From the Land of Cowboys to You; or, The Modern Buckaroo’s Guide to the World
Every start of the year I find some time to write out a few goals. I prioritize and create little boxes for checking off when I’ve completed them* and otherwise make curlicues and asterisks and bold underlines. This blog was one such goal from last year (alas, the Web site is still under construction–anyone know [...]
Medical tools from the Civil War
There is something to be said for a high-deductible health care plan: This year, thanks to a likely financial crunch in my chosen field, I will certainly be reviewing my health expenditures carefully. No more mammograms willy-nilly–squishing boobs for fun has gone the way of tinkering with stocks. No longer will I [...]
I asked him what his favorite western pulp novel was. (Brave, I admit–Clint Eastwood does not have a lot of time to make nice with visitors to his California ranch.)
In reply he did that squinty Clint thing (my heart simultaneously leaped and quailed–giving me heartburn later on in the day).
You know, I persisted, like Luke Short or Ernest [...]
Mythology and ritual are the same thing. Take a look at Phantom Empire, 1935 Mascot serial. This twelve-episode serial is the worst Western of all time. But buried beneath its trick riding and kid-style secret club is a message as deep as the secret underground queendom of Murania. That’s about twenty-five thousand feet, way down [...]
Plastic Hero © 2008 es
Anything can look heroic–it’s all in the way the lights and camera work. Maybe that’s why cowboys in movies don’t say too much. All candidates on Campaign Trail ‘08 have to keep talking, but the more they talk, the less heroic they seem. It’s a problem, buckaroos and buckarettes. I think they [...]
Shoot from the Hip, copyright es 2008, based on Italian movie poster for A Fistful of Dollars
Everyone’s jumping on the presidential and vice presidential candidates: too cool, too hot-tempered, too much woman, too little man. And like a phantom, the Mythic Cowboy rides through before fading away into the mists of the collective unconscious.
Thomas Friedman, [...]
I’ve been unwilling to saddle up the presidential cowboy analogies for some time–Dubya too easy of a target–but THANK ALL THAT IS COWPOKE for recent presidential candidate news.
Barack Obama resists the cowboy hat–all I can see him as is the lawyer/Dude from a big city, or maybe as a laid-back (yet pistol-packing) James Stewart in Destry Rides [...]
I’ll let you know.
For a few days I’ll be on real trails, hunting down cowboys and cow patties, spuds and starlit nights, lava bombs and limpid lakes, and real live rigamorole. And when I am back, I will deal with the wackness that is the site. (Anyone notice the blessed space that appears and disappears [...]
National Day of the Cowboy brought out all the panting western fetishists who love their cowpokes dearly, as well as the more serious side of cowboying, embodied by the rodeo riders and horsemen and horsewomen of the good old days–the 1980s, that is. “Proud Cowboys Still Tall in the Saddle” is the headline. The photos [...]
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, [...]