Fun4

www.blackhorsewesterns.org

Cowboy Bob's Trading Post #4

Here come the brides.	Last year Chap O'Keefe gave us his BHW about *Frontier Brides. This year fellow author I. J. Parnham* steps up with *Six-shooter Bride* in October, and in the same month the O'Keefe book is reissued in a large-print edition (Ulverscroft Magna). But sorry, guys — facts are wedding bells were a deal less familiar sound to Old West cowhands than bawling calves and clacking horns. In 1870, Idaho and Montana had 8 men over 21 for every woman over the same age; Wyoming, 6; Nevada, 5; Arizona, 4; California, 2.8; Washington, 2.6; and Colorado, 2.3. Only New Mexico and Utah had almost as many women as men. Seems in most places the circuit-riding preacher-men were more often officiating at funerals than nuptials.

Mike pleads his case.	Mike Linaker (aka BHWs' Richard Wyler and Neil Hunter) is holding up his hands to the "glorifying violence" tag — maybe. "In the heady days of my *Bodie* books especially, I did use fairly graphic depictions of gunshot effects. This was expected; I was only obeying Editor's orders . . . a weak excuse, but I was young and needed the money." Mike also believes in realism. "I did a lot of research into the effects of gunshot wounds, and with my late father being a regular soldier I was able to view films made for the Army that showed and explained the effects of ballistic wounds. They were not very pleasant and they made me realize that if I was going to write about this kind of thing, then I should do it as well as possible. . . . If I used a somewhat heavy hand in those early days, then I'm guilty as charged. I still try to be realistic, but perhaps have toned down the over-the-top effect, to a degree."

A research find.	BHW author Gillian F. Taylor is an assiduous researcher. She tells us many bookshops and tourist traps around Britain stock useful, slim reference paperbacks published by Shire. "They average between £3.50 and £5.50 in price, and are well illustrated. Titles I've picked up lately include *The Victorian Undertaker, Discovering Oil Lamps, The Heavy Horse, Sewing Tools and Accessories* and *Spectacles, Lorgnettes and Monacles*. The books are written and published in the UK, so there may be differences between the areas covered and what happened in America, but the titles published are still helpful as research for western writers." Shire publish a vast range of similar books that can be ordered through their website at www.shirebooks.co.uk. Says Gillian: "It's certainly worth taking a look at and you might find something useful, either for writing or other hobbies and interests."

	Alternative careers. . . . Bibliographer John Herrington gave us the tantalizing news that an American author of BHWs was a minister of religion. "Details of names have not been forthcoming because he doesn't want any of his flock to discover that he writes 'violent' westerns." Englishwoman Gillian F. Taylor was more delightfully upfront with her revelations. "I seem to be moving into a part-time career as a bra fitter and lingerie salesperson." Howard Hopkins (aka Lance Howard) said from Maine, "Sounds like a dream job to me!" Charlie Whipple (aka Chuck Tyrell), who has his base in Tokyo, quipped, "Love Gillian's career. Where do I apply?"

Don Durant: last singing cowboy?	Rest in peace, Don Durant (1932-2005). . . . Don was the star of the TV western series *Johnny Ringo* (1959-60). Previously he'd been a singing cowboy turned actor and had appeared in the classic *Wagon Train, Gunsmoke* and *Maverick* series. The new show gave him his first starring role and he composed and sang the theme song. With games, toys and figurines, Durant seemed set to follow Clint Eastwood to stardom. But competition with 30 other TV western series was strong and, after one season, *Johnny Ringo* was dumped. Although Durant nearly looped the lead in *The Virginian*, he rarely worked again. In 2001 the most complete collection ever of Johnny Ringo memorabilia, including toy figures, horses and wagons, became available on eBay. They went to a record bid of $9,000, so perhaps this old cowboy's allure hadn't died. But the successful bidder? Don Durant himself!

	Written off Zane Grey as old-hat? Sentimental? Banal? Pompous? Western Writers of America tells us about *Riders of the Purple Sage: The Restored Edition* (Five Star). It's the full, original yarn as Zane Grey wrote it. Previously, the theme of Mormon polygamy and the sexual predator behaviour of Jane Withersteen’s father, an elder in the Mormon church, was deemed too offensive to print. For this tough reissue, the publishers return to Grey’s unexpurgated work, using a handwritten draft of the novel. "The difference is like the contrast between day and night," says the WWA reviewer. "Grey’s original manuscript rounds out characters and answers questions. Misbehaving church elders; a sexual relationship between a Mormon woman and a gentile man; rape and forced marriage, all these things would raise the hair on the back of the neck of an editor in 1910. . . . This book is wonderful, full of hard moral choices, an unconventional heroine, and a mystery. . . . This story is now a classic, a richer, more realistic classic, worthy of being read again."

Holding up at the library.	David Whitehead (aka Ben Bridges and Glenn Lockwood) says BHWs are never going to make a writer rich, but according to Public Lending Right figures for borrowings from libraries, about a thousand people in Britain read one of his books every week. "That might not compare favourably to the likes of J. K. Rowling or Stephen King, but it's not bad for an ordinary bloke who operates out of a front bedroom converted to an office." What, David asks, is more uplifting than being able to write, instead of just talking about it, being published in a sturdy, attractive format, and having people who actually read your books and come back for more? Under the PLR scheme, authors resident in the European Community nations, and in Iceland, Norway or Liechtenstein, receive annual payments from the British central government for free borrowing of their books.

	A librarian reminds us that the cross-genre traffic between western and crime fiction has not always been in one direction. In the article Dillard Rides Again, Elmore Leonard and John Harvey were noted as prominent movers from the western camp. But the late W. T. (Willis Todhunter) Ballard (1903-1980), a contributor to the famous crime pulp Black Mask in the 1930s, went in the opposite direction, preferring westerns over "phoney" crime fiction in his later career. "When I wrote my first western I knew practically nothing about the West and its history," Ballard said. "Since then I have researched. Learned a lot and had a lot of fun doing it."

Yardena Rand: studying fans.	A new study has found that the audience for westerns is strong as ever — 30% of Americans, or 57 million people, say they enjoy watching westerns. For her new book, *Wild Open Spaces: Why We Love Westerns, Rhode Island-based author Yardena Rand* interviewed more than 1,000 fans, including many African-Americans. "Typical of western fans everywhere, African-Americans enjoy westerns because a good sagebrush saga gives them a sense of being there. For most of us, the Old West of popular culture — movies, TV, books — is the closest we’ll ever come to experiencing what it was like to live on the frontier."

Dillard rides again.	The new (November) Joshua Dillard BHW, *The Lawman and the Songbird, will take Chap O'Keefe's hero to Montana and is set largely in a fictitious boom-town/mining camp called Cox City. "I called it that because it's based loosely on Alder Gulch," said O'Keefe. Uhh. . .? The author explains, "It's a shorthand reminder to myself. My interest in the historic gold rush settlement of Alder Gulch was inspired by the classic, 1941 western by Ernest Haycox* that carried its name. Every time I pick up this Dillard book and see 'Cox City', I will remember my, and the genre's, indebtedness to one of its old masters."

	The Houston Chronicle's Stump the Scholar column was asked why stagecoach wheels rotate backwards in movies. Professor Matthew A. Francheck, of the department of mechanical engineering, University of Houston, explained the phenomenon called aliasing. "Movie cameras take a series of still photos that are strung together to create motion pictures. The still photos are samplings of the event that lead to the aliasing you see in the movies." As a cartwheel starts to move, the still photos taken by the movie camera reproduce the spoke movement. But as the wheel speed increases, the spokes rotate more between the still photos. Eventually, as the speed increases, the spokes look like they are not moving, since the spoke rotation lines up with the previous spoke position from the last still photo. At this speed, the spokes are rotating at a speed that is synchronized with the film speed. As the wheel moves faster, the spokes look as if they are rotating faster and in the opposite direction, since the speed of taking the still photos is too slow relative to the rotational speed of the spokes.

New ground.	David Whitehead said, "I've long believed that, if we're to reach a new and possibly more demanding audience — and thus survive as a genre — then we must continue to update our style and plot. . . I really do believe we now have to be more sophisticated than ever when creating characters and situations." He also asked his readers at an online discussion group, "What is the most unusual theme you've encountered in a western?" Chap O'Keefe mentioned the movie of a Paul Wellman novel made in 1956. *Jubal* broke what was then new ground in plot sophistication for a western: an unhappy wife creating mayhem and Othello-style tragedy on a Wyoming ranch. Steve Myall reported three unusual themes: a search for a sunk galleon in a desert; a hunt for a killer bear told for a large part from the bear's POV; and guiding an artist to find a rare bird so he could paint it. Juri Nummelin picked a 1968 Giles Lutz novel, *The Wolfer*, about hunters who lived in caves and were the most loathsome group in the West. Explore fresh trails yourself at the Yahoo BHW group!