Madam Mayo: Marfa Mondays podcasts

The Kindle edition of the anthology by Mikel Miller et al, Mexico: Sunlight and Shadows, which has been garnering scads of enthusiastic reviews, is free this Saturday August 29 and Sunday August 30. (This anthology includes an excerpt from my memoir of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, Miraculous Air.)

My mailchimp newsletter went out, fi-nal-ly. I try to get it out every other month-ish, but it's been a busy spring and summer, and to show for it, several new podcasts, articles and other news (my latest book won the National Indie Excellence Award for History!!!)

May you enjoy the podcasts with rodeo barrel racer Lisa Ferndandes and historian Lonn Taylor. I certainly did... P.S. You are, of course, ever and always most welcome to subscribe.

What I'm reading (and relishing):

Graham Robb's The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts

Thomas Hockey's How We See the Sky: A Naked-Eye Tour of Day & Night

Earl Swift's The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways

What I'm working on:

Editing the Marfa Mondays podcast #19, "BBQ Pitmaster Israel Campos in Pecos" (Listen in to the other 18 Marfa Mondays podcasts here.)

For Literal, writing a review (rave-rave-rave!!!) of Sam Quinones' Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

What I call a "mini-clip," that is, a brief, edited video, of barrel racers and steer wrestlers at the Pecos Rodeo. (View my other mini-clips for the Far West Texas book here.)

May you have a splendid weekend.

Your comments are always welcome.

Cyberflanerie: Western Digs: Dispatches from the Ancient American West

Cyberflanerie: STUFF & Stuff & More Stuff Edition

Cyberflanerie: Others Did It So I Don't Have To Edition

Monday, May 11, 2015

Transcript of "We Have Seen the Lights: The Marfa Ghost Lights Phenomenon" (Marfa Mondays #7)

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.