Speaking of Blurb, you can now buy a large-format book with the blog entries from the Dispatch from Metz through this link: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2027500. The cost is $112.95.
Extensive works by Donald Judd and Dan Flavin form the cornerstones of the collection. We viewed these works, and more by other artists, during an all-day pair of tours. The morning tour covered Judd, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, David Rabinowitch, John Chamberlain, and the Arena. The afternoon tour covered Flavin, John Wesley, Ingólfer Arnarsson, Roni Horn, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, and Carl Andre.
The main attraction is Judd's "100 untitled works in mill aluminum," 1982-1986, which are installed in two large former artillery sheds that had served as housing for the German POWs. These aluminum boxes, all of the same exterior dimensions but each uniquely constructed with different variations of set-ins, angles and lengths, represent, to me anyway, an incredibly great work, the best-realized abstract theme-and-variation expression in abstract sculpture.
The installation for Flavin's works represents a serious commitment to making his artistic and aesthetic vision real. These works combine subtleties of light, color, and space with the vividness of contrasting colors of fluorescent lights. It took six buildings to house Flavin's works, each with a pair of views that form, in all, a complete set of variations on his theme.
Flavin designed these works over a number of years, culminating in 1996. Unfortunately, he died later that year and thus never saw the completed installation, inaugurated in 2000.
Other works, either at the main site or in the renovated Marfa Wool and Mohair Building in downtown Marfa, run the gamut from John Chamberlain's crushed automobile panels to Ilya Kabakov's bleak ruminescences on Soviet elementary schools. One gallery, in a former stable, is devoted to the art of John Wesley; this exhibition has a multimedia piece from 1965, called "Flavin's Official," built around a photograph of Dan Flavin.
Outside the buildings stands a monumental sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Brugge, which commemorates Fort D. A. Russell's last horse. This work is, appropriately enough, entitled "Monument to the last horse."
The morning tour took us to the Arena, the post's former gymnasium, which later served as a horse arena, and which Judd reworked as a commons space. The building includes Judd's signature square doors and windows, along with large-scale patterns on the floor. We were lucky to be there as the sun's rays lined up perfectly with this pattern.
I'm happier that Susie and I dine in places favored by heavy metal bands or that heavy metal bands actually eat at McDonald's like the rest of us.
Along North Highland you'll find the offices of the Big Bend Sentinel, the region's weekly newspaper, and classic buildings like the Brite Building.
The family that built the Brite Building also built a large house on the edge of town west of the courthouse.
Just off North Highland sits the Hotel Paisano, a classic hotel designed by El Paso architect Henry Trost. The hotel was built in 1930, in anticipation of an economic boom that never arrived. The Paisano has style elements that recall several of Trost's best buildings from El Paso.
Today, Marfa serves as the central town for the region's cattle ranchers. Ranches abut the town, and cattle trucks drive down its streets. For the outside world, Marfa is best known as an arts community, which developed after the abstract sculptor Donald Judd moved here in 1972 and later created the Chinati Foundation, which is one of the world's major sites for modern, especially minimalist, large-scale art installations. We spent an entire day at the Chinati Foundation, and I'll describe our visit in a later posting.
A single railroad track divides along an east-west line, with downtown and most of the residential district to the north and with the Chinati Foundation and the Border Patrol station to the south. There's a large public shed on the south side of the tracks that at lunch serves as home to the Food Shark truck, which serves meals so popular--at least during spring break--that we waited in line for 30 minutes to order, then another 30 minutes for the food. The food was worth the wait, I'm happy to report.
On Saturday mornings the shed hosts a farmer's market that, although a little sparse, offers a terrific breakfasts, punctuated by the roar of passing trains.
The farmer's market's clientele reflected Marfa's eclectic population of inhabitants and visitors, including this occupant of a motorcycle side-car.
Susie and I were fortunate to be in Marfa for the opening of a terrific exhibition at Ballroom Marfa, a non-profit space for contemporary art and culture. "The World According to New Orleans," curated by Dan Cameron, presents interesting work by artists from New Orleans, some of whom are dead and some of whom are living. The living artists were there for the opening reception, which was a huge success. I was particularly impressed by the works of Skylar Fein and Bruce Davenport, Jr., and talked with both of them about their art. After the reception, everyone decamped for a community dinner at the Capri, which turns out to have multiple signs, none of which say "Capri," as far as I could tell. This is a great refurbished space, still announced by signs of the establishments that used to be there, such as the Thunderbird Restaurant. In the event, the food was a wonderful and copious rendition of Southern cooking, and the meal was followed by a concert by Little Freddie King, who played the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for 32 years, along with his band.
Over the last several days, El Paso has been hit by the worst winter weather in something like 35 years, with temperatures dipping down into the low single digits. At this time of year the high is normally about 63 degrees, and we've been suffering from "highs" of 15 and 18 degrees. Our local electric utility was ill-prepared for the cold and lost generating capacity. As a result, the utility inflicted "rolling blackouts" across the city, shutting off electricity to various parts of the city, including ours, for 3o minutes to an hour each time. Pipes froze in buildings all over the city, including at our house; we had to stay with our parents-in-law for three nights. And now that the temperatures have climbed back above freezing, pipes have been bursting everywhere. The bursting pipes spared our house but hit most of our friends and relatives. Plumbers and clean-up crews have been having a field day. Crews have come from as far away as Tennessee to help with the mopping up.
Much of the prickly pear cactus near us has changed color from green to a sort of copper color.
We sailed past the phalanxes of giant cranes that signaled the importance of this busy port, turning left just before the bridge and entering a slip. The terminal was set up with immigrations officials. We were among the first off the ship, which was a good thing because the immigrations computers were afflicted with some sort of problem--occurring nationwide--that slowed processing to a trickle.
Before we disembarked, from the ship we could see the southern California landscape of urban development and snow-covered mountains, which served as a contrast with the tropical and sub-tropical views of the last two weeks and as a reminder that we were nearly home.
As our plane climbed out of LAX, we could see the Coral Princess docked in Long Beach.
And not far away lay the Queen Mary, also berthed in Long Beach, now a museum-hotel.
As we neared El Paso, the landscape turned to desert, which we could see covered with winter's mantle of snow.
After 15 days of cruising, from Fort Lauderdale to Long Beach, from Atlantic to Pacific, we were home.
real America's cup yacht with Cabo Adventures. We were on NZL 82, which defended the cup for New Zealand in 2003. For a long-time sailboat racer like me, who doesn't have a much a chance to sail in El Paso, this was a real treat.
There wasn't a ton of wind, but we still had a spirited race. Susie worked as a grinder aft.
Our boat ended up second, having to perform a penalty turn after a close crossing. We had a lot of fun, of course, capped off with a cold Mexican beer.
For their excursion, other passengers on the ship had gone whale-watching. We lucked out by getting to see whales from the Coral Princess as we left Cabo San Lucas. My camera was always slower than the whales, but in the lower left of this picture you can see a whale's tail.
Cabo San Lucas is at the very southern end of the Baja Peninsula. As the Coral Princess turned northwest toward Los Angeles, we rounded the cape. In a day and half we'd be back in the USA.
The Coral Princess sailed into Acapulco as the sun rose. Susie and I rose, too, but we stayed onboard rather than going into town. We wanted to have a ship-as-resort day while, we expected, many of the other passengers would be ashore. So we had fun, enjoying the ship as a kind of waterfront resort hotel. And for a dose of urban reality, we could look out onto the Acapulco cityscape from the ship.
And here's the Mexican coast later in the day.
While Shari and Stuart partook of a zip-line adventure, Susie and I opted for an eco-tour through the forest canopy via an aerial tramway. The tramway was a sort of slow-moving ski-lift, except that there were eight-passenger gondolas instead of chairs, and there certainly wasn't any snow.
We saw a variety of wildlife, both in at the park and along the way. We got to see army ants marching along. We also got to see another white-faced monkey, up in one of the trees.
In another tree, outside the park, perched a scarlet macaw, which later flew away, showing all of its spectacular plumage.
The grounds of the park hosted numerous iguanas. We did not have "chicken of the trees" for lunch, but rather a really nice lunch at the park featuring native dishes with, presumably real, chicken.
On the way back to the ship, we crossed a river where, on the bank, several crocodiles were hanging out. Here are two of them.
