12/9/2018
Here we are in the barren, hardscrabble, unforgiving wasteland of west Texas, Marfa Texas to be exact. The ultimate destination of our last trip of the year. Flew into Albuquerque, have been traveling the green chile trail through Las Cruces, Mesilla, Hatch et al, eating as much green chile salsa as is humanly possible as we slowly made our way to Marfa. Now that I've seen the Bonneville Salt Flats, most of Nebraska twice, and Monument Valley a lot, Marfa Texas was the only box to be checked off in my search for America. Can't say why exactly, it's just one of those places that grabs hold of your imagination, and won't let go till you've been there.
Well here we are, and its raining!!! It hardly ever rains down here and the people in town are thrilled. I'm not, and as I sit here at the Paisano Hotel, looking at pictures of James Dean, Liz Taylor, and Rock Hudson et al who all stayed here in 1954 while shooting the movie Giant, I am pondering my next move since time is of the essence in that we are only here for 4 or 5 days. By the way, we are staying in the Rock Hudson Suite, where he stayed during the filming and cavorting in ways unspoken at the time.
Well we are in Texas and the only thing to do is to take the bull by the horns, as they probably don't really say down here, and to get out there and shoot. And shoot I did, and Marfa in the rain turned out to be more than OK. When you are on the road, you learn to take what they give you and make the best of it because you are most likely not coming back. I say this because we got a call today from our friend Mike in Albany that his girlfriend Milly, also our long term friend, who played the piano at our wedding, died yesterday of complications of a long illness. The sadness is strong and part of our lives. But we are here to work and this is a bit of Marfa in the rain that caught my eye.
They say "be careful what you wish for" and in the case of the mute soft colors of Marfa in the rain, it was what I didn't know I needed to feel the texture of the place until the next day when the clouds cleared, the sun shined harsh, and bleached the town to a hard flat white surface devoid of warmth and texture. In fact the only thing of interest that the sun provided were a few unusually interesting shadows, something that I normally never see, but in this case found quite compelling.
Our casita at the El Paisano Hotel where you can still conjure up thoughts of Liz Taylor and the cast of Giant living it up here in the mid 50's...
and a few other random photos from around town...
The motel is gone, and the sign is slowly being reclaimed by the desert at the edge of town. Still a bit of work to be done to flesh out these impressions of Marfa, but I wanted to get it in the books before we left town. Marfa was the whole point of the trip and after 5 days and at least that many happy hours, I feel good about it. Next stop, Roswell NM.
Pablo
Addendum...
The Marfa Adobe wars...
As Marfa become more of a eurohip/arriviste/wanna be/place people think they want to live, though I can't imagine why, says a guy who spent 5 quite happy days there and was quite ready to leave when it was check out time...people are moving there seeking identity in the desert and seeking instant authenticity by buying adobe houses in any shape and then having the indigenous population do the hard work of fixing them up. This has driven up the assessed price of adobe astronomically high, and along with it the property taxes have quadrupled or more leaving the old time Hispanic families and other old timers unable to pay the price of admission to continue to live where they have for generations and placing them in jeopardy (read about this on line) of losing their homes and has become an important political issue surrounding the plague of newcomers...
A lot of people wanting to be who they're not in a place they don't belong disrupting the natural order of things for reasons they don't even understand. And then after a while they'll get bored, wonder why they did this, pack up their pre washed pre shredded jeans, cowboy boots, and the rest of their artsy faux western regalia and leave havoc in their wake. Must admit, I sort of had that fantasy, but my great 5 days at the El Paisano Hotel, my daily happy hours at the St. George Hotel, and the boredom that set in walking the same empty streets with the few nice galleries and burrito stands was enough to put me off that mis-guided dream and just be thankful I got to Marfa and had my fill (in a good way)!!!
Pablo
