The New Ghost Towns of Sonora

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Haleakalā

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Arizona Burns

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Gotas de Chocolate

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EL MIRADOR HAS MOVED

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Edward Abbey on the Guadalupe Mountains

"The Guadalupe Mountains are the exposed portion of an ancient coral barrier reef, most of the reef now buried beneath the desert plain of West Texas. Shaped like a giant horseshoe, the reef extends from the Guadalupes northeast into New Mexico (including Carlsbad Caverns), curves east and south back into Texas, rises again above the surface in what are called the Glass Mountains near the town of Alpine and terminates in the uplifted Apache Mountains at Van Horn, Texas."

"Between the presently elevated ends of this great geological structure there once flowed, in the Permian period 225 to 280 million years ago, an arm of the sea. At that time, according to geologists, the Capitan Reef (as the whole structure is called) was created and built up by the lime-secreting growth of algae and other small organisms. Later the sea disappeared, the climate changed, and the whole region was lifted several thousand feet by underlying crustal movements of the earth. Through the millennia that followed, the higher portions of the reef, formed of harder stuff than the surrounding terrain, were gradually exposed by surface erosion. The highest point of the ancient reef, Guadalupe Peak, is now a mile above the low-lying salt beds on the west and southwest."

"There is ample wilderness at Guadalupe National Park on the surface of things - 77,500 acres of it. Guadalupe has fifty-five miles of primitive trails but little in the way of roads. U.S. Highway 62/180 passes through the southeast corner of the park for six miles; a few old-time wagon roads, too rocky and high centered for modern automobiles, approach the eastern canyons and wind across the desert bajadas (alluvial slopes) on the west side. There are no other roads."

"...Afterward, for a long time, we sit in the shade of the blessed trees, listening to canyon wrens, to the scream of a red-tailed hawk high against the cliffs, to the moan of the wind. We watch the evening sun go down beyond the dry lakes of salt and the far northwestern mountains out in New Mexico. This is a harsh, dry, bitter place, lonely as a dream. But I like it. I know I could live here if i wanted to. If I had to. After all, I've been here before."

Text from "On the High Edge of Texas," in Beyond the Wall by Edward Abbey.

View the Guadalupe Mountains on Fotopedia.

Restoration of Estancia Santa Catalina, Córdoba, Argentina

Estancia Santa Catalina, January 1999, © UNESCO

Estancia Santa Catalina, January 2011, Fotopedia

Coronado National Memorial

Papel Picado

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Roberto Bolaño on Stealing Books

"...I remember the edition: it was a book with very large print, like a primary school reader, slim, cloth-covered, with a horrendous drawing on the jacket, a hard book to steal and one that I didn’t know whether to hide under my arm or in my belt, because it showed under my truant student blazer, and in the end I carried it out in plain sight of all the clerks at the Glass Bookstore, which is one of the best ways to steal and which I had learned from an Edgar Allan Poe story.

After that, after I stole that book and read it, I went from being a prudent reader to being a voracious reader and from being a book thief to being a book hijacker. I wanted to read everything, which in my innocence was the same as wanting to uncover or trying to uncover the hidden workings of chance..."

From Entre paréntesis

Read the full text at the New York Review of Books Blog

West Texas

"West Texas becomes ever more lonely as population drops," The Houston Chronicle:

Jacob Harrison did what he thought kids from rural West Texas are supposed to do. He went away to college and didn't look back. But after working in Central Texas for a while, he called home with a confession.

"There are too many trees," he said. "You can't see the sky."

...People are leaving, and no one is taking their place... So you might wonder why anyone is still there, in this place where natural beauty is defined by dry creek beds and scraggly mesquite…

"The greatest sunsets. The stars are just right there. You hear the coyotes howling," says Billy Burt Hopper, sheriff of Loving County, home to 82 people and the least-populated county in the United States.

Full story:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7517531.html

Werner Herzog and Cormac McCarthy

Werner Herzog reads from All the Pretty Horses:



Herzog and McCarthy discuss cave art:

WERNER HERZOG: When you speak about forgotten dreams, you know, there's one stunning piece unearthed, a rock pendant. The only partial human depiction, the lower part of a female body, naked, the pubic area visible, and the bison somehow embracing the female. And 32,000 years later, you have Picasso drawing paintings and doing prints of the Minotaur and the female.

CORMAC McCARTHY: You know what Picasso said when he came up out of Lascaux after the war?

WERNER HERZOG: Yes.

CORMAC McCARTHY: He said, we've learned nothing.

Full discussion on NPR's Science Friday.

Spanish Missions of Sonora, Mexico

On the route of Father Kino's white missions in Sonora:

La Purísima Concepción de Nuestra Señora de Caborca

Interior of Missión San Diego del Pitiquito

Missión San Pedro y San Pablo del Tubutama

Missión San Antonio Paduano del Oquitoa

Fotopedia:

http://www.fotopedia.com/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_the_Sonoran_Desert/candidates

Complete list of Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_the_Sonoran_Desert

Pinacate/Eyjafjallajokul

PINACATE: There are Indian legends of historical eruptions and at least two questionable reports of possible explosive activity in the early 20th century. The field has 400 volcanic cones and other features documenting an eruption history extending over the past few million years.

Tuesday March 30th, 2010: A magnitude 4.5 earthquake is reported at the south end of the Pinacates volcanic field in Sonora, about 60 miles south of Ajo, Arizona. 

Mission San Xavier del Bac

http://www.fotopedia.com/wiki/Mission_San_Xavier_del_Bac/items/S2znUQ_Gz0M-l7...

Border Fence, Arizona

See the full gallery on Posterous

Terremoto, Baja California

April 4th, 2010: 3:40 p.m. local time, magnitude 3.7 earthquake, lasted about 35 seconds, epicenter near Mexican town of Guadalupe Victoria, 30 miles south of Mexicali-Calexico, 16 minutes later magnitude 3.9 shaker near Borrego Springs, California and 4.1 temblor six miles southwest of Malibu in Pacific Ocean, area has seismically active for the last year, data suggest quake occurred on the Laguna Salada fault, which unleashed a similar-size quake in 1892, more than 230 people are injured, 45 buildings in Baja California are collapsed or partly collapsed, jagged fissures ripped through area, water pushed up from below earth's surface, area flooded, walls and roofs badly cracked, water, sewage, and power not working, roads impassable, pavement torn apart.

June

Average high: 98.5°F (36.9°C)
Average low: 67.3°F (19.6°C)
Relative humidity at 5 am: 32%
Relative humidity at 5 pm: 13%
Normal rainfall: .24” (6.1mm)

Famously hot and dry characterizes June in the desert, with lots of days over 100°F (38°C)—and a few as high as 110°F (43°C) or more—and often not a drop of moisture. The high country will remain relatively cool, in the 80s even when the mercury climbs over the century mark down below.

Flora
Saguaro cactus fruits ripen, split open, and fall to the ground; many birds, insects, and mammals feed on them. Bean pods on mesquites, palo verdes, and catclaw acacias are ripening, as are jojoba seeds. If winter or early spring rains were plentiful, sacred datura may bloom. Organ pipe cactus continue to open their pale lavender blooms.

Fauna
Many snakes bear live young or lay eggs this month, including gopher snakes, common kingsnakes, Sonoran whipsnakes, and western diamondback and tiger rattlesnakes. Days are filled with the buzzing of male cicadas, also known as “cactus dodgers,”as the insects try to attract mates. Lesser nighthawks fill the warm nights with their unique trilling calls. This is a good month to see hawks that breed in riparian areas with tall cottonwoods or sycamore trees; look for gray, black and zone-tailed hawks, and Mississippi kites.

© 2006-2009 Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

¿Por qué es mejor comprar un libro que pedirlo prestado?

.
Fragmento del cuento Un cuento para Saroyan del libro Todos estábamos a la espera por Álvaro Cepeda Samudio:
.

"Por qué no vas a la biblioteca de la universidad y lo prestas: por qué no lees todos los libros que quieras en esa forma; todos lo hacen."
"Así no me gusta. Así no pueden gustarme los cuentos y hasta los dibujos me parecerían feos. Para que me guste un libro tiene que ser mío. En un libro de la biblioteca no podría encontrar todas las cosas que hay en los libros que yo compro. Los libros que compran las bibliotecas son escritos para los que van a leer en las bibliotecas, en cambio..."
"Pero si es la misma edición."
"No importa."
"No seas loco."
"Por qué?"
"Cómo que por qué?"
"Fíjate, por ejemplo, Faulkner le agrega páginas y personajes a sus novelas cuando uno no lo está viendo, así que cuando tú lees un libro de él por segunda vez encuentras cosas que antes no había, y es por eso: porque él agrega páginas cuando uno no está en casa. En cambio como los libros en las bibliotecas siempre están bien vigilados Faulkner no puede meterse a agregarle cosas a sus novelas."
"Ahora estás peor."
"No, Faulkner siempre está metiendo cosas nuevas en los libros que uno ha comprado. Tal vez Saroyan tenga la misma costumbre, por eso quiero comprar este libro de cuentos."

.
pp. 97-98

May

Average high: 88.8°F (31.6°C)
Average low: 57.4°F (14.1°C)
Relative humidity at 5 am: 34%
Relative humidity at 5 pm: 13%
Normal rainfall: .15” (3.8mm)

May will likely see the first day over 100°F (38°F) in the desert; most days will be clear, dry and hot. Many animals, humans included, begin to retreat to the mountains, where balmy days and cold but not freezing nights beckon.

Flora
Many species of Cactaceae bloom nocturnally, including saguaros, senitas, organ pipes, and queens-of-the-night, also known as night-blooming cereus. Delicate lavender blossoms open on desert ironwood and smoke trees. Desert spoon and soaptree yuccas put up tall, woody bloomstalks with white flowerettes; desert spoon is dioecious, with male or female flowers. Many red, trumpet-shaped flowers are blooming in mountain canyons as hummingbirds become more numerous and continue breeding; among the most spectucular blossoms are those of the coral bean.

Fauna
Female nectar-feeding bats, many of which are pregnant, migrate from Mexico into desert areas where nocturnally blooming plants are flowering. The two species are Mexican long-tongued and lesser long-nosed, the latter of which are endangered; they give birth in colonial maternity caves. Gila monster eggs, laid ten months ago, begin to hatch; the young lizards are perfectly formed miniature versions of their venomous parents and immediately fend for themselves. In mountain canyons, red-spotted toads are mating, filling the nights with their loud trills.

© 2006-2009 Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum