I'm friends with the Texas songwriter and artist Terry Allen, and for the last few years he has been urging me to visit the West Texas high plains town of Marfa. "You'll love it," he said, and he was right. It is a very strange mix of small-town county seat, desolate market town and artist hangout. These are February paintings of a grain dealer, an Oil depot and a small Southern Pacific Railway trestle over a gully. The paintings of latte-slurping hipsters are coming later.