Trying out my best Phillip Marlowe for Stan.

Marfa Texas, you’d call it next door to nowhere if you weren’t afraid of offending the folks from Nowhere. In Marfa the joke is, “at least it isn’t Anywhere.” Sunrise at the Riata Motel makes you think that you just might be in Heaven.

The Mississippi is to a westerner what the Mason Dixon Line is to a Southerner. It’s where things change. But when you head west from Auburn things don’t really change until you pass San Antonio. You can see the sky again. It hits the ground at the horizon out there where it’s supposed to be and keeps on going. Its not one of those low skies of Alabama, although those taste good. It’s higher, and tighter and it sounds like a passing freight train or wind through the scrub oaks.

Jack’s been here of course. It’s a courthouse square town. The urban form is unashamedly concise. The bookstore / wine bar / coffee house has books that are hard to find in New York and the boys next door who started the public radio station had been up for several days. Willie Nelson was in town for a valentines day benefit concert and the boys didn’t seem surprised that we had seen the article in the Sunday Times. I would recommend the Pizza Foundation, just down the street anytime. We walked from there a few blocks down San Antonio street to the old Thunderbird restaurant. Paul Zorr would love the goggi (plural for goggi). In the old warehouse like dinning room was a slick looking crew filming a rock video. The band, the Secret Machines are from the city, New York City. Liz being the City gal that she is walked right in. Any road trip is better off with a New York City girl on board. The band said that they had a secret connection with Marfa. We didn’t mention that we did too.