{"id":5926,"date":"2013-08-20T17:44:34","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T23:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5926"},"modified":"2013-08-20T17:44:34","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T23:44:34","slug":"keep-the-weird-in-the-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5926","title":{"rendered":"Keep the Weird in the the West"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indianapolis blogger Roberta X muses on the literary sub-genre known as “Weird West.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Sometimes that means sort of H. P. Lovecraft-meets-Wyatt Earp, sometimes other things.<\/p>\n

My introduction was the online graphic novel Tex Arcana<\/em><\/a>, back when the Web was still young.<\/p>\n

If your reading tastes don’t go that direction, here are Montana novelist Ivan Doig’s favorite Western reads.<\/a><\/p>\n

Once when I asked a prominent historian what he thought of the many writings by Stegner, novelist and English-department star at Harvard and Stanford, about the background and the West, he didn\u2019t hesitate: \u201cHe hits the nail on the head every time, damn him.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yep, every book that Stegner<\/a> built (they always feel “built,” like Robertson Davies<\/a>‘ stuff, but that is a Good Thing) was solid as the proverbial brick shithouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indianapolis blogger Roberta X muses on the literary sub-genre known as “Weird West.” Sometimes that means sort of H. P. Lovecraft-meets-Wyatt Earp, sometimes other things. My introduction was the online graphic novel Tex Arcana, back when the Web was still young. If your reading tastes don’t go that direction, here are Montana novelist Ivan Doig’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22,12],"class_list":["post-5926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-weirdness","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1xA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1174,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1174","url_meta":{"origin":5926,"position":0},"title":"Gallimaufry with Stakes","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 Buffy versus Edward (of Twilight). Nice creative remix; too bad about the different color palates. (Via Odious and Peculiar.)\u2022 Napoleon was [not] short, and five other \"facts\" about historical figures that their enemies made up. (That process is still going on.)Novelist Douglas Coupland mused on the 25th anniversary of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1066,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1066","url_meta":{"origin":5926,"position":1},"title":"Encountering the Evil Librarian","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"She is evil because when I stopped by her office for a chat, she forced me to look at four large cartons of books recently \"weeded\" from the university's literature and criticism shelves, forced me, I tell you, with the magic words, \"They're free. Take as many as you want.\"Many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"writing\"","block_context":{"text":"writing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=writing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7516,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7516","url_meta":{"origin":5926,"position":2},"title":"On Not Finding What You Were Looking For in Foreign Places","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are the kind of traveler looking for history, you do not always find the history that you were looking for. I learned that lesson years ago when M. and I went on a month-long honeymoon in Ireland. Newly Celtophile, I was all excited about seeing Neolithic monuments and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Take the door to the Dutch Consulate, but go up four flights.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/aristotelous-sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/aristotelous-sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/aristotelous-sm.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1173,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1173","url_meta":{"origin":5926,"position":3},"title":"John Keel Has Died","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author and Fortean John Keel died Friday in New York.Not long after his signature book, The Mothman Prophecies was published, I saw on the Colorado Springs downtown library's new-books shelf and passed it by--repeatedly--because the title sounded too weird.From the Cryptomundo obituary:After years of writing parts of the story in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0765341972","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10841,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10841","url_meta":{"origin":5926,"position":4},"title":"When “Pagans” Return, Who Gets Hurt?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I read an alternative-history novel now and then,((Robert Harris' Fatherland remains an all-time favorite.)) especially those in which the Pagans triumph. For instance, John M. Ford created a 15th-century world, Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History, in which Julian the Philosopher, the last Pagan emperor, did put on his armor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0380698870","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":913,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=913","url_meta":{"origin":5926,"position":5},"title":"Animal, Vegetable . . . Wiccan?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is novelist Barbara Kingsolver's new nonfiction book about her family's year of eating locally. Or to quote the blurb: \"With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Wicca\"","block_context":{"text":"Wicca","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wicca"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5927,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5926\/revisions\/5927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}