Teddy Blue

Posted: July 29, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: cormac, Texas, the American West | Leave a comment

I’ve been working my way through Larry McMurtry’s short syllabus for understanding the cowboy of the 19th century. Teddy Blue’s memoir is vivid:

A Yankee cowboy:

Conversation with a chippie:

(Gilt Edge appears to be no more).

strong phrase:

Reminded of Cormac McCarthy: I’d know your hide in a tanyard. Teddy weighs in on cowboy songs:

I like the version by Suzanne Vega.

Suttree

Posted: March 27, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: America Since 1945, books, cormac, writing | Leave a comment

Moving stuff around in my house I found the handwritten list of words I had to look up from Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy, and their definitions.

Trull: a prostitute or a trollop.

Tellurian: an inhabitant of Earth.

Feels like I used to have a lot more spare time.

Suttree is set along the river in Knoxville, TN.

If you think Suttree might be for you, try the first sentence:

Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth highshouldered and lean in the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you.