My warmest thanks to SISCA President Augusta (Gigi) Pines and Secretary Windy Goodloe for so generously receiving me in Brackettville, taking the time to show me around, and all through the museum, and to so patiently answer my many questions. They urged me to carefully read Jeff Guinn’s Our Land Before We Die: The Proud Story of the Seminole Negro, which I found to be most excellent advice, for it is not only deeply-researched but splendidly well-written, a genuine pleasure to read. My thanks to Rocío Gil for her welcome in Brackettville and copy of her paper. And thanks to Doug Sivad, who provided a copy of his book, with its wealth of personal recollections and photographs. I found J.B. Bird’s www.johnhorse.com an invaluable resource. Chris Hale generously went through my first draft of this essay with his eagle legal eye, catching many errors and making numerous suggestions for which I am especially grateful. (I am of course responsible for any errors that may remain.) Thanks to my readers Cecilia Autrique and Sara Mansfield Taber for their critique and encouragement, as well. And finally, my thanks to Bruce A. Glasrud, for the prompt I needed to find my way into telling this multi-faceted, transnational story that covers thousands of miles and no less than five wars.
Windy Goodloe, Augusta Pines, and Rocío Gil in Brackettville, Texas.
The Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project is a projected 24 podcasts apropos of my book in-process on Far West Texas. Most are interviews; a few are readings of my essays. Some of this material will appear in my book, some of it will not. We’ll see.
P.S. If you’d like to be alerted when the next Marfa Mondays podcast is live, just send me an email and I’ll add you to my mailing list.
After a battle with brain cancer, my dear amigo Bill Gruben has passed onto new and surely most wondrous adventures. He had such a good heart and a brilliant, wildly whimsical sense of humor. I will miss him more than I can say.
I met Bill some 30 years ago when I was working as an economist in Mexico City and he as an economist with the Dallas Fed. New flash: Not all economists are just economists! Bill, who spoke fluent Spanish and knew more about Mexico than most Mexicans, had written jokes for Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller and published some of his brilliant comedic essays about Texas in no less a venue than The Atlantic Monthly. I was then already writing poems and short stories, and translating Mexican poetry. Later, when I got the notion to publish Tameme, a bilingual literary journal that brought together writers and poets from Canada, the US, and Mexico in bilingual English/ Spanish format, I asked Bill if he would contribute something to the first issue. I was immensely honored and quite tickled when he sent me “Animals in the Arts in Texas.” It was translated into Spanish by the splendid Mexican poet and novelist Agustín Cadena. In Bill’s memory, herewith that piece from Tameme, originally published in 1999:
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From the Dallas Morning News, March 29, 2020: William Charles Gruben III died peacefully at his Dallas home on Tuesday, March 17th, 2020, at the age of 76, due to complications from an inoperable glioblastoma. Husband, father, economist, polymath, polyglot, musician, humorist, prankster, Bill was a classical thinker, a Medieval scholastic, a Renaissance man, a modern theorist, a postmodern ironist, and, above all else, a true soul of The Enlightenment, in that his whole life was a determined, joyous pursuit of knowledge fueled by the power of human reason and an endless supply of jokes.
Born on September 29th, 1943 in Sacramento, California, Bill was a conscientious and devoted older brother (one not above launching a younger sibling down the occasional laundry chute) during a childhood of multiple family moves: from Illinois to rural Texas, San Antonio, Houston (where he swam the bayous, alligators included) and suburban Dallas. He was an enthusiastic cadet in the Junior Yanks in the mid-50’s, and spent a few weeks every summer at his grandparents’ cotton farm in West Texas. As a high school student he mastered the guitar and the trombone, earning spending money gigging with a Dixieland band. Later in life, he learned to play a mean and somewhat soulful didgeridoo.
A graduate of Richardson High School, SMU, and The University of Texas, where he earned a doctorate in economics, Bill’s working life was a paradox. He spent the better part of his career at The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, where he specialized in practical applications of economic theory and the then emerging Mexican and Latin American markets, and where he co-created The Center for Latin American Economics. But Bill’s relationship to “The Dismal Science” was anything but. He understood that at the root of economic study was both the human and the quite-possibly marvelous: that economies were more than diminishing marginal return curves and income elasticity, but places where our desires and dreams collide with reality in all kinds of fascinating and exhilarating ways. An inspiration to colleagues and mentees alike, Bill’s favorite rejoinder while crunching data or preparing a paper or presentation was always, “Do you believe we get paid to do this?!” followed by another one of his brilliant one-liners. For, much as he found joy in Peso stabilization forecasts and comparative GDP analyses, Bill Gruben found hilarity in everything else.
In the 1970s, he, along with his brother, wrote, produced, and hosted a 30 minute comedy show on KCHU called “Dallas Arcade.” In the 80s, he published pieces in The Atlantic that satirized the excesses of oil-boom Texas. He wrote jokes for Joan Rivers, who used some on The Tonight Show, and for Phyllis Diller, who tried to persuade him to dump economics, move to Hollywood, and write comedy full time. Bill Gruben was too good an economist to take her suggestion. But he was terribly flattered.
Upon his retirement from The Dallas Fed, Bill spent his time among homes in Dallas, Laredo, and Monterrey, Mexico. From 2008-2014, at Texas A&M International University, he was Director of the Ph.D. Program in International Business at the University’s A.R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business, and a Radcliffe Killam Distinguished Professor of Economics; from 2013-14, he directed The Center for Western Hemispheric Trade.
Upon his second retirement, Bill transferred his creative energies from the literary to the visual arts. His last series of canvasses depict the suffering of narcos tormented by comically enraged demons. And even this past January, when he struggled to walk and eat, he insisted on going to Fort Worth to see the Renoir show. He spent two hours on his feet looking at every painting.
Bill is preceded in death by father WIlliam Charles Gruben II, mother Virginia Dorothy Anderson Gruben, and wife, the artist Marilu Flores Gruben. Bill is survived by beloved spouse Nieves Mogas, daughters Adrienne Gruben, a film executive and documentarian, and Anna Gruben Olivier de Vezin, a non-profit director, sons-in-law David Goldstein, a technical director for live broadcast events, and Charles Olivier de Vezin, a screenwriter and film editor, grandchildren Maria Francisca Goldstein and Manel Olivier de Vezin, sister Patricia Gruben, brother Roger Gruben, and a host of adoring nieces, nephews, and cousins. The family expresses its deep gratitude to caregivers Penelope Clayton-Smith, Dario Delgado, and Frank Aven. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, services are on hold, but there will be a virtual service in mid April.
In lieu of flowers, the family welcomes contributions in Bill’s name to The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association or to El Instituto de Atención Integral Discapacitado Retos, A.B.P.
Special Note: I ever and always invite comments at the end of each blog post but for this post in particular I would especially like to hear comments and any tips from those of you who have been wrestling with your own working libraries. (It strikes me that in all the many writers’ workshops and writers’ conferences I have attended over the years I have never seen this vital practical necessity addressed. And what I have seen in terms of advice from librarians and personal organizers is not quite apt for a working writer’s needs. Have I missed something?)
Selected titles at-hand as I was writing an essay about Black Seminole oral historian Miss Charles Emily Wilson. This essay is destined for an anthology and will also be the Marfa Mondays podcast # 21, apropos of my book-in-progress about Far West Texas– for which I have a scary-big working library. I call it the Texas Bibliothek. My writing assistant Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl says it’s been exhausting, all the thinking going on, and books of so many smells going hither, thither & zither. She would like to take a siesta.
The scene as I was revising my essay. No worries, I certainly would not shelve my books over a radiator! They were here only temporarily. Shortly thereafter, I used my supersonic reshelving method, described anon.
Still working on the same essay… on this day, my other writing assistant having appropriated the chair, I was using my StandStand.
Why a Working Library?
Why should you have a working library? Well, dear writerly reader, maybe you shouldn’t. It depends on what you are writing.
Poetry or, say, a novel of the imagination might require nothing more than a dictionary and thesaurus–– and of course, you could access those online. Perhaps, should you feel so moved, for inspiration you might keep a shelf or two of books by your favorite writers, and perhaps another shelf devoted to books on craft, on process, etc. Or not.
The need for a working library arises when you attempt to write historical fiction or in some genre of nonfiction, for example, a biography, history, or travel memoir. And the problem is–– if I can extrapolate from my own experience––which perhaps I cannot–– but I’ll betcha 1,000 books and three cheesecakes with a pound of cherries on top that I can––you are going to ginormously underestimate how fast and how very necessarily your working library expands, how much space it gobbles up, and how quickly any disorganization unravels into further disorganization, and to muddle the metaphor, makes a clogged up mega-mess of your writing process.
you are going to ginormously underestimate how fast and how very necessarily that working library expands, and how much space it gobbles up, and how quickly any disorganization unravels into further disorganization, and to muddle the metaphor, makes a clogged up mega-mess of your writing process.
In short, by underestimating the importance of first, acquiring, and second, adequately shelving, and third, maintaining the organization of this collection, writing your book will turn into a more frustrating and lengthy process than it otherwise would have been. (Trust me, it will be frustrating and take forever and ten centuries anyway.)
Yes, I know about www.archive.org–– I oftentimes consult books there–– and I have accumulated a collection of Kindles. I also make use of public and university libraries when possible. (There is also the question of keeping paper and digital files, which would merit a separate post.) Nonetheless, my experience has been that a working library of physical books at-hand remains by far, as in, from-here-to-Pluto-and-back, my most vital resource.
About My Working Libraries, In Brief
First understand: I am not a book hoarder! When I do not have a compelling reason and/or space to keep a book, off it goes– to another reader or to donation. (See my previous post “How to Declutter a Library.”) I don’t live in a house the size of an abandoned aircraft hanger; it would be impossible for me to keep every book I’ve read in my life and still find my way in and out of the front door. Aside from a handful (literally maybe 10) that I hold onto for sentimental reasons, the books I keep for the long term I have a precise reason to keep: to assist me as I write my books. And I maintain them scrupulously organized as working libraries.
No, I do not have OCD. Scrupulous organization is terrifically important! My motto: A book I cannot find is a book I do not have. Disorganization is a form of poverty.
A book I cannot find is a book I do not have. Disorganization is a form of poverty.
Over many years of writing several books, each with its own working library, and also teaching, and so gathering an ever-growing working library on craft and process, I have accumulated a daunting number of books, and to keep them all accessible I have had to tackle some eye-crossing challenges. (Add to that moving house a few times in mid-book and, boy howdy, did I get an education in organizing!)
My books for which I assembled and continue to maintain working libraries include:
The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire This working library is more substantial, as it should be for a novel based on the true story set during Mexico’s most complex, tumultuous, and thoroughly transnational episode. (So why did France invade Mexico and install the Austrian Archduke as emperor and then why did the latter make a contract with the family of Mexico’s previous emperor giving them the status of the Murat princes?!!! It took me several years to get my mind around it all…) Some very rare Maximiliana.
World Waiting for a Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas (in-progress) I call this one my “Texas Bibliothek.” This one is just… sorry for the cliché… GIANT. Texans are far more literarily industrious than most people imagine, and there is endless celebration of and controversy about their culture and history. Some of the works published just in the last decade are paradigm-smashers. I’ve had a heap of very necessary reading to keep up with… Plus understanding Far West Texas requires fathoming what surrounds it– New Mexico to the west, Coahuila and Chihuahua to the south, the heartland of Texas and Gulf to the east, the Llano Estacado to the north…and the larger geological, geopolitical, and cultural context. Oh, and all about oil!! This has been my most challenging book yet. Wish me luck.
Plus, as mentioned, I maintain a working library on the craft of writing and creative process which I consult for both my writing workshops and my own writing. Accumulated over some twenty years, this is a substantial working library, but it is the smallest. I haven’t counted but I’d say this has some 250 books.
(Did I mention, I’m not 25 years old? If I live to 100… uh oh…)
Why, pray tell, keep all of these books, and even add to the collections, year after year?
(1) I often reference works in one collection for another another book (for example, in writing my book on Far West Texas I have consulted works in all four collections), and I expect this will continue with the projects I am contemplating for the future.
(2) I plan to see more of my books published in translation and so will require consulting some of the original texts (many in Spanish, some in German, a few in French) from which I quoted. This may or may not be an issue for you. But if it is, take heed. It can be crazy difficult and expensive to track some of these things down later.
(3) I often receive email from researchers, both amateur and academic, and I am delighted to assist, when I can, in answering their questions and for this oftentimes I need to reference a book or three in my collections. And what goes around comes around.
(4) I do not live near a relevant library and even if I did, many of the works in my collections are nonetheless exceedingly difficult to find. Plus, even if a nearby library were to have each and every book I would want to consult when I want to consult it, it’s a bother and a time-mega-suck to have to go to a library and call up so many books.
Yes, my working libraries take up a lot of space. This cranks my noodle. But a painter needs an atelier, no? Um, you aren’t going to bake bread in your lipstick compact.
Tips for Your Working Library (Future Reminder to Take My Own Advice)
With all due respect for the operations of institutional libraries, earning a degree in Library Science is not on my schedule for this incarnation. But as a writer with my own absolutely necessary working libraries, none of them large enough in scale to require professional cataloging, yet each nonetheless larger than I was prepared to manage efficiently, alas….. painnnnnNNNfully…. I have learned a few things. What I offer here for you, dear writerly reader, is not the advice of a knowledgeable librarian but what I, a working writer having muddled through writing several books, would have told myself, had I been able to travel back in time… to the late 1990s.
(1) If you have good reason to think you’ll need it, don’t be pennywise and pound foolish, buy the book! To the degree possible, it is better to buy a first edition in fine condition; however, cheap used / ex-library copies are fine for a working library. Many ex-library books in good condition cost just pennies. (Or did you plan to write an sloppily researched, amateurish book?)
(2) Go head and mark up those ex-library books and mass-market paperbacks, but if you happen to have in your hands a hardcover first edition in fine condition, take care! Keep the dust jacket, protect it from any bumps and the sun, and if you must mark the pages, use only very light erasable pencil. Drink your coffee and eat your snacks at another time, in another room. (I shall spare you the super sad episodes…)
P.S. More tips on care and preservation of books here.
A first edition of a Very Important book! Grrrr, I marked it up and I mistreated the dust jacket!! And I already knew better!! I used a highlighter!!!!! WAHHHH
(3) You will need bodacious amounts of bookshelf space. And more after that, and even more after that…. If you do not have it, make it. If you cannot make space, then probably you should reconsider embarking on this type of writing project. I am not kidding.
(4) For keeping the books organized you will need a system that is at once flexible, easy-peasy, and supremely useful to you. It may not make sense to anyone else, but Anyone Else is not the name of the person writing your book.
It may not make sense to anyone else, but Anyone Else is not the name of the person writing your book.
For example, for my Texas Bibliothek, right now I have about 30 categories, each with from 10 to approximately 50 books in each. Each category I have defined to my liking, broad enough that it doesn’t occupy more than a brain cell or two to figure out, yet narrow enough that I don’t need to bother organizing the books alphabetically.
For my writing workshop working library however, I do have the craft and process books organized by author alphabetically. I have never been able to find a reasonable way–– reasonable for me––to break down the collection beyond books on “Craft” and on “Process.”
(5) Of course, some books could fall into more than one category, e.g., Jeff Guinn’s Our Land Before We Die: The Proud Story of the Seminole Negro could be in U.S. Military; African American/ Seminoles; Texas History; Regional History / Fort Clark; US-Mexico Borderlands. (I chose African American / Seminoles. But I might change my mind.) For such endless little categorization conundrums, well, say I, just apply deodorant and do what seems most sensible to you. You can always change your mind, and you probably will.
To make sure you do not overlook important works in your collection, as you work with your library, and as you dust it, make an effort to let your eyes rove over the whole of it.
(6) Dust regularly using an ostrich feather duster. Seriously, go for the ostrich.
(7) For the shelves use BIG, READ-ICU-LOUS-LY EASY-TO-READ LABELS. I print these out on my computer, cut and tape them to index cards, and tape them on the shelves.
This is what I mean by a READ-icu-lous-ly big label. Huh, I can read it.
Tom Lea was a most elegant artist and novelist, El Paso’s best. And, yay, I found a place for my super chido “Honk If You’ve Seen La Llorona” bumpersticker! Maybe one of these days I will put it on my car!
That portrait on the spine of that book to the left is not actually Cabeza de Vaca. Everyone seems to think it is. Which kind of annoys me.
(8) Key is to be able to not only find, but lickety-split, without a thought––look, Ma, no brain cells!–– reshelve any and all books in your working library. Institutional libraries have catalogs you can consult and usually affix a sticker with the catalog number on each book’s spine, but for you, with your writer’s working library, this is probably going to be too fussy a process. And anyway you don’t want to be sticking anything on a rare or first edition book unless it has a mylar cover, in which case, you could put the sticker on the mylar cover. Mylar covers are nice… buying more is on my “to do ” list… but….
What works splendidly well for supersonic reshelving is a labeled bookmark. Yep. It’s this simple.
(9) To label each bookmark, get a typewriter because, for all the many other good reasons to use a typewriter, you can quickly type up legible labels on your bookmarks.
(=You can stop laughing now=)
Trying to make labels for bookmarks using a wordprocessing program and printer will give you a dumptruck of a headache. I used to be a fan of labelers such as the Brother Labeler. No more. Batteries, replacement cartridges… fooey. Yes, using your own handwriting may be the easiest of the peasiest, but it will slow you down when you are trying to reshelve books because the eye groks machine-written words so much faster.
Get the typewriter! A workhorse if you can, such as a refurbished Swiss-made Hermes 3000 from the 1960s-1970s.
No battery, no click-bait, no wifi! No need for any Freedom app, either. (And ecological. Um, my little tree huggers, have you ever actually seen a server farm? Or where and how they mine the stuff to make batteries?)
(1o) To make the bookmarks, use paper strong enough for the bookmark to always stand straight. I cut up left over or ready-to recycle file-folders for this purpose.
(11) To identify each working library (should you have more than one) place a sticker or stamp on each bookmark.
The sticker reads “C.M. Mayo’s Texas Bibliotek.” Make your own at www.moo.com.
(12) Another advantage of these plain paper bookmarks is that you can easily change them. Just cut off the top and type in the new label! As you delve deeper into researching and writing your book, you will undoubtedly find it convenient to both add to and reconfigure the categories in your working library, and perhaps several times.
(13) Further consideration: While many book collectors write their name in the book or paste in a book plate, I stopped doing this several years ago because I found this made it more difficult for me to let go of books that, after all, I wanted to declutter. I might change my mind about this. A custom-made ex-libris has always seemed to me a lovely idea. It’s in my Filofax for my old age when, maybe, I live in a house the size of an aircraft hangar.
(14) Cataloging? Nah. Even with a wall or six or seven or ten filled from floor to ceiling with books you are still far from operating at the scale of an institutional library. A catalog, whether low-tech or high-tech, will take too much time to figure out and maintain (ugh, more glitch-ridden software updates). Ignore anyone who tries to sell you library cataloguing software. Seriously, trying to do it digitally in some-fangled DIY way may also end up proving more trouble for you than it’s worth. (… cough, cough… ) With adequate bookshelf space (see tip #3, above) and meaningful categories with BIG, RIDICULOUSLY EASY-TO-READ labels (see tip #7, above) you can grok your whole enchilada at a glance, or two.
However, it may make sense to catalog the books when you get to your long-term plan (see point 16 below).
(15) Ignore ignorant people who tut-tut that you should declutter your books. Have they ever tried to write a book? No, they have not. Smile sweetly as you shoot them eye-daggers.
(16) Make a long-term plan for your books because obviously, at some point, perhaps when you move into smaller digs for one reason or another, or you die, they have to go. If you are incapacitated or dead, these working libraries may prove a heavy burden for your family, literally, figuratively, and financially. Chances are your family members won’t have a clue what to do with them, nor the time, and possibly, alas, they may not even care. I aim to write more on this sticky wicket of a subject later; for now, I point you to a fantastic resource, the Brattlecast podcast #57 on “Shelf Preservation” from the Brattle Book Shop.
One of the special treasures in my Texas Bibliothek is Cloyd I. Brown’s Black Warrior Chiefs.
Tipped inside my copy of “Black Warrior Chiefs” I found this letter from the late author (I blocked the name of the recipient to protect his privacy). Hmm, he says he has several hundred unsold copies… Only a very few show up for sale online as of 2019.
What has been your experience with your working libraries? Do you have any tips to share?
Ring-a-ling to Dr. Jung! I happened to get my hands on Turner’s memoir just before a trip to Paris in which, not having heard of his book, I had planned to visit St. Sulpice and so, by happenstance, on the very day I finished the book, which concludes in St. Sulpice, there I was, looking at the very same Eugène Delacroix murals. That was wiggy.
I regret that I do not have the time this week to give In the Land of the Temple Caves the thoughtful review it deserves. Suffice to say, it came out over a decade ago, and I am astonished that I had not heard of it earlier. It deserves to be considered a classic of American, and indeed English language, literary travel memoir.
August 2019 finds me on vacation. Nonetheless, each Monday this month I will be offering posts from the archive (as usual, look for a workshop post on the second Monday, Q & A with a fellow writer on the fourth Monday).
Q & A WITH SHELLEY ARMITAGE ON WALKING THE LLANO
Originally posted on Madam Mayo blog August 21, 2016
The week before last, I posted a brief but glowing note about Shelley Armitage’sWalking the Llano: A Texas Memoir of Place. This week I am delighted to share with you the author’s answers to my questions about her lyrical and illuminating memoir of growing up in and later returning to explore the area around Vega, Texas. Vega sits on the Llano Estacado about half way between the eastern New Mexico / Texas border and the Texas Panhandle city of Amarillo. [Click here to see Vega, Texas on the map.]
Walking the Llano by Shelley Armitage
As you will see, some of my questions are with my students in mind (I teach literary travel writing and creative nonfiction), while others are apropos of my abiding interest in Texas (my own work-in-progress is on Far West Texas— next door, as it were, to the Llano Estacado). Whether you are interested in writing travel and personal memoir or learning about this unique yet little known place, I think you will find what Shelley Armitage has to say at once fascinating and informative.
C.M. MAYO: You have had a very distinguished career as an academic. What prompted you to switch to writing in this more literary and personal genre?
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: I haven’t really switched but shifted my focus. I’ve tried in all my previous books to write well and evocatively and they all required research and imagination as a foundation. I never believed that scholarly writing couldn’t be readable, even possess literary qualities. But it’s true that because I was an academic I was always steered away from personal/creative writing, something I wanted to do from a young age on.
As I mention in the book, an elementary school friend and I wrote a novel together, a kind of mystery using local characters. When I was young I also admired the writing in National Geographicthough I had no idea how to prepare myself to write such. Now as a retiree, I have time (though shortened!!) to explore what I’ve always yearned to do, though I still struggle to write things that are personal; I am more comfortable as a participant/observer.
C.M. MAYO: In your acknowledgements you mention the Taos Writers Conference and the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico “where the book found a second life.” Can you talk about Taos and the book’s evolution?
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: Taos is a special place in terms of environment and history–and many other things. So being in Taos (high desert, mountains, verdant valley) combined with focus on writing was special. I was fortunate to study with BK Loren, a novelist and essayist, at the writers’ conference. She gave me permission, through her suggestions and assignments–though not related to the memoir– to work with narrative in fresh ways.
I came to think about time in terms of what memory does with it, not something chronological. I spent lots of time in the Taos area hiking, just exploring the art scene, talking with other artists (particularly at the Wurlitzer Foundation). I’ve always found hanging out with other creative people, not writers, to be very stimulating and fun. Ditto looking at art, attending musical events, etc.
At the Wurlitzer I was able to get a rough draft. A couple of years later when I studied with BK, I went home and started again.
C.M. MAYO: Which writers and works would you say have most influenced you in writing Walking the Llano? You mention Southwest poet Peggy Pond Church and Southwest writer Mary Austin, as well as contemporary writers, including Rudolfo Anaya, Patricia Hampl, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Barry Lopez’s writers retreat. Can you talk about some of these influences?
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: As a scholar I worked with the writings of both Austin and Church. I was Church’s literary editor, worked with her until her death, and helped get her books published posthumously.
Austin I knew from research I’ve done on women in the West, once (and maybe still) an incredibly under-researched and represented woman of Western writing and history.
Both women were extremely talented and independent but also faced assumptions about women’s “place” at the time and credibility as writers. Austin did claim the tag feminist, though Church denied it. I think I saw in their talent and their battles something of myself. After all, when I received my Ph.D in 1983, someone in the English Department actually asked me if I intended to get a job with it.
The same perhaps ironically is true for Silko and Anaya, both writers whom I’ve taught with great enthusiasm and deep appreciation, both ground-breaking writers in a time when writers of color had a difficult time getting published. I don’t mean to politicize their work but simply to point out their contribution to establishing a canon of work not available for my generation when we were students.
Rudy also writes about the llano and Leslie will forever be influential for writing Ceremony and most recently her memoir.
Patricia Hampl I’ve never met, unfortunately, but her memoirs are among the best in the genre, in my opinion. She is a seamless writer, moving among time periods, places, memories. A beautiful storyteller.
And Barry Lopez who led a writer’s retreat, the first I ever attended, is a well-known “nature” writer. I like best his short stories which I’ve also written about. Though I am writing creative nonfiction, each of these writers has impressed me through their use of so-called fictional elements. That can be the beauty of nonfiction. These elements can make a memoir sing.
C.M. MAYO: Do you have any favorite literary travel / creative nonfiction books / writers?
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: I really don’t have any favorites. I read lots of contemporary fiction (much of it immigrant writers or international writers in translation) and am drawn to books like Sally Mann’s recent autobiography in which she uses photographs.
I’ve written a lot on photography and find thinking about photos as connected to creating memorable but subtle images in writing. As a critic I’ve written some essays speculating on how photography connects with story, such as one on the photographs of Eudora Welty, called “The Eye and the Story.”
C.M. MAYO: Any favorite Texan books / writers?
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: I really haven’t kept up with “Texas” writers as such. I don’t think about writers in this category. Frankly, I tried to talk University of Oklahoma Press out of using the word Texas in my subtitle of Walking. For me, the book was about a geographic area, not a state.
I often don’t think of myself being in a state when I am in Texas but rather in a place which may or may not have commonalities with other places. That said, I did long ago admire the Texas book, Say Goodbye to a River, also the work of Elmer Kelton as a western writer who was a sage observer of the south plains, and occasionally the work of writers for Texas Monthly.
C.M. MAYO: Not many people outside of Texas have heard of the Llano Estacado, or Staked Plains, and yet it is an area bigger than New England and of considerable historical and ecological importance. Why do you think that is? (And how do the people who live there pronounce Llano Estacado?)
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: Sad to say, many Texans neither know the area nor how to pronounce it!!! It is Spanish, so llano is yano, with a soft “a,” and estacado, just as it’s spelled. I think most contemporary folk do not know much about geography, either in the present or historically.
I’ve found people who know most about the llano have spent time living within it (or on it?); cowboys, ranchers, local historians, wildlife biologists, etc. The llano suffers the same fate as most of the southwest except for the popularized places like Santa Fe: it’s rural, not sublime (except in some of our eyes), and appears boring unless one can get off the main highways.
That’s actually not true if you are a lover of big skies and boundless horizons. It can appear inconsequential if identifying everything according to urban human life is most important.
And yes, most pronounce it lano.
C.M. MAYO:West Texas, which includes the Llano Estacado and the Far West Texas city of El Paso, where you lived for some years, is very different from the rest of Texas. In a sentence or two, what in your experience are the most substantial differences?
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: In one sense the areas are like ethnic and cultural islands, separated from so-called mainstream Texas both in economics and history. In another sense, in regard to El Paso, there is the everlasting influence of Mexico and Central America.
There’s also not the same commercial influences overall, that is, of the kind of characteristics Larry McMurtry might have spoofed. In the west of Texas we are mostly closer to other countries and state capitols than Austin.
To drive from El Paso to Austin would take 8 hours 29 minutes
To drive from Austin to Vega, Texas would take about 8 hours.
C.M. MAYO: For someone who knows nothing about Texas, but seeks understanding, which would be the top three books you would recommend?
C.M. MAYO: One of the things I especially appreciated about Walking the Llano is your eye for the detail of the deep past– rock art, arrowheads, potsherds, some many thousands of years old, and how earlier peoples inhabited the landscape not as square feet measured off with a fence, but as a shape. And the Llano Estacado is shaped by draws– what people elsewhere would call a creek bed or an arroyo. The draw you focus on is the Middle Alamosa Creek. Having written this book, your eye for the shape of a landscape– any landscape– must be far sharper. Am I right? If so, can you give an example?
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: Thanks for mentioning this! I have always liked Mary Austin’s comment that to appreciate the desert, you needed “a noticing eye.” The draws that become the Middle Alamosa Creek are my so-called backyard and yet I was amazed to discover what had transpired there. Spending time, listening, looking, being open to discovery I think is important wherever we find ourselves.
Right now I am in the Chihuahuan desert and very interested in learning more and perhaps writing about it. In Poland, I spent lots of time walking and looking, going into the forests that bordered Warsaw.
In fact, I think being conscious of shapes, as you say, rather than man-made or distinguished borders can awaken us to a different kind of understanding of how we are part of these environments. It’s a kind of personal ecology.
I like to look without language, by which I mean a kind of openness before we name something and thus categorize it.
C.M. MAYO:Popular imagery of Texas often differs immensely from reality, and yet at the same time, in so many instances, stereotypes and reality intertwine, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes ironically, perhaps playfully. For example, the other day I happened to visit the website of the vast La Escalera Ranch and, as I recall, one of the videos was playing the theme song to the movie “Giant.” In Walking the Llano you mention that, a child growing up in Vega, you were “steeped in the cowboy films of my childhood…Dale Evans… Roy Rogers… Then there were Gene Autry and The Lone Ranger, which led to records, sheet music, and magic rings.” Later you write, “In elementary school, I kept writing about the other Wests, as if they were more important than my own.” In this regard, what do you see happening for children in Vega, Texas, and similar places, now?
SHELLEY ARMITAGE: I’d like to think the kids in Vega could revel in the mixture of fact and fantasy in a state and on a llano fairly amazing! And I was hopeful when I had the chance to speak to a 4th grade class at Vega schools about my book. I used a Power Point of some of the photos in the book, but of course in much more gorgeous color.
They responded with great questions about the flora and fauna mainly, but when I asked if any of them realized this canyon country existed just north of town, only one little boy said “Ma’am, I live out on one of those ranches.” Everyone else seemed clueless, happy to connect the area with something else they knew, but not familiar with it themselves.
I think their world is more daily defined as Star Wars or Frozen and of course through that little object influencing us all, the cell phone. Viewing the world through frames, television, computer screens, cell phones is no doubt more defining than the big star their parents put on their houses.
Do they consider themselves “Texans”? I would guess yes, when the situation calls for it. Still when I was a kid I think I was more aware of being a westerner than a Texan.
August 2019 finds me on vacation. Nonetheless, each Monday this month I will be offering posts from the archive (as usual, look for a workshop post on the second Monday, Q & A with a fellow writer on the fourth Monday).
On the Trail of the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos
Originally posted on Madam Mayo blog November 3, 2015
Remote as they are, the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of the US-Mexico border have a strangely magnetic pull. That may sound like a wild assertion, but the evidence comprises over 200 shamanistic rock art sites, many of them thousands of years old, and the fact that dozens of rock art enthusiasts, including myself, find themselves returning again and again.
It was on a meltingly hot August day in 2014 that I made my first foray into the canyonlands for the Rock Art Foundation’s visit to Meyers Spring. A speck of an oasis tucked into the vast desert just west of the Pecos, Meyers Spring’s limestone overhang is vibrant with petrographs, both ancient, but very faded, and of Plains Indians works including a brave on a galloping horse, an eagle, a sun, and what appears to be a missionary and his church.
I took home the realization that with Meyers Spring I had taken one nibble of the richest of banquets. In addition the rock art of the Plains Indians—Apaches and Comanches— of historic times, the Lower Pecos Canyonlands are filled with prehistoric art, principally Pecos River, Red Linear, and Red Monochrome. Of the three, Pecos River is comparable to the best known Paleolithic rock in the world, the caves of Lascaux in France.
I would have to return to the canyonlands— alas for my book’s time and travel budget! Not that the Rock Art Foundation charges more than a nominal sum for its tours. The individual tour to Meyers Spring, which lasted four hours, cost a mere 30 dollars. Everyone involved, including the guides, works for the foundation for free.
By December of 2014 I was back for another Rock Art Foundation tour, this one down into Eagle Nest Canyon in Langtry. Apart from rock shelters with their ancient and badly faded petrographs, cooking debris, tools, and even a mummy of a woman who—scientists have determined— died of chagas, Eagle Nest Canyon is the site of Bonfire Shelter, the earliest and the second biggest bison jump, after Canada’s Head Bashed-In, in North America. Some 10,000 years ago hunters drove hundreds of prehistoric bison—larger than today’s bison—over the cliff. And in 800 BC, hunters drove a herd of modern bison over the same cliff, so many animals that the decaying mass of unbutchered and partially butchered carcasses spontaneously combusted. In deeper layers dated to 14,000 years, archaeologists have found bones of camel, horse, and mammoth, among other megafauna of the Pleistocene.
DESCENT INTO EAGLE NEST CANYON, DECEMBER 2014
Then in the spring of this year I visited the Lewis Canyon site on the shore of the Pecos, with its mesmerizing petroglyphs of bear claws, atlatls, and stars, and, behind a morass of boulders, an agate mirror of a tinaja encircled by petrographs.
LEWIS CANYON PETROGLYPHS, MAY 2015
LEWIS CANYON TINAJA SITE WITH PETROGRAPHS, BY THE PECOS RIVER, MAY 2015
Not all but most of the Lower Pecos Canyonland rock art sites— and this includes Meyers Spring, Eagle Nest Canyon and Lewis Canyon— are on private property. Furthermore, visits to Meyers Spring, Lewis Canyon, and many other sites require a high clearance vehicle for a tire-whumping, paint-scraping, bone-jarring drive in. So I was beginning to appreciate the magnitude of the privilege it is to visit these sites. At Lewis Canyon, as I stood on the limestone shore of the sparkling Pecos in utter silence but for the crunch of the boots of my fellow tour members, I learned that less than 50 people a year venture to float down its length.
This October I once again traveled to the Lower Pecos, this time for the Rock Art Foundation’s annual three day Rock Art Rendezvous. Offered this year were the three sites I had already visited, plus a delectable menu that included White Shaman, Fate Bell, and—not for those prone to vertigo— Curly Tail Panther.
WHITE SHAMAN, OCTOBER 2015
Just off Highway 90 near its Pecos River crossing, the White Shaman Preserve serves as the headquarters for Rock Art Rendezvous. After a winding drive on dirt road, I parked near the shade structure. From there, the White Shaman rock art site was a brief but rugged hike down one side of cactus-studded canyon, then up the other. I was glad to have brought a hiking pole and leather gloves. No knee surgery on the horizon, either. When I arrived at White Shaman, named after the central luminous figure, the sun was low in the sky, bathing the shelter’s wall and its reddish drawings in gold and turning the Pecos, far below, where an occasional truck droned by, deep silver.
The next morning, at the Rock Art Foundation’s tour of the Shumla Archaeological and Research Center in nearby Comstock, I heard Dr. Carolyn Boyd’s stunning talk about her book, The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos, which is forthcoming in 2016 from University of Texas Press. Dr. Boyd, whose work is based on 25 years of archaeological research in the Lower Pecos and a meticulous study of Mexican anthropology, argues that White Shaman, which is many thousands of years old, may represent the oldest known creation story in North America.
FATE BELL, OCTOBER 2015
From the White Shaman Preserve, Fate Bell is a few minutes down highway 90 in Seminole Canyon State Park. More than any other site, this shelter in the cake-like layers of the limestone walls of a canyon, reminded me of the cave art I had seen in Baja California’s Sierra de San Francisco. Inhabited on and off for some 9,000 years, Fate Bell is the largest site in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. It has various styles of petrograph, including a spectacular group of anthropomorphs with what appear to be antlers and wings.
CURLY TAIL PANTHER, OCTOBER 2015
Curly Tail Panther is a scoop of a cave about the size of a walk-in closet, but as if for Superman to whoosh in, set dizzyingly high on a cliff-side overlooking the Devils River. The back wall has an array of petrographs: red mountain lion, anthropomorphic figures, and geometric designs. The only access to Curly Tail Panther is by way of a narrow ledge. Drop your hiking pole or your sunglasses from here, and you won’t see them again. You might lose a character, too—in the opening of Mary Black’s novel, Peyote Fire, a shaman stumbles to his death from this very ledge. The Rock Art Foundation’s website made it clear, Curly Tail Panther is not for anyone who has a fear of heights. But who doesn’t? My strategy was to take a deep breath and, like the running shoes ad says, Just do it.
August 2019 finds me on vacation. Nonetheless, each Monday this month I will be offering posts from the archive (as usual, look for a workshop post on the second Monday, Q & A with a fellow writer on the fourth Monday).
12 Tips for Summer Day Hiking in the Desert (How to Stay Cool and Avoid Actinic Keratosis, Blood, and Killer Bees)
C’est moi on (whew) August 30, 2014 at Meyers Spring, an important rock art site of the Lower Pecos, on the US-Mexico border near Dryden, Texas. As you can see, in my left hand, I am carrying a white umbrella. So I didn’t need the hat. And that black backpack wasn’t the best idea. I also should have worn a lightweight bandana. Oh, and more sunblock. Always more sunblock. The long-sleeved white shirt and hiking trousers were both excellent choices, however.
Just returned from hiking with the Rock Art Foundation in to see the spectacular rock art at Meyers Spring in the Lower Pecos of Far West Texas (yes, there will be a podcast in the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project, in which I exploring the Big Bend & Beyond in 24 podcasts. More about that anon).
I got a few things very right on this trip and a few things, well, I could have done better. Herewith, for you, and for me– this will serve as my own checklist for my next rock art foray– 12 tips for summer day hiking in the desert:
1. Don’t just bring water, lots of water, more water than you think you can possibly drink– bring it cold and keep it cold.
Everest Lumbar Waistpack
Of course, not drinking enough water can be seriously dangerous. But warm water when it’s this hot is just bleh–and if you’re carrying a plain old plastic water bottle in your hand, out here in Texas, boy howdy… (Last year, I hiked this way over Burro Mesa in the Big Bend National Park. Six hours. Head-slapper.)
The thing is, you don’t just want to hydrate; you want to keep your core from overheating, so every swig of cold water really helps. Before heading out, fill your insulated water bottles with lots of ice. In your car, keep them in an ice chest or, if that’s not possible, wrapped in a blanket, or whatever’s handy, until the moment you have to take them out. I did this for the first time, and wow, what a difference.
Yes, sun block stinks and feels gross, but if you’re like me — a descendant of those who once roamed the foggy bogs of the British Isles– if you don’t, you may end up helping your dermatologist buy his ski condo. And no, he probably won’t invite you.
> Watch this fun video, “How the Sun Sees You.”
> For those with actinic keratosis (that’s the fancy term for seriously sun-damaged skin), try Perrin’s Blend. If that doesn’t work, off to the dermatologist you must go.
This protects you against the sun, keeps you cool (the white reflects the sun), protects you from bug bites and scratches. Light clothes always beat dark! Flip the collar up to protect your neck. About scratches: the desert tends to be filled with cactus and thorny scrub.
4. Knot a light-colored scarf around your throat.
This protects you from the sun. A bandana works fine. Mike Clelland (more about the guru in a moment) suggests cutting the bandana in two, so it’s lighter. Porquoi pas? But I didn’t do this. Alas. Bring on the Perrin’s.
5. Wear tough but lightweight trekking trousers.
For the same reason you want to wear the long-sleeved white shirt: trousers protect your body parts, in this case, calves and knees, from sun, scratches, and bugs. Do not wear shorts unless, for some reason you probably should be working on with your psychiatrist, you don’t mind scarring and blood.
And do not wear jeans. I repeat, do not wear jeans.
6. Keep your pack as light as possible, in both senses.
Hey, you’ve not only gotta stay cool, but you’ve gotta hump all that water!
A few specifics:
> Use a lightweight pack and carry it on your hips, rather than the flat of your back (see photo of lumbar waist pack above). This helps keep your back cool. But I don’t speak from experience on this one: I’m going to try this for next time.
> Carry lightweight insulated water bottles.
> Ditch the hat and ditch the heavy hiking boots (more about that below. There are, of course, other places and times when a hat and hiking books would be advisable).
> Skip the camera or use a lightweight camera (I use my iPhone).
> Eat a light breakfast and bring only a little food– since this is a day hike, you can eat a big dinner when you get back. But you will need sustenance on the trail. I recommend date, fruit and nut bars– love those Lara bars— that is, food that is high in energy but won’t spoil in the heat, and that doesn’t require any dishes or utensils. Don’t bring anything with chocolate in it. (I brought a Snicker’s bar. Ooey… gooey.)
>Bring a white plastic grocery bag and use it to cover your pack. Two advantages: the white reflects sunlight and keeps it cooler than, say, an unprotected black or other dark-colored pack, and, in case of rain, will help keep it dry.
> Highly recommended: Mike Clelland’s Ultralight Backpackin’Tips, a superb resource for keeping it lighter-than-light, yet making sure to bring what you need for comfort and safety.
> And be sure to visit Clelland’s blog for many helpful videos and more.
7. Watch out for killer bees!
Africanized bees have arrived in some desert locales north of the Mexican border. What do bees want? Sweet things and water. So don’t carry around open cans or bottles or suddenly pick up open cans or bottles– bees may smell the water or soft drink from afar, crawl inside, and then, if you do anything they don’t like, such as pick up that can, they will go bezerk, and call in their buddies who will also go bezerk and might sting you hundreds of times.
No kidding, people and animals have died from killer bee attacks.
So be especially careful around any blooming plants where bees might be feeding. Ditto any open water, such as a tank, spring, or any puddle. And whatever you do, if you see a hive, don’t go anywhere near it. Normal honey bees, however, are not a problem. Unless you have a severe allergy, a few stings might actually be good for you! (Read more about bee sting therapy on the Apitherapy Association webpage). Your real problem is, it’s hard to tell the killers from the honeys until they attack.
8. Wear gaiters.
I followed Mike Clelland’s tip and bought a pair from Dirty Girl Gaiters (they’re for guys, too). They weigh about as much as a feather, they’re easy to attach to your lace-up running shoes and indeed, they keep the dust out.
Their biggest advantage is that you can therefore avoid wearing those ankle-high and heavy hiking boots. You’ll exert yourself less and therefore, on the margin, stay cooler. (I’ll admit however that on this last hike, a loose ball of bubble-gum cactus went right through the gaiters and stabbed me in the ankle. Oh well!)
www.dirtygirlgaiters.com
9. Forget the hat and trekking pole; use a white umbrella.
Really! Who cares if it looks nerdy? It’s nerdier to pass out from heat stroke or end up looking like a tomato. So let those guys in jeans, black T-shirts, and baseball caps cackle all they want, as they sweat & burn & chafe.
The white umbrella protects you from sun and the rain and– crucially– helps keep your head cool. A hat will trap heat on your head– not what you want out here. Plus, in a tight spot, you can also use the umbrella as a trekking pole. Added bonus: scares mountain lions. I would think. Don’t take my word for that, however. Also good, once folded, to toss a rattlesnake or tarantula. Not that I’ve had to do that, either. Just saying.
In shade, if possible. (Oh, right, you have your umbrella!)
12. In your car, leave a reflector open on your car’s dashboard and another over your stash of cold water.
If you’ve had to park outside, after a day of baking out in the desert, it’s going to be an authentic Finnish sauna in there– unless you use a dashboard reflector. In which case it will still be a chocolate-bar-melting warm, but infinitely more bearable. I picked up my pair of dashboard reflectors at Walgreen’s for $3.99 each and I was glad indeed that I did. Certainly, you could also just use ye olde roll of aluminum foil.
Say “Texas” and the images that pop into most people’s minds do not include literary figures and their oeuvres. But trust me, as one who has been working on a book about Far West for more years than I care to count, Texas has one helluva literary culture, a long-standing and prodigious production, yea verily flowing out as if by pumpjacks, and if not all, a head-swirling amount of it is finer than fine, and there are legions of readers who sincerely appreciate and celebrate it, as do I. Know this: Lonn Taylor and Don Graham, both of whom just passed away, were giants among Texas literati.
LONN TAYLOR(1940-2019)
From my Texas Bibliothek: A selection of many treasured works by Lonn Taylor.
Lonn Taylor was an historian who wrote about many things including cowboys and the American flag and every nook and cranny and corner of Texas, so it seemed, always with erudition, elegance, and heart. I had some correspondence with Taylor before I met him in Fort Davis– to which town in Far West Texas he had retired with his wife Dedie after a career as an historian at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. In his book-cave of an office below the copper-red shadow Sleeping Lion Mountain, I interviewed him for the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project (listen in any time). I was at once charmed, grateful, and mightily enlightened about multitudinous things Texan. Later I saw him and Dedie at the annual Center for Big Bend Studies conference, and over the next few years, many an email zinged back and forth. I am but one of many people who counted Lonn as a personal friend and a mentor, and I am saddened by his loss more than I can say.
Taylor’s works are a cultural treasure, a monument. And he was wondrously productive. However did he manage to write all these books and his Rambling Boy column for the Big Bend Sentinel, and keep up with what surely must have been a daily hurricane of email? I was just about to email him a congratulations on his latest book, Turning the Pages of Texas, when I got the news from Carmen Tafolla, President of the Texas Institute of Letters, that in an instant– a stroke on June 26– he was gone from this world.
Also from my Texas Bibliothek: Some essential works by film historian and literary critic Don Graham.
Just days before Lonn’s passing, on June 22, Don Graham also died of a stroke. I never met Graham, the renowned J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of English at the University of Texas Austin, but I thought I would very soon, for I had been emailing with him about arranging a podcast interview on the latest of his many splendid books about Texas: Giant: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Edna Ferber and the Making of a Legendary American Film.
I do not think it is possible to comprehend Texas as a cultural and political entity without taking into account the imaginal influences (and sometimes very weird echos) of fiction and films– and, in particular, the film based on Edna Ferber’s best-selling novel, Giant. And no one wrote about all of that, and Giant, more lucidly than Don Graham.
Nope, that is not Francisco I. Madero, pictured right, but J.J. Kilpatrick, subject of Lonn Taylor’s fascinating article in this same issue of the Journal of Big Bend Studies, vol. 29, 2017.
For those rusty on their borderlands and Mexican history, Francisco I. Madero was the leader of Mexico’s 1910 revolution– the first major revolution of the 20th century– and President of Mexico from 1911-1913. This was not only a transformative episode for Mexico, but also for Texas.
My book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual, came out in 2014 (also in Spanish, translated by Agustín Cadena as Odisea metafísica hacia la Revolución Mexicana, Francisco I. Madero y su libro secreto, Manual espírita, from Literal Publishing.) So far so good: it has been cited already in a number of scholarly works about Madero and the Revolution.
Yes indeed, Metaphysical Odyssey is a peculiar title. In the article, I explain why I chose it and why, much as readers groan about it, I would not change it.
> Read the paper here. (I had posted an earlier only partially edited PDF at this link; in case you’ve already seen it, as of today, June 17, 2019, it has been updated.) And you can order a copy of the actual printed article with all photos, and of the complete issue from the Center for Big Bend Studies here.
A few of the photos, not in the PDF:
The first and definitively not secret book. This shows my copy of a third edition of the book that launched the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero’s La sucesión presidencial en 1910 [The Presidential Succession in 1910]. This third edition is from 1911. The first edition is dated 1908 and went into circulation in early 1909. Photo: C.M. Mayo.Advertisement in Helios, October 1911, for the just-published Manual espírita by Bhîma, that is, Francisco I. Madero. Photo: C.M. Mayo.The title page of my copy of a first edition of Madero’s Manual espírita of 1911. Note that it is stamped “Cortesia del Gral. Ramón F. Iturbe [Courtesy of General Ramón F. Iturbe]. Photo: C.M. Mayo.Frontispiece and title page of my copy of the 1906 Spanish translation of Léon Denis’ Aprés le mort, translated from the French by Ignacio Mariscal and sponsored by Francisco Madero and his son, Francisco I. Madero. Photograph by C.M. Mayo.My copy of the cover of the rare circa 1924 Barcelona edition of Manual espírita. Photo by C.M. Mayo.
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SPECIAL NOTE
Undoubtedly scholars, novelists and screenwriters will be producing works about Francisco I. Madero and the Mexican Revolution until Kingdom Come (or, perhaps I should say, the Reemergence of Atlantis); because I am a literary writer who roams over a wide variety of subjects, I do not intend to keep up with them all. That said, I regret that I could not cite in my article the book by Mexican historian Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, Dos Revolucionarios a la sombra de Madero: A historia de Solón Argüello Escobar y Rogelio Fernández Güell(Mexico: Ariel, 2016), which I recommend as crucial for any bibliography on Madero, his Spiritism, the history of metaphysical religion in Mexico, and the Mexican Revolution itself. Gutíerrez Müller’s work should also be of special interest for anyone interested in current Mexican politics, for the prologue is by the author’s husband, now president of Mexico, Andrés López Obrador. This video on his YouTube channel shows the president and first lady discussing her book.
