William L. Fox, a San Diego native, knows the West well. “I wandered often,” he said, “And I’ve been circling the Great Basin.” He’s lived in Santa Fe, Portland, Reno, and Los Angeles, which, he said, he sometimes reacts to unpleasantly. “No I don’t have swine flu, but I do have a cough,” he joked with the Zócalo crowd at the Autry National Center. “It’s typical of me, when I’m in Los Angeles, to react that way. That’s why I don’t live here anymore.” Read more about Fox, Director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art, below.
Q. What do you wake up to?
A. Usually something is lodged in my brain from the night before. It’s not that I wake up with an answer, but I do have some sort of train of thought going.
Q. What do you find beautiful?
A. Women.
Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Curious.
Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A. Astronomer.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. Belvedere vodka martini dry, up with a twist.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. Life.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. Iceland.
Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. This one.
Q. What would be your death row meal?
A. Now that’s a serious question. Blue corn enchiladas at Pasqual’s in Santa Fe.
Q. What is your favorite holiday and why?
A. Autumnal equinox, because it’s the change of seasons.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. Swimming in the ocean.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. I have a piece of petrified wood from the Antarctic that connected it to South America, so that you know it was one continent.
Q. What should you throw away but haven’t been able to part with?
A. Old socks.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. Someone I haven’t met yet.
To read more about Fox’s talk on Los Angeles vs. Las Vegas, click here.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.