Thursday, July 24, 2008

Texas Monthly is weird

Thumbing through the July edition at the barber's shop:
  • TM has apparently started a series on where Texans worship. The July edition prints a positive profile of a mega-baptist church in Abilene. I suppose the purpose is to draw more religious types in. The odd bit is that the profile was immediately followed by:
  • A sentimental look-back at the pornflick Debbie Does Dallas by Star-Telegram critic Chris Kelly. (The lead: "How do you capture XXX-rated lightning in a bottle?") Kelly argues that the movie has heavily influenced today's cinema, and just coming from the church article, I'm a little too slack-jawed to comment.
  • This is followed by An Open Letter to Cormac McCarthy: Please Go Away by one Don Graham. Apparently McCarthy, who wrote The Road and No Country for Old Men has embraced his celebrity, thereby lowering his status on the cool-o-meter. Graham pleads for McCarthy to crawl back under a rock.
  • We then get to the main piece, a glorification of the Texas Cowboy by western writer Elmer Kelton. I've read several of his novels, but I find this story a little to sweet to get past the first page.
  • At the end of the magazine, Kinky Friedman writes his own love letter, a non-sarcastic thanks to Bill O'Reilly. Seriously.

Strange. They've mapped out the id of Texas.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am tired of turning to your blog only to find this old as the hills post. Write something new! How is school? How is life? What are you reading about lately? Are you excited about taking a creative writing class? What have you cooked lately that you are really proud of?