Just as excited about the book, too. It is, as I understand it, an account of Harry Orchard and the Western Federation of Miners, particularly around Cripple Creek. Been meaning to hunt down a copy, as I kept seeing it cited in other books on the subject, and finally have.

One thing I’ve also been meaning to do for awhile now is say how much I enjoyed Choke Hold by Christa Faust. I finished it about a month ago (oddly enough while I was also reading DFW’s Consider the Lobster, meaning I went from not knowing anything about the AVN Awards to knowing a whole lot). There’s a whole lot going on, including some great commentary on the similarities between MMA and porn, which I won’t ruin for you. There’s also the best punchdrunk fighter since Mickey Rourke’s Homeboy. If you want a taste of Ms. Faust’s inestimable style and talent, she’s got an excerpt of her forthcoming novel, Butch Fatale; Dyke Dick — Double D Double Cross, on her site here.

I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as disappointed in a book as I was in Consider the Lobster, by the way. That was my first DFW, and I doubt there’ll be another. For all that I’ve read about his brilliance, the essays were kind of banal. The best example I can think of is the interminable piece about his time with John McCain, which can be boiled down to a slight variation on the old saw, “if you don’t vote, you can’t bitch.” Whether or not you agree with that line, it’s a pretty flimsy foundation upon which to stack thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of words. And most of the rest were just about as predictable. Likewise, maybe I’m missing something, but his much-vaunted linguistic play wore thin pretty quick. The first time “styptic” is used as an adjective unexpectedly it’s striking; the second time it makes you realize that it didn’t really make sense the first time either.

I also made it through exactly 75% of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano according to my Kindle, but, man, I couldn’t take any more. I was in love with the prose at the beginning, but felt like I was being suffocated under the flabby, alcoholic weight of the thing by the end. (Not that I’m opposed to alcohol or flab — except in prose.) I finally gave it up for Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff, and that’s been making me happier’n hell. As I kid, I actually lived up a holler about 30 miles on the Appalachian side of Pollock-country, and can attest that his characters are not entirely works of his imagination.

For some reason, I’ve been reading some mainstream American revolution stuff, too. I’m not sure why, except that it’s around. I polished off 1776 on my Kindle, and now I’m listening to Founding Brothers during my commute. Most of it’s exactly what you’d expect, but one factotum I really enjoyed was about the Hamilton/Burr duel. Turns out that when Hamilton provided the pistols — as the challenged, he got to choose the weapons — they were equipped with a secret set trigger that could drop the trigger pull weight from its norm of about 20 pounds to right around 1 pound. As anybody who has ever shot a handgun knows — and you can recall all my agonizing about the matter when configuring my carry gun — a 20 pound trigger pull would make it damn near impossible to shoot accurately. Of course, it didn’t do Hamilton a whole hell of a lot of good, but it was nice to know he was prepared to cheat.

My wife also brought me home a copy of Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Colorado History. There really are great advantages to being married to a librarian. It ain’t perfect — it’s way too kind to Chivington, for one thing, and it inexplicably doesn’t include William Byers — but it’s a whole lot of fun. At least, if your idea of fun is short essays on murder and mayhem.

Thinking about reading, this James Sallis interview struck a chord with me. Especially what he calls “the forty-page syndrome,” which sums up something that’s always nagged at me about most genre books.

What I call the forty-page syndrome, where you’re reading along, really getting into a novel, then the plot kicks in hard and all the coolest stuff – the textures, the messiness, the digressions – starts falling away. One doesn’t have to champion the plotless and wandering in order to decry the privileging of “story” (patterns imposed from without) over substance (eliciting patterns from within the narrative and characters themselves).

Also, the first review of Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers just came in from Publishers Weekly:

Kris Kristofferston, who was employed as a janitor when he met Charlie Louvin, writes in his foreword, “The legendary Louvin Brothers’ hauntingly beautiful Appalachian blood-brothers harmony is truly one of the treasures of American music.” Now Charlie Louvin, who died January 26, 2011, at age 83, has written an engaging and entertaining look back at his gospel and country music career with his brother, Ira. The two grew up picking cotton and coon hunting in Alabama, and music became their escape route from rural chores to radio fame. They were in their teens when they began singing on Chattanooga radio, a showcase that led to paying gigs. They moved on to making music in Memphis, and by 1955, when they finally got to the Grand Ole Opry, their record sales soared. Ira’s heavy drinking and temper tantrums prompted Charlie to go solo; tragedy struck when Ira was killed in a 1965 auto accident. Packed with plenty of pictures, backstage gossip, and colorful anecdotes about the Louvins’ encounters with the great and near great, this memoir has a raw honesty, genuine grit, common sense and smokin’ down-home flavor that Louvin fans will relish. The fire-and-brimstone cover art and the book’s title are both taken from the duo’s 1959 gospel album, Satan Is Real.

I can’t say how nice is to have that done with. Here’s hoping the rest of them are half that kind.

Anyway, Thanksgiving, yep. And I’ll post what I always post this time of year, the official Whitmer Thanksgiving prayer, via Uncle Bill.

And speaking of lawmen, this has to be my favorite internet meme of all time.

That’s it. I’ll probably spend the long weekend reading and writing, with as little internet as possible, so I’ll see you next week.

Somebody posted a documentary on YouTube about the making of the opera, The Black Rider, by Robert Wilson, William S. Burroughs, and Tom Waits (above).  I’m collecting it here mainly so I can watch it all sometime soon. The narration’s in German, which I don’t speak, but most of the interviews seem to be in English.

Part one:

Part two:

Part three:

You can also find the complete German production on YouTube (start here and negotiate your way through it), but I’m holding out for full video of the English production, if such a thing exists. If you don’t know the story, November Theater has this on their website:

Der Freischutz (The Free-Shooter), an old German folktale on which The Black Rider is based, was first published in the early 1800’s in a collection of ghost stories called Gespensterbuch by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun.

It was adapted into a widely celebrated opera by Carl Maria von Weber in 1821. The opera, also named Der Freischutz, deviates from the intentions of the original story by giving the story a happy ending. Staying true to 19th century romanticism, a Deus Ex Machina is used in the form of a hermit, who sets everything right.

In 1823, Thomas de Quincy wrote a short story adaptation of his own: The Fatal Marksman, which is based on the original ghost story. The Fatal Marksman, along with the original tale of Der Freischutz, would later inspire Robert Wilson, Tom Waits, and William S. Burroughs to create The Black Rider.

Their exciting and innovative collaboration premiered in 1990 at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. As Waits explains, “Burroughs found some of the branches of the story, and let them grow into more metaphorical things in all of our lives every day that, in fact, are deals with the Devil that we’ve made. What is cunning about those deals is that we’re not aware we’ve made them. And when they come to fruition, we are shocked and amazed.”

In 1998, the November Theatre production of The Black Rider premiered at the Edmonton Fringe. – It was the World English Language Premiere and has since gone on to a successful North American tour.

Synopsis

Wilhelm, a city clerk, is in love with the royal huntsman’s daughter, Kathchen.  In order to marry her he must prove himself to be a worthy hunter, a skill at which the fumbling clerk is inept.  While attempting to hunt, Wilhelm meets a devilish Peg Leg man who offers him some help in the form of magic bullets –guaranteed to always hit their mark.  With these bullets, Wilhelm brings home enough dead game to satisfy Kathchen’s father.  Their wedding day is announced, as is the test that Wilhelm must pass on his wedding day to prove himself a true shot – the shooting of a wooden bird from a tree.  Having spent all of his magic bullets, Wilhelm returns to the crossroads with hopes of meeting Peg Leg to get one more special bullet for this final shot.  Peg Leg eagerly gives him the desired bullets, but with a presaging warning: “Six are yours and hit the mark, and one is mine and hits the dark.”  At the trial, all of the wedding guests are gathered in anticipation as Wilhelm takes aim and fires a shot that can’t miss…

If you know the story of William S. Burroughs’ William Tell routines, you can probably guess where the bullet goes.

Robert Wilson and Tom Waits have collaborated on two other projects that I know of: a retelling of Woyzeck, the songs from which Waits released as an album titled Blood Money, and a play based on Charles Dodgson’s obsession with Alice Liddell which Waits released as Alice. ANTI- describes Alice as:

Alice is one of the most distinctive of all Waits’ creations, occupying its own corner in the odd-angled room that is Tom Waits’ body of work. While there are the familiar parts–the redoubtable ragged voice, jazz ballads and poignant musings on death and longing–the whole is strange and exotic.

A devastatingly beautiful atmosphere made of sorrow and reverie, insanity and resignation, rises like a mist in Alice. It’s a lyrical melancholia, a feeling that creeps in on the arms of Stroh violins and unabashed poetry. These are songs to fall into, and sometimes, to keep falling. There are fragile, haunted musings, and laments, mad ruminations, and tales of unrequited love and anthems from beyond the grave.

“Alice,” said Waits, “is adult songs for children, or children’s songs for adults. It’s a maelstrom or fever-dream, a tone poem, with torch songs and waltzes…an odyssey in dream logic and nonsense.”

The rest.

Though I like his stuff, I’m not a Tom Waits fanatic. But I am an Alice fanatic. I listen to the album about once a week, and have since I first heard the bootleg version which was supposedly stolen from Waits’ car in the 90s, almost 20 years ago.

Michael accompanied William to things like doctor visits, barbershops and things like that, places where people could not help but notice that this old man was wearing a pistol on his belt. After a couple of uncomfortable encounters Michael — who, I should point out, was himself not above drunkenly shooting handguns in his back yard on the Fourth of July — insisted William not wear his piece in public, at least not in situations where it would freak people out. William, of course, objected to such constraints. It got to the point where Michael would have to frisk William before going out. This is when William got his derringers, which could get by the pat-down. It ended up being an uneasy compromise.

The Pawns attack is weak because of limitations to wealth, aid from its government and the over bearing strength of those that it opposes. Like the great wars, it is not uncommon, for an end board to be almost void of any pawn pieces, unless a mate was made early by a forceful and intelligent strategic attack from the ego. An exception perhaps being a row of three Pawns protecting the King using a special procedure called castling. These unmotivated and idea-less Pawns form this wall as a sacrificial barrier to defend the King, perhaps milling around the land to preserve the agriculture and keep the King well fed in his castle. — William S. Burroughs