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Sunday, July 17, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
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."
"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."
View the Guadalupe Mountains on Fotopedia.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
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
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
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:
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Werner Herzog and Cormac McCarthy
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.
WERNER HERZOG: Yes.
CORMAC McCARTHY: He said, we've learned nothing.
Full discussion on NPR's Science Friday.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
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:
Complete list of Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert:
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Pinacate/Eyjafjallajokul
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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.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
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