I borrowed H.G. Wells’ time machine in January 2004 to fly to Spain and back into the world of Once Upon a Time in the West in the hilly Andalucian desert. The plan was for a holiday with my Spanish translator (of The Fire Worm and Mockymen), Luisa Maria García Velasco and her husband, pianist Francisco Alonso Martínez, first of all seeing Granada, then at their home in Canjayar — including giving a talk about A.I. Artificial Intelligence at the lovely Valle del Andarax school in Canjayar where she’s a teacher (not to mention being a guitarist, poet, flamenco dancer, and rider of wild horses). While I was at the school the art teacher, Antonio Llanas, who has exhibited quite a lot, showed me his interesting work (http://antoniollanas.eresmas.com/ — or try www.antoniollanas.eresmas.com/).
This led to me also giving a talk about A.I. at the Center for Andalucian Studies in the coastal city of Almería, which caused full-page coverage in the newspaper Ideal, and an interview for local TV. And next I found myself outside the church at Texas Hollywood that featured in The Magnificent Seven, then talking to the camels (or rather, dromedaries) who starred in Lawrence of Arabia — but who have had no acting jobs ever since, so they complained. Actors often “rest,” but resting for forty years is remarkable. Accompanying me in the sepia photograph, taken in the 19th Century, are Luisa and her two sons, Paco and Jose Luis.
To the Wild West of Spain in the South
