Chapter 3

Dress Her in Indigo is the 11th installment in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The link there explains much better why this is such a great series. If you don't feel like reading all that, suffice it to say, this character is so loved by someone that the slip F-18 Bahia Mar in Florida where his fictional houseboat was located was rented out in perpetuity. No one was allowed to berth there. And there was a plaque set there. Sadly, it seems this has been demolished. This page is photos of science fiction author Spider Robinson,scroll halfway down and you see him in a picture at F-18. This is fitting since it was Spider Robinson's books that got me into Travis McGee. His main character in the Time Travel series always raves about John D. Macdonald. It's hard not to get curious when one fictional character starts raving about another.

All of which outs me as a major geek.

Anyway. Dress Her in Indigo is one of his darkest books and takes place mostly in Oaxaca. It was my main source of info about Oaxaca. I was determined to visit all the major places mentioned in the book. But when I purchased another useful book, namely Lonely Planet Mexico, I saw that this was not going to be feasible without our own vehicle. We chose not to go that route, instead booking tours that took us to hsitorical sites. One of the two places I really regret not seeing is the Hotel Victoria.

This is the hotel where Meyer and Travis stayed. It's up the hill from Oaxaca proper, but its recommended that you not walk there, as the Cerro del Fortin is reputedly a haunt of bandits. We decided to avoid getting mugged.

The other place we missed is the ruins of Yagul. It's where the mystery of the book is solved and the whole climax of the book takes place there. There aren't any tours there. You can take a cab, but we ran out of time. This guy went and took great pictures that show pretty much what Travis describes in the action. Which is good since I've always had a hard time picturing what was going on.

Other than that, I think I hit the high points as described below. I think Oaxaca is more built up now then it was in 1969 when MacDonald wrote the book. Stuff he describes as rural seems more suburban now. All common habitations are cinderblock, not wood shacks.

Thus begins and ends my Travis McGee pilgrimage in Oaxaca. When there, I quickly got sucked into Lonely Planet and and the art and museums, so my posts after today will be about all that. For you fans of my blog and Travis (a.k.a. Mom) enjoy.

P.S. Mom says that Dress Her In Indigo is the best of the series. I have to agree. I love the character of Meyer and he really shines in this one. Bright Orange for the Shroud might be the other one. Unless it's Deadly Shade of Gold. Or The Empty Copper Sea. Or--ooh-- The Green Ripper. OK. I shut up now.

MPK

"So we came down into the valley of Oaxaca--pronounced wuh-Hock-ah--beginning the descent at the upper end of the valley, some twenty miles from the airfield. Green valley encircled by the old burned brown rounded hills. It is a plateau valley, five thousand feet high, in the Sierra Madre del Sur, and the Pacific is not far away." p.32

"One blue wall brought Meyer to a stop. Maybe it had been painted and patched fifty times. Layers had cracked, peeled, faded. It was all the shades of blue.
'Fix that with transparent epoxy,' he said, 'peel off a rectangle eight feet long and five feet wide, frame it in rough-cut cypress with a white stain, and take it to any decent gallery--'
'And somebody will tell you their little daughter could do better.'
'The creative act is in selecting which rectangle to frame. It is very damned beautiful, Travis' "
pg. 34-35

The Zocalo

The Zocalo. There was construction going on, but mostly it seemed to be in the direction of a run down little street where the banks and moneychangers are. Mostly repaving. There was repaving going on Calle Hidalgo, but it didn't look like anything was being "ruined". And there were tons of people there. We were there the week before 20 de Noviembre (ironically also the name of the street our hotel was on) which is a big celebration of independence. Which one, I'm not sure. But there were tons of cultural events going on, night and day.

My favorite was the night we walked out and caught the scarf dancers. I wish I'd taken a picture of this, but it seemed intrusive. There was a huge band playing great music, real toe tapping. The scarf dance is a flirty looking dance but the men and women never actually touch. The city boys watching the country girls sheepishly joined in and got a free dance lesson. It was great seeing the young townspeople gather around and be really excited about the traditional dances. That was my favorite thing about Oaxaca. Oaxacans are really proud of their culture and traditions. They're really eager to share it and talk about it.

The best part of the scarf dances was when the little kids started doing it. The boys were kind of embarrassed, but the little girls were totally into it. Watching 5 year olds work their hips like belly dancers is impressive. Later a grown guy joined the group of kids and the adults watching around them just roared with laughter when the littlest girl was partnered with the big man. It's kind of a dosey-do movement with the partners moving in for "air kisses". The adult would bend aaaalllllllllllll the way over so the little girl could air kiss around his head. You could see him trying not to giggle because the expression on the girl's face was so serious.

The costumes were really cool, especially the girls. Long print skirts and pretty embroidered overvests. Bright colored fabric braided into long-braids. The men wore cotton shirts and pants in a kind of buff color and a wide woven hat.

MPK

"So we went out of the sun heat into the cool shade of the gigantic trees of a splendid zocalo. It had its ornate circular bandstand in the middle, a criss-cross of wide walkways and a perimeter walk past gaudy riots of flowerbeds." p. 35

A close-up of the bandstand.

Marques del Valle

This deserves its own post. This is the hotel that Travis and Meyer keep coming back to in the book. It's almost its own character. In the story it is noted for its frosty Negro Modelo. I'm sad to report: to any future pilgrims in this weird quest, Marques del Valle does not serve Negro Modelo anymore. As a subsitute you can order Sol that comes light or dark. But they do freeze the mugs and it's very good after a day huffing around ruins. They also have the best bathrooms I've ever been to in a public place in Mexico. It's a very beautiful and upscale place. We ate there once--we decided to order Oaxacan food. Alex got a tlayuda and I got a mushroom empanada. Alex liked his, though it was huge. Mine was a little bland. I don't know if it's because of picky tourists who have come before, but it's really hard to find spicy food in the Centro Historico.

Also they don't do chips and salsa. For a snack roasted peanuts with chunks of roasted garlic and yummy sea salt and chilis with a slice of lime are the common offering. I ate a ton of these. They are so freaking tasty. I miss these like crazy.

The Marques Del Valle is the title Cortes gave himself. When he claimed Mexico for Spain, he liked Oaxaca (del Valle=of the valley) so much he gave it all to himself. Nice eh.

MPK

"And it was Meyer who spotted a little group on one of the diagonal paths, carrying purchases from the public market, walking towards the largest hotel that fronted on the zocalo, and old ornate stone and plaster structure with a sign proclaiming it as the Hotel Marques del Valle." -p. 35

"There was a long, narrow roofed porch across the front of it, a couple of steps up from sidewalk level. Fat cement columns supported arches that held up the overhanging bulk of the hotel. The porch was two tables wide and about thirty tables long..." p. 35

Chapter 11-

Here are my pictures of El Tule. I reference the full quote below (or in November archives) so I won't retype the whole thing again.

It's actually in a village. The book makes it sound like its off in the middle of nowhere. You go up the narrow village street that's crammed with shops and food stalls and then you pop into this plaza that dead ends the road. It's a gorgeous little park, with lots to see. I'll post more pictures later.

The guidebook says the tree type is ahuehuete, or a type of cypress. The name El Tule, is kind of a joke as el tule is water-reeds in Spanish. Oaxacans have a Python-esque sense of humor.

"It was not far from the highway, a hundred yards perhaps. It dwarfed the old church nearby."-p. 131

A close up of the trunk. Children volunteers go around the trunk with groups of visitors and recite the common images read into the trunks deformities. I think this one was "goblin heads".

This is the tree's "little brother". It's only 1000 years old.

A portion of the gardens that surround the park of the tree.

Vital stats for the tree. Dimensions are given in meters.

Some holy images from the inside of the church. I felt shy about taking pictures. As you can see, these are still active churches.

In back of altar at the El Tule church.

"We found an American student at the small museum. He was an archeology student working on the continuing excavation and restoration program at the Mitla ruins." p.132

Close up of the stone work in the Mitla ruins. You can see that the patterns are created by placing individual stones.

Sleep Paralysis and You.

Or rather, me. I don't know if any of my family or friends suffer from this. I get it off and on, for going on a couple of years now. Basically, your brain wakes up while your body stays asleep. When you sleep, your brain floods you with a chemical that keeps you immobile. This is so you don't physically act out your dreams. When you are sleeping, you don't notice this. But if your brain wakes up without your body...you do. You can't even force your eyelids open. And your brain is not exactly out of REM patterns as far as I can tell. The hallucinations are intense. The article gives a good overview of the general feeling.

I had an episode this morning. I notice I tend to get it around seasonal changes. Also, when I wake up at 4 am and compose myself for a "second sleep", I get raging sleep paralysis. Now that I know what causes it, it's not as scary. It's a little unsettling though. When I "woke" this morning I thought I heard the sound of someone turning pages very quickly sitting behind me. Usually I can shake the hallucinatory impressions, but that was a tough one. It sounded very real. Sometimes I hallucinate someone coming up the stairs towards the bedroom and that can be very scary.

Fortunately it's well documented on the internet, so I was able to find out what it was as soon as it started happening to me. I had a really frightening episode of it during an afternoon nap a few years ago. Alex was downstairs playing Neverwinter Nights, which is a Dungeons and Dragons type of game on the internet. It features a lot of supernatural beasties and there are weird sound effects that go with it. There's one sound that's like an electrical storm. I must have been hearing it upstairs during my nap...sometimes when sleeping my hearing becomes hyperacute.

Anyway. I hallucinated that I was being attacked by a giant electrical demon (with full sound effects) while being rendered powerless to defend myself. It really did feel like being possessed, so I can see why episodes like this led to some of our more colorful mythologies. When I woke up all the way (about 15-20 seconds into my "attack") I sat up and was like "WHAT THE CRAP!!!!" That was the worst one. No more afternoon naps for me, nosiree!

I'm going to post some more about Oaxaca soon. I'm almost done unpacking and out of the post vacation depression. The abrupt transition from paradise to "raining and dark night over Oakland airport while lady next to you describes scary flight she had once over Kennedy Airport and wouldn't shut up the whole time the plane was trying to land, etc..." was a letdown indeed. But I'm crocheting and stuff and watching good movies.

I got the extended version of "Fanny and Alexander" from Netflix a couple of weeks ago and sat down and watched all nearly 5 hours of it in one go. It is SO good and worth seeing. It's a great movie to watch for the holidays because the whole first scene is a wild Swedish Yule party. It's used as a device to introduce all the characters in this wild family called the Ekdahls so it goes on for a piece. I love it. Makes me glad to be alive. I'm thinking of buying it. It's like watching a masterpiece painting in film form. (I wonder what filmmakers say about paintings..."nice oil still!")

MPK

Oaxaca Part One

Ok. I took over 200 photos. Now that I am berthed in Los Angeles and looking through the massive file on our laptop, I'm a little overwhelmed. So, for now, I picked out a selection of my very favorite pictures in the city.

More later. A lot more.

MPK

Random Stuff

Some shots I've had in my camera forever. I'm cleaning off the chip for Oaxaca.

First: The shadow of a cat who decided to rest its tuchis on our skylight last week. The photo has a "great modern art" quality to it! #2 rythmn with cat butt

Next: a photo of the finished product of an incredibly tedious conceptual project I've been working on for years. I finally made myself finish it while I was working on the camera project.

Next: Photo of the towers of St. Elizabeth's Church on 34th off of E. 14th.

Next: Photo of Alex in a really inane pose in his new suit. He got it for my bro's wedding. He got it on one of the little hole in the wall clothing shops on E. 14th. I was initially sceptical, but the guy was really cool and fitted Alex out personally and picked out the shirt color and tie. He even tossed in the little pocket frou.

MPK

Pink Week Highlights

Pictured top: My piece
Next: a piece I really loved by a guy named Rob, who is a buddy of Eric and Gioia's
Next: Brian's
Next: Shalene's

The other pieces were really great too...it just got really crowded. Go see the show. It's up until the 20th.

MPK

Pink Week reception

Here are some candid shots of artists and supporters at the Pink Week reception at Cricket Engine Last night. Pictured first is the Impresaria of Pink herself, Gioia. Next photo, on the left is artist and husband of Gioia, Eric Wood. On the right is Andy Phares, who has been mentioned in this blog before. (I think he's one of 3 people who keeps up on it regularly, not including my parents.) (Also, Andy recently had a spotlight on his bad self in the Contra Costa Times. Yes he is all that and a bag of chips.)

Next is an artistically clumped group that includes Gioia's parents, Eric's mom, and Alex in the foreground.

Next, on the right is Brian Gangelhoff, a fellow Richmond Art Center staff escapee and artist in the show. On the left is the guy I only know as John, and in feathers and wig is Vinny. (or is it Vinnie?)

Next, another portrait of Andy pictured with Shalene Valenzuela, Cricket Engine gallery proprietoress. There were lots of other people there, but after a couple cups of wine, my photo taking becomes strikingly worse.

Pop-Up book

Since I didn't post much last month, I'm making up for lost time. A couple more posts and then I have to pack.

Last month I posted about friend Stephanie Juno doing a performance, Swallowed Whole, in Illinois. I created a couple of props for her and she said that they were a big hit! I'm stoked. I took some pics of the pop-up book I created around the story of her stint as an art teacher for kids in the San Diego Museum of Modern Art.
I can't wait to see the DVD of the perfomance. I've seen the costumes, part of the text, I created two sets of props...the suspense is killing me.

Hotel Francia

This is the hotel we'll be staying in. You need Flash to view the whole site, but it's worth it. This morning over breakfast Al and I pored over our copy of Lonely Planet Mexico and I'm really excited. Can you tell? In the guidebook it says that D.H. Lawrence stayed in the Hotel Francia. It doesn't say if he liked it. But it looks pretty freaking cool.

Chapter 11-Dress Her in Indigo

"After a hotel lunch, a few miles out of the city on the Mitla road we came upon El Tule, and Meyer said that he wanted to be a tourist for a few minutes, and look at the biggest tree in the world.
It was not far from the highway, a hundred yards perhaps. It dwarfed the old church nearby. I was astonished to see how rich and vital and green it was. Seemed to be of the banyan family. Elephant-gray bark. Glossy dark leaves. There was a low iron fence all the way around it. The trunk was maybe a hundred feet in circumference. It made better than an acre of shade.
Meyer stood absolutely still, staring up into the cool green shadowy places beyond the giant lower limbs. When he turned smling toward me, I knew that the tree had restored his nerves and composure.
'At the time of Christ,' he said, 'nobody was giving this tree a second look. It was just an ordinary little tree.'
'It looks as if it has decided to stay around awhile.'
'And I am going to come back here,' he said, 'and I am going to paint myself blue, and I am going to live up there in the top of that tree forever.'" (Dress Her in Indigo, John D. MacDonald, 1969 p. 131)

Which is by way of announcing that I am going to Oaxaca next week. Dress Her in Indigo is one of my very favorites in the Travis McGee series, and the majority of the action takes place in and around Oaxaca. I am going to take the book with me and do a little travelogue documenting the places mentioned in the story. That's not the only reason to go, of course, but I always benefit with a little framework to brace me.

I'm a little nervous since my spanish is abysmal. (We had spanish lessons in elementary school, but we'd invariably have different teachers every year. The new teacher would be shocked, shocked! at the previous teacher's approach to teaching us the language and start us over again from the beginning. Therefore, I can usually recite the spanish alphabet, and I used to know all the words to "De Colores". )

Alex is blessed with fluency in spanish, so I usually end up looking like his mute, retarded companion in Mexico. Fortunately I can draw real good. If all else fails I can do "Pictionary".

We are staying in the Hotel Francia near the Zocalo. It is rumored to be a bit noisy, but I'm hoping that mid to late November is not a big party month. We leave on the 14th (in the middle of the freaking night) and arrive at around 9 am Tuesday. I'm sure I'll get into it when I'm there. It's just the getting there that makes me crazy.

Hopefully I will be able to do some posting down there. Al thinks the hotel will have internet access but I'm pretty sure he's wrong. In our guidebook there's some listings for Internet Cafes, though. I will be taking my trusty little camera, of course.

In other news, tonight at Cricket Engine is the opening reception for "Pink Week". Yours truly has a piece in there.
If I was on the other computer I would post a pic, but I am not, so you'll just have to go see the show.

MPK

Kern vs. Kern

Just kidding dad!

Here's a link to my dad's travel blog. And my b-day is actually tomorrow but maybe it's the 12th in Europe? It looks like he's having a blast. When we were in Hawaii, he really was impressed with my camera. It's the little workhorse Canon Elph s400. He went out and got himself the se400 and totally loves it. It's travelling with him in Europe right now! Some nice shots there dad!

Yes, tomorrow I am 35. I don't have any deep insights about it. Maybe they'll come tomorrow.

MPK

In the Pink

Bon Voyage to Dad who left for Europe today!

He said before he left that he'd set up a travelblog, so hopefully I can link to it soon.

Today I tackled the job of cleaning my studio. I have been collaborating with friend Stephanie Juno on props for her upcoming performance, Swallowed Whole. It's debuting October 14th in Illinois. I hope we can post some pics here, until Stephanie sets up a personal website.

Anyway, my studio looked like a blizzard had hit it. I took some pictures.

I brought in the cabinet I've been storing in my truck. The cameras I've been making go nicely in there, as I thought, and I'm even debating whether I need to make more to fill up all the holes. Any opinions welcome. It might just be the laziness talking.

I made two more cameras for the upcoming pink week juried show. I'm thinking of setting them up so it looks like the brownie camera is daydreaming of being a pink camera. We'll see. I have to have images to Gioia by the 8th, so I'm running on zero time here.

In other news, I got an email from Arthur at CCA that he wants me in a show at Oliver Art Center this January. That's really exciting and I'm awaiting further details. I'll keep stuff posted for folks who are interested.

Anyway, my allergies are killing me, so I'm keeping this short. Time to wash off the dust.

Last one

The distinctive color of the smokestacks of the Cunard Line. To get us back on track for art...the paint was mixed of straight ochre (a form of iron oxide) and buttermilk. Evidently, the smokestacks got so hot that regular paint roasted right off. I assume the buttermilk was used just to achieve "flow" when painting it on, since it would burn right off too. Imagine how that must have smelled!

I have a few projects going on, and am neglecting all of them. All the travelling got me off track, but I'll be back in the studio again soon. I was toying with the idea of having a show in October at cricket engine but that isn't going to happen at this rate. Maybe in the spring.

For now I have to make pink art for pink week. Ack! Wish me luck. If you are interested in participating there is a form you can download at the link.

I'll stop soon, I swear.