Image

I am as vain as the next guy, and I had come to hate the way I looked in some recent pics, like this one at Helen's signing:

I looked so frail compared to Helen that somebody who did not know me asked if I were taking chemo! I HATE that- PD is bad enough.

Luckily some good photos have appeared recently. Stefan Wachs, a Swiss photographer based in Santa Fe, did some fine ones for a forthcoming article on me in New Mexico magazine- he took many, but here are a few good ones. I don't look young, but (I have to admit) I'm NOT.

Then we decided to do our own sort of hipster- gunfigher set, maybe Keith Richards meets Sam Shepherd (embrace your decrepitude!)*, with a big influence from Jay Dusard's more urban portraits of Tom Russell. Actually the idea came about sitting on our "stoop", an old couch that once belonged to Anne Proulx which we put out for trash but that became such an afternoon social center that we have bought it a waterproof cover. The Edwardian high tech of  the 1896 Mauser Broomie adds a Steampunk touch...

*Jay McInerney once wrote that Tom McGuane was the idol of those who wanted to be Hemingway AND Keith Richards...