From the Land of Cowboys to You; or, The Modern Buckaroo’s Guide to the World
What Americans and Europeans bought with every Buffalo Bill’s Wild West ticket, and what people purchase around the world with every pack of American cigarettes is a little bit of ourselves as we want to be–alluring, daring, legendary. With every MoMA “Into The Sunset” ticket it appears we also want to be alienated and disillusioned.
Walking Nebraska City’s main street from the Missouri River is a journey *cue swelling orchestra* filled with echoes of the hopes and disappointments of intrepid pioneers making their monumental trek across the wide country on the Oregon Trail.
O Pioneer!!!!
Freighters, Nebraska City, 1860 (Nebraska State Historical Society)
OK! OK, OK… sorry. Sorry for the purple prose.
I’m forced to be dramatic, [...]
The Kid is in. The Great Decider is out–and so are slimy campaign innuendos. I’ll not be sorry to hear the last of the slander of the good Maverick family name. I’ll not be sorry to have less of cowboy-diplomacy-this* and cowboy-foreign-policy-that drop into my inbox with such alarming regularity. And I won’t be surprised if [...]
Tony Hillerman, from laurieroberts.net
My mother read Tony Hillerman’s books–one after the other, like eating potato chips.* One quiet day in her condo** I stretched out my hand and picked up a creased paperback and immediately fell into Hillerman Country.
Hillerman Country is red and ochre and brown and yellow. Dusty and windy. Populated by buttes and washouts, [...]
Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance. –General Philip Sheridan
Buffalo skulls, mid-1870s, waiting to be ground into fertilizer
Here’s a more recent quote:
“I am especially concerned,” [Governor Palin] said in a written statement in August 2007, when [...]
MAVERICK. Ask not how many times you can say a word, but why you need to say the word so many times in the first place.
“Maverick.” Thou shalt not repeat a word in the hopes that it sticks.
“Maverick” took on a pop culture tone in the 1950s with James Garner’s hat-pushed back, insouciant gambler. The [...]
What are the most likely things to be smuggled out of Mexico?
Drugs.
Guns.
Cacti.
Saguaro Vista, Arizona. copyright es 2004
X-mas Kitsch
Especially those funny-looking cartoonish cacti. The bright green ones with the long arms that look like Gumby with spikes. On menus, you might see them wearing sombreros. The one bit of flora that [...]
In an American headline world dominated by an Alaskan governor, in the face of tragedy on the floodplains of India (three million people displaced), and escalating tensions worldwide, it’s time to escape into a good western, where problems can be solved in about ninety minutes.
In this Wild Western world, a newspaper might have these headlines:
Top Headline:
COWBOY [...]
A pair of one hundred-year-old blue jeans, found in an abandoned gold mine in California? $36,099. The chance to touch or even *gulp* wear these worn Levis? Priceless.
But such is the glamour of honest toil. Denim designers must have been salivating at the sight of the old, ripped, stained, and soiled pants, because while no [...]
And Where the Trail Split in Two I Looked Back… copyright es 2008
My heart is a-tremble with anticipation for this Saturday, National Day of the American Cowboy, although I don’t plan on going to any hootenanny or getting on a bucking bronco this weekend, unfortunately. Like many cowpokes, I’ll be working! If I wanted to hop on a plane, [...]