Bulgarian conceptual artist.

Christo, the Bulgarian conceptual artist, passed away the other day. His art involved wrapping large buildings in cloth, redefining their look and feel. Related efforts saw him placing large, material-based structures in well known landscapes to change the visual impact of the accepted and to challenge established comfort zones.

What may be his best effort in that regard was wrapping the arrogant Germans’ Reichstag (parliament) building, which Goering had burned down in the late 1930s to help define communists (whom he blamed for his fire) as the enemies of the state and excuse the pogroms which followed. Being arrogant and German, synonymous terms in my book, the former Nazis who went on to run post-war Germany, much helped by American money, rebuilt the burned out hulk and you can see it in all its ugliness here. After Christo’s magical treatment this monstrosity, and tribute to a monstrous past, looked a whole lot better. The Germans should have simply pulled down this monument to evil …. or left it wrapped.

Reichstag – much improved by Christo.

It does not take much imagination to see the magic in Christo’s work. Perhaps the Central Park orange porticos are his best known American work but for me it will always be the Grapevine umbrellas, installed just north of west Los Angeles, which resonate most.

The umbrellas in the Grapevine.

The Grapevine is an especially windy stretch of the 5 freeway and a tremendous – and dangerous – challenge to a motorcyclist and it was with a small band of friends that I regularly rode it on our two wheeled steeds. It was always terrifying, but the roads around either side were a biker’s delight. So when Cristo installed his large umbrellas up and down the freeway in 1991, we made the trip and the effect really was magic. Looking at these in the distance they seemed like nothing so much as a bunch of California poppies, like-colored flowers to be found in abundance at this location, if at a much smaller scale. The day before we visited the high winds there ripped one of the massive umbrellas from the ground, sadly killing a spectator, but that tragic event did not take away from the experience.

You can read all about Christo’s magic umbrellas here.

One especially appealing part of Christo’s work is that is was all self-financed from proceeds of sale of sketches and the bits and bobs left over. The taxpayer paid not one red cent.

The motorcycle? The same I ride today, my 1975 BMW R90/6, which I had then recently bought from the original owner, in 1990. Well, ‘bought’ is not quite right. More accurately, I inherited custodial duties. Unlike the Reichstag, it does not benefit from wrapping.

C J Box rules.

The Wyoming author and native, C J Box, writes about what he knows. The bulk of his novels features Wyoming Park Warden Joe Pickett, an unsophisticated man who is very much committed to doing his job, which means catching bad guys who do not comply with government wild life rules. In the process he gets involved in any number of arcane plots, all well written. You come away with an appreciation for the man, his state and a realization of just how many bad guys there are out there.

Wyoming has so many exceptional statistics that it’s hard to know where to start. A state in which everyone seems to own a firearm, a state which is mostly under snow much of the year, and one where the lowest elevation is over 3,000 ft. This is a hard place to live, a place for true outdoorsmen and hunters, and one which permits natives an annual kill of one elk for winter food. Thus “Have you got your elk, yet?” is a common greeting between friends. With just under 600,000 residents, the state is the least populated in the US.

There are now 20 Joe Pickett novels.

I have read all twenty of the Joe Pickett novels over the years and recommend the series, especially for city dwellers who have no appreciation of the American wilderness. Easily the most striking character in the books is one Nate Romanowski, a sometime special forces operator and close friend of Pickett’s who has gone ‘off the grid’, allowing him to brings his own version of justice to the bad guys. Yup, he’s a cop, judge and jury type whose favorite weapon is a Freedom Arms 454 Casull revolver, one whose kickback will break the wrist of the uninitiated. A unique and fun character, he’s also a master falconer.

I visited Wyoming in the fall of 2003, driving east across Oregon and Idaho. Yes, bison and elk were to be seen in Yellowstone National Park in abundance, a special place:

Conestoga wagon. How the west was colonized by white men.

Wild and desolate.

Sunrise.

Yellowstone.

Near the Grand Tetons.

Bison.

The Pickett novels can be read in any order, and the latest – ‘Long Range’ – starts with a breathtaking narrative of the flight of a long range bullet en route to its target. I hate guns and the Second Amendment and its millions of abusers, but this is exceptional writing.

All images on an Olympus C5050Z, which delivered those nutty skies. My first digital camera.

Smell sensors, that is.

For any Francophile, one of the endearing charms of Martin Walker’s ‘Bruno – Chief of Police’ novels is the detailed recipes to be found in these elegantly written thrillers.

Dogs also feature, a source of delight to this reader. While the bloodhound is the king of dogs where scent tracking is required, the basset hound runs a close second with no fewer than three billion smell receptors, compared to a mere 2 million for us ordinary humans. Bruno Courrèges’s choice of dog is a basset (maned Balzac, naturally) and he uses it for police tracking and, more importantly, for finding truffles, those costly delicacies essential to many a French dish. Those long, long ears serve a purpose, as do most designs in nature. They drag on the ground, yes, but in doing so they stir up the grass surface releasing odors, thus acting as odor concentrators! Accordingly proper ear cleaning is an essential part of basset health.

The business end of a basset hound.

The novels are set in the southwest of France, in that haven of all things agricultural, the Dordogne, so it’s a trivial matter for Bruno to source all his produce locally, either from his garden or from the weekly local village market. Locally made cheeses? Check. Pâtés galore? Of course. Wines in infinite varieties? Mais naturellement. The recipes are set forth in great detail in Walker’s books and the fabulous meals described act as natural breaks in the thrilling detective action, set in a small town where everyone knows everyone.

His latest novel has just been published but you cannot go wrong with any of these.

The Dordogne.

Interestingly, Walker states that the cops prefer to use Alsatians at airports as drug sniffing dogs owing to their frightening demeanor (well, they are German), not something of which a basset could be accused.

The series – and the dog – is highly recommended.

Panasonic GX7, 9-18mm Olympus MFT lens.