and as yet unexplained phenomenon of the Marfa Lights; a brief discussion of some of the literature and recent research, and interviews others. 




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Podcast #5 Cynthia McAlister with the Buzz on the Bees

>Listen in here.

Cynthia McAlister is an expert on the bees of West Texas, and as those of you who have been following this blog know, I'm crazy about bees, so this interview is one I was especially delighted be able to do. It was recorded in late January when I was traveling in the area for my book (as yet untitled). I've been back since and will be posting more podcasts-- they're scheduled for the  3rd Monday of every month through the end of 2013-- including one on the remote and restful Chinati Hotsprings and an interview with the owner of Marfa's fascinating Moonlight Gemstones. Stay tuned.

Links to surf:
About the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project

Previous "Marfa Mondays" podcasts:
-->Avram Dumitrescu, An Artist in Alpine (April 16, 2012)
-->Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony (March 19, 2012)
-->Charles Angell in the Big Bend (February 20, 2012)
-->Introduction and Welcome (January 16, 2012)


More related surfing:

Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute and Nature Center

Cenizo Journal (download for free and read McAlister's article in the bees in the winter 2012 issue)

Farm Stand Marfa Blog, "The Bee Is Not a Machine" and "The Bee, the Blossom and the Beginning of Civilization"

My Mexico City Melissa Garden (mini-clip video)
(a melissa garden is a garden for bees)

An excellent recent article in the San Diego Reader, "Marfa Moments"by W.S. Di Piero

And another in the El Paso Times by Ramón Rentería, "Old-time Marfa Lives on in Memories" 

Many more links to read about Marfa & Environs here.

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Podcast #4 Avram Dumitrescu, an Artist in Alpine

The monthly Marfa Mondays podcast is live: an interview with Avram Dumitrescu, an artist whose paintings have been featured in "Marfans: Art from the Plateau" at the Nancy Fyfe Cardozier Gallery in Odessa, and also showcased in Cenizo Journal. A native of the Channel Islands and raised in Belfast, Dumitrescu earned a bachelor's degree and Masters in Applied Arts from the University of Ulster at Belfast. He is married to journalist Megan Wilde. For more about Dumitrescu, and to view his portfolio, visit www.onlineavram.com. 

Recorded in late January 2012. (About 36 minutes)

>Click here to listen in.

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Podcast #3 Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony

Just posted: the third podcast in the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project 2012-2013:

>> Click here to listen in

Yours Truly interviews Mary Bones, curator of the exhibit "The Lost Colony: Texas Regionalist Paintings," in theMuseum of the Big Bend, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas. 

The Lost Colony refers to the summer art colony at Sul Ross which began in 1932 and ended somewhat mysteriously in 1950. Alpine is 30 minutes northeast of Marfa-- right next door. Of the region, as Michael Duty writes in the introduction to the exhibit's catalog, "It... has long called to artists who have been captivated by its natural beauty, its history, and its people. In recent times, the area has also drawn the attention of writers and reporters who have written numerous articles touting the area's prominence as something of a center, albeit a far flung one, for contemporary art. Those articles focus primarily on Marfa and the influence that minimalist sculptor Donald Judd has had on the town..." Later, Duty adds, that Judd "was certainly not the first artist to be so captivated". 

Mary Bones explains the inspiration for the exhibit, and shares the stories about and friendships of some of the painters, in particular Texan Julius Woeltz and his teacher Xavier González, a native of Spain, both of whom made trips to Mexico City to study the Mexican muralists, including Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. 

Some of the other painters discussed are Mabel Vandiver, Anna Keener, Elizabeth Keefer, Coreen Mary Spellman, Harry Anthony De Young, Beatrice Cuming, Otis Dozier, William Lester, James Swann, Ethel Edwards, Alice Reynolds, and Juanita Montgomery. Several of these paintings can be seen in the article by Mary Bones, "The Lost Colony: Texas Regionalist Paintings - Rediscovering an Artistic Past," Cenizo Journal, 4th Quarter 2011.

>>Previous Marfa Mondays podcast: Charles Angell in the Big Bend.

>>For more Marfa Mondays podcasts, and to read about the project, please visit www.cmmayo.com/marfa

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