Monday, November 14, 2016

The Mexican Revolution at the Center for Big Bend Studies Annual Conference at Sul Ross State University


[[ WASHI & ULI, stop those suitcases! ]]
I have been visiting Alpine, Texas for the annual Center for Big Bend Studies conference to talk about Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. Check out the conference, which is rich with archaeology and history and more on the Big Bend but also the wider region of West Texas and encompassing parts of the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila, here



UPDATE November 2017: The PDF of my paper, "The Secret Book by Francisco I. Madero, Leader of the 1910 Mexican Revolution," which is an expanded transcript of my talk about my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual, can be downloaded here.  See also a brief video about four exceedingly rare books. In November 2017 I will be presenting "John Bigelow, Jr.: Officer with the Tenth Cavalry, Military Intellectual, and Nexus Between West and East." The link for that paper will be posted soon.


The keynote speaker was my amiga, M.M. McAllen, author of the extraordinary narrative history Maximilian and Carlota: Europe's Last Empire in Mexico. (Listen to our extra-bacon-on-top-crunchy conversation about the whole enchilada of Mexico's Second Empire / French Intervention for my "Conversations with Other Writers" occasional podcast series here.)

Funny, my Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution has zip to do with the Big Bend of Far West Texas. But the Mexican Revolution is a topic of perennial interest in this region; many battles and other incidents of the Mexican Revolution took place along the border in the Big Bend region, especially in the years after President Francisco I. Madero's assassination in 1913. 

UPDATE: Biographers International January 2017 Newsletter Q & A with Yours Truly about Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. Read it here.

Moreover, it so happens that I am at work on a book about Far West Texas. It won't be a book of straight history, however, but an interweaving of personal narrative, history and reporting, and maybe the kitchen sink, too, in the style of my book about Mexico's Baja California peninsula, Miraculous Air. 

Herewith a batch of posts on this blog about the Big Bend:









Plus you will find 20 of a projected 24 "Marfa Mondays" podcasts, mainly interviews, posted to date, including Charles Angell in the Big Bend; Lisa Fernandes at the Pecos Rodeo; Mary Baxter on Painting the Big Bend; Avram Dumitrescu, and Artist in Alpine; and Cowboy Songs by Cowboys and an Interview with Michael Stevens. >>> Listen in anytime.

More anon.

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.