These are two items that are wholly unrelated. But then, a rambling journal like this, it’s okay.
Juarez:
Maybe once or twice a month, I’ll actually buy a newspaper to read with my lunch. I discovered, by accident, that the Houston Chronicle, is, half dollar for half dollar, a damn fine piece of newsprint. Better than the local fodder, and superior to the much vaunted Dallas Morning News, which, according to one neighbor, is the best paper between the coasts.
Tuesday afternoon, in the wan winter sun, I didn’t make it much past the story in the about Mexico’s Benito Juarez.
Folk hero, political hero, man of myth and mystery, and like some of our historical figures, attributed with more power than he really had. Not that it matters, I just found it an engaging slant on a story – coming from a town where they were having trouble with the proposed name of the sports team.
Update – Benito Juarez:
Well, so the Houston Chronicle link broke, but it was good article, I suppose, about the folk hero, first native Presidente, usurped the Catholic Church’s power, and currently presents a unified myth akin to both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. But the article did point out that it might also be a lot of myth.
(No segue is available at this time.)
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It’s the new Chris Moore book. Previously, I’ve particularly loved two novels out of his collection, Lamb and his weird Xmas story.
I also suspected that those two previous efforts would be hard to top. However, in just the first fifty pages or so of A Dirty Job, I was giggling. Perhaps that’s one way to judge a book, if the cat rolls over with a rheumy eye and tells me to STFU – she was sleeping on my chest – it’s a good sign if my giggling bothers the sleeping feline form.
I really shouldn’t give away too much, but there’s a new definition, the Beta Male, and here’s part of the description.
“While Alpha Males are often gifted with superior physical attributes – size, strength, speed, good looks – selected by evolution over the eons by the strongest surviving and, essentially, getting all the girls, the Beta Male gene has survived not by meeting and overcoming adversity, but by anticipating and avoiding it. That is, when the Alpha Males were out charging after mastodons, the Beta Males could imagine in advance that attacking what was essentially an angry, wooly bulldozer with a pointy stick might be a losing proposition, so they hung back at camp to console the grieving widows.” (page 31)
There’s really about two pages of “Beta Male” description, heaping funny upon amusing, and making me laugh. And although it’s from a slightly whacked author, high praise here, I found it gratifying and it kept me engaged.
As previously noted, authorial attitude. A sense of whimsy, and as a working writer, I admire .
