This is a nice birthday present (or Mother’s Day present, since it’s from Sunday). Tim Hulsey, brilliant cultural dude, talks about the Western movie:

And here, as they say, is where I get off. Granted, if you’re a fan of repertory cinema, you’re not likely to see a classic Western in New York City, the very mention of which inspires a grizzled cowboy in a picante sauce commercial to cry, “Git a rope!” But ironically, you’re much more likely to see these movies in Manhattan than in Omaha, or Santa Fe, or any of the other places traditionally associated with the movie Western. Being a fan of movie westerns is much more lonely, when you have only a television and a DVD player to give you your cowboy fix.

You might not know this, or be able to guess, but I loooooove the Western. The age of the satellite teevee has ruined me, too, because I can get two or three channels devoted to the Western. Is there any possible way life could get better, short of free beer? And they come with all the schtick that surrounds the Western movie, like re-runs of Bonanza and Rawhide and The Virginian.

Well, anyway…Tim talks about the Western, how it relates to film noir (my other fave movie genre), and how audiences are still (still!) influenced by the Western. May it ever be thus, hombres…

One day I’ll bore you all to tears with my contention that the absolute top-dog best treatise on the duality of man is embodied in the characters of Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove.