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The Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project is apropos of my book in-progress, World Waiting for a Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas.
Ever since I first heard about Marfa and the remote mountain ranges of Far West Texas, I yearned to go there. On a brief visit in the late 1990s, I drank in the majesty of the vast spaces, the bluer than blue skies, and at night, stars beyond stars, and— yes, they’re real—the Marfa Lights. But the people? Breezing through, I didn’t have a chance to talk to many, for I was deep into writing another book, Miraculous Air, about Baja California, Mexico’s nearly 1,000 mile long peninsula. Once that wrapped up, I wanted to come back to explore but first, what I imagined would be a lickety-split project: researching and writing a novel based on the strange but true story of, as the title says, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. It seems a pattern with me, that writing a book always takes about seven seventeen times longer than I had planned, but never mind, finally, I am returning. No, not to live: I’m based in Mexico City, but over the next few years, in a series of journeys, I’ll be writing a book about Marfa and the Big Bend. the Transpecos, that is, Far West Texas.
WHY PODCASTS?
In the past, as I did while writing Miraculous Air, I would have turned out a series of travel articles for newspapers and magazines. I may still write an article or three, but I am less interested in timely reporting than I am in talking to people, listening deeply. Now that podcasting is possible, rather than stash my notes and taped interviews in the drawer, I can share them widely.
A QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING
Who are some of the people who live in this remote and beautiful place? How is this part of West Texas unique, or similar to other places? How are things changing? What is it that outsiders inevitably miss? (What are those Marfa Lights?) As in my travels in Baja California, I’m especially interested in hearing from artists, for they make a razor-sharp habit of seeing what others do not. But anyone can surprise, I learned that much in writing Miraculous Air, when I interviewed, among so many others, a surf star; a sportfishing mogul whose family crest included a corn stalk; and a goat herder who, even from the deepest canyons, could identify the flight numbers of the airplanes that passed overhead. As I question as wide a variety of people as I can muster, I will depart from a simple premise: an interview—like a travel memoir—is a quest for understanding, not just about a certain place and time, but in the deepest sense of what it means to be human. With this series of 24 podcasts, I invite you to join me in this adventure in listening.
