Sometimes that '50's misperception of America, the black and white western cowboy shoot 'em up, might use a little re-examining. There might really be at least some gold in them thar hills!
Not like, you might think, the stream of dispossession epics that were cinema of my youth. The ones with the U.S. soldiers, preferably the U.S. Marines, showing up just in time to prevent great disaster to some particularly blessed populace or other. Damn, that looked like a great thing to do!
"Ask not ...," yeah, that's the era I joined in. I remember how scared we all were, at Camp LeJeune, that the "Russians had done it!" That Friday afternoon, in formation, wondering if the world had just come to an end.
"What does that feel like in the body?"
My teacher teaches me useful things. Otherwise I would not listen to her, or hear the things she says.
"What does that feel like in the body," she asks?
I saw some old fifties shoot 'emup, as black and white as that world I call my childhood, and thought "Damn, there were some good, some admirable qualities portrayed in those flicks that we don't hardly see enough of anymore. And there was lots of stuff left out, and lots of stuff ignored, like, ya know, the whole people of color getting bound up as property, too often neglected property. And worse.
That's not my tale to tell.
But in my body? The fierce Celt who was my Grandmother; she howls still.