VIII. Interstate 10. El Paso.
Cielo Vista Mall Exit.
Population: 425,259
Elevation: 3,500
Climate: Desert
Topography: Desert and mountain.
Historical Oddity: John Wesley Hardin was shot here in 1895.
Telling Detail: El Paso, Texas, is closer to Los Angeles than to Houston.
Prominent Amenity: Juarez.
Category: Ultimate border town.
Best Two-word Description: Jumping-off Place.
Insight: El Paso is the only place in the world outside of Tibet where
you will see Himalayan architecture. The wife of the founding chairman of the board of
what is now the University of Texas at El Paso had been to Bhutan. Noting the similar
climate and geography, and finding the architecture attractive (think of those pictures of
Tibetan temples in National Geographic), she and her husband had architects design a
number of buildings which need only prayer wheels, a few monks, and Mount Everest in the
background to look completely authentic.
1. Of course time for our present purposes is most conveniently linear, even for those
standing in the wings. For those outside the theater, it is another matter altogether.
–Pat Angeli
* * *
2. I'm gonna go stand in the rain, see if I can't get wet.
–Spiral.
* * *
3. With art we create tiny imitations–mimises, I
suppose–of the past. Thanks to science, the imitations are now a bit less tiny,
though not much so. With the graphic arts, and theater (especially theater) it is fairly
obvious what we are externalizing and mimicking. The thoroughness of our insulation, our
"distance" from possibly ultimate sources is indicated by our baffled
fascination with music and its handmaiden, mathematics.
–All Bricked Up
* * *
4. I'm gonna stop at that there pickle park up yonder and see if I
cant find some nice boy to do my dick.
–Horny Teen
* * *
4b. It is not the bright colors, the happy sounds, and the warm
air which enliven us in the spring. It is the quiet, prophetic spirit of infinite hopes, a
premonition of many good days of many different kinds, and the sense of higher, eternal
flowers and fruits and the profound resonance with the friendly unfolding world.
–Novalis
* * *
5. I'm just trying to survive in your world, man.
–Rodeo Star.
* * *
6. The old = chronocentrism. The new = synchronism. The change
should put an end to most of the worst remainders of the other centrisms (geo-, helio-,
ethno-). The various political and egoistic monstrosities still plaguing the kindergarten
become entertainments and no longer function as attractive options for personality
development. Emulation of things past will itself become an anachronism.
–Gucci Vespa
* * *
7. We's hiding behind this tree, and we seen this game warden
parked his truck and got out and kinda walking around. We's standing there being just as
still, watching this game warden, and I felt something reach over and lick my hand. I
almost turned and took off running, and I looked down. A damn doe was licking my hand just
as sweet as could be.
–Lone Stranger.
* * *
7a. Imagination presents the future world to us either in the
heights or in the depths or in metempsychosis. We dream of trips through space: is space
then not in us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. The path of mystery leads within.
Eternity with its worlds, the past and future, is within us or nowhere. The external world
is the shadow world; it casts its shadow into the realm of light. Internally things do
seem very dark, lonely, formless to us now, but how totally different will things seem to
us when this eclipse is past and the shadow body has moved away. We will enjoy more than
ever for our spirit will have known deprivation.
–Novalis
* * *
The Texas Tao
continues...
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