March 28, 2005
I woke up painting. On a roll. Feel confident in my abilities (this is quite rare, I'm either high on something, or delusional). Painted a nice moonlight halo effect. Witnessed it last Friday night when I walked down the road to get Buddy, who had run off to our neighbors and I had to bring him home. I was walking down the road noticing the creepy shadows and how light it was, when I looked up in the sky and saw this radiant moon burst, with the big, wide halo effect. Really stunning. That inspiration carried over into the Papago Station painting. Funny where we get inspiration, isn't it? "Well, I was going to get my dog. Kind of pissed about it, then looked up, and that’s when I broke my leg. Never been the same way since."

Got into the office at 8:30. Joel is in Mexico, the Brinks are moving and Samantha is helping them. Office kind of quiet. Got quite a bit done. Felt good.

Went home for lunch at two and had an apple and leftover spaghetti. While I was finishing off the apple, I laid in another wash on Papago Station. Hopeful. Got back into the office at about three.

Carole took this call today:
“Mrs. Moss called today to subscribe for her husband. She said they thought
TW had been discontinued because they could no longer find it, but were at
the Autry Museum and found the Travel issue. She said this is her husband's
favorite magazine and he has boxes of old ones that he has gone back to and
re-read over the years. They were delighted to have found TW.”

Somebody called twowheeltango Emailed me a pitch for a Texas gubernatorial candidate. These lines make me sad I'm not a Texas voter:

"Texas was founded by independent, courageous, honorable citizens. The last great Independent elected governor of Texas was Sam Houston, over a hundred and fifty years ago. Texas needs a strong independent voice, if it is ever to regain its greatness. If you elect me, I'll be the first Governor in Texas history with a listed phone number."
—Kinky Friedman

One of the joys of this job is hearing from relatives of famous Westerners. Last week I got this Email from a descendant of the legendary lawman Bob Paul, sheriff of Pima County and the shotgun messenger who foiled the Benson stage robbers: "There was repeated loss of children of Bob and Margaret, some while he was absent, which I am sure was a sore point in that the last lost child was in 1879 after Bob had gone to AZ and Margaret remained in Visalia. She then moved the family to Tucson thereafter and a new son was born 6 weeks before the Benson incident. My gut feeling is that when Bob joined in with the resulting posse, he had prior approval from Margaret. For the record, I am the great-grandson---son of the oldest son of the oldest son."

I’m going to Flag in two weeks to be on a panel about publishing at the Northern Arizona Book Festival. One of my fellow panelists is a national editor. Here is her philosophy about putting out her magazine. Can you guess what magazine she edits?

"We read from approximately 1600 small, independent publications--and hundreds of books from presses large & small--to find out perspectives and ideas you don't see in the mainstream press. We reprint some pieces, summarize others, and write the stories we haven't seen yet. There are quite a few challenges, in fact, given that we never plan ahead. We simply create each issue from the material we find when reading for each issue. That makes the creation of a cover particularly interesting for us. I'm happy to show examples of covers that have sold well, and covers that haven't (that subject would necessarily bring up demographics). I could also speak to what makes makes an existing piece of writing interesting for us--as well as what kinds of freelance queries catch our attention. And we're about to head into a redesign of the magazine, so I could talk about the issues readers have raised and the ways we intend to address them."

The semi-surprising answer tomorrow.

"If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come."
—Raymond Chandler