Western…as high fantasy

“Merlin! I’m callin’ you out!”

Merlin did not come out of the tavern. Merlin wanted nothing more than to crawl back into a bottle of whiskey, and forget about the dark wizard who waited on the dirt road outside. He had a shot in his hand, and by the [...]

Western…in modern times.

“Hello, I saw your ad on the message board? ‘Have BFG, will travel?’ That’s you, right?”

“That’s the part everyone focuses on, yes.”

“You do have the gun, right?”

“In game? Yes…but I prefer not to use it.”

“But you will use it, right?”

“I will. If the situation [...]

Western…on the schoolyard

Big Lucy’s Black Hats were the terror of recess. No snack cake was spared their greed, no shin spared their wrath. The teachers were useless. The Black Hats were the queens and kings of Tombstone Elementary, and they knew no one could challenge them.

No one, that is, until [...]

Western…as religion

Bobby Joe believed in The Gun. He had met other Marshals, men and women who appeared pious, but who threw aside the Lessons of The Gun as it suited them. To them, wielding the gun was about power. To Bobby Joe, however, it was about salvation. Out here in the [...]

I don’t watch a whole lot of television, but I don’t dare miss an episode of PROJECT RUNWAY. As an examination of the creative process and an intriguing character study of the kind of people who chose to make creation their life, it’s hard to beat. Plus, you get fashion shows and the idiosyncratic charm [...]