The Cowboys of Santa Fe, Texas
A Texas cowboy for the 21st century

Today August 25 it is finally raining in Vancouver. You could call it a typically lazy Vancouver day. I don’t like them much as I like the hot days that preceded today’s coolness.

On September 20 Nora Patrich and I are having a show at the Galería Vermeer in Buenos Aires. Since Rosemary is coming with me we already have our two suitcases open in the floor of the piano room. 

She accompanied me to my yearly buying pilgrimage at Mark’s Work Warehouse where I purchased two pairs of black jeans and two pairs of blue jeans. Also in my getting ready for Buenos Aires I added five pair of Mark’s special black socks. 

The jeans are in the wash. What to do on a Sunday like this one?

Easy.

I have scanned some panoramic b+w photographs (that until now had not seen the light of day) that I took in Michael East’s  south Texas Santa Fe Ranch in 2011. With our two granddaughters in tow Rosemary and I embarked on that glorious drive in our 2007 Chevrolet Malibu.

As an Argentine It would be difficult for me to say that I am a vegetarian. That, I am not. But these days I may eat meat once a week and chicken in a couple of days. I like my vegetables, fruits and pasta.

But I cannot erase from my memory the idea that I am indeed a lapsed carnivore. On the subject my St. Ed’s High School mate Mike East told me that without the influx of Mexican cowboys into his ranch it would be very difficult for him and other ranchers of the area to supply all that meat that Americans so love at Macdonald’s.

Trump’s wall could be a good thing only if you thought that it might make some people refrain from eating the (lovely it is) stuff.

Animal rights lovers might object to the scenes of dramatically roping cattle and bringing them into the ground for vaccination, branding and the “conversion” of young male bulls into oxen.

Most of us if taken into a slaughter house might have at least one meat free week. The fact is that in 2017 meat is still in most of our diets and today for breakfast I had four nice, well-done, crispy bacon strips.

When Rosemary and I are in Buenos Aires we will certainly indulge in a few bifes de chorizo (the usual cut of beef, in spite of that “chorizo”word) that Porteños usually accompany with an “ensalada mixta”. 

Looking at these panoramics that I took with a swivel lens Noblex (one that uses 120 film in 2¼ by 7 inch negative size) for me is a revelation. While my Fuji X-E1 and X-E3 do shoot panoramics I believe that the actual rotation of the lens is what gives these a look that cannot be matched by my digital wonder.