Wild West Land Blog

Wish I’d spotted this South Carolina political ‘rally’ earlier, it certainly raised the profile of Dean Allen and his ambitions for office. An AK-47 is an alternative sweepstakes prize to the kind of tombola raffles I buy into:

How about this for a novel way to get people into recycling?

The triplepundit blog is covering the Going Green Film Festival which takes place in Beverly Hills, California in April 2010 and a particularly quirky approach to increase eco awareness amongst US audiences:

David Dibble, an LA-based filmmaker and his crew are re-enacting the wild, wild west. With an eco-conscious marshal. “It’s a typical high-noon Clint Eastwood situation, where you’ve got a marshal and a bad guy’s coming into town,” Dibble said. But in this town, the outlaws recycle.

… watching iconic figures of the wild west recycling old guns, shells and cigars is sure to be memorable and puts the environment top of mind.

So there I was on Sunday moaning about public sector training jollies, what with two UK HR staff off on an ‘equine leadership session’.

Today though I may have to eat my hat - it appears there’s genuine logic in undertaking training in a horsey environment.

Just look at the fine folks at Cowboy Leaders, 50 miles west of Salt Lake City, Utah, who have launched an Anti-Tweet Business Retreat for executives strung out on information overload, looking for a way to improve their leadership skills:

The American West was shaped by cowboys. Cowboys are tough, hard-working, say-it-like-it-is people. They understand the value of hard work and see everything through to completion.

To get work done the cowboy must trust his ability to build strong, working relationships with his horses and his fellow cowboys. We will teach you the tools of the trade and help you understand how this will make you a better leader.

With courses titled Cowboy Up & Lead, Saddle Up for Success and Ride For the Brand I want to be sent on some management training, cowboy style.

And when they say ‘No tweeting allowed’ at the ranch, they mean it - just watch the video to see technophobe Deuce in action:

A Bambi-esque technological tragedy is recorded for posterity by the Google Maps street view car traversing the Five Points Road in Rush, NY over on Gizmodo. I hope they had their hunting licence in the glovebox…

In 1901 Edward Sheriff Curtis set himself an ambitious target - to photograph every Native American tribe west of the Mississippi.

Curtis traveled from Alaska to the Southwest, photographing the Piegan, Blackfoot, Sioux, Gros Ventre, and the Cheyenne, the Hopi, Zunis, Acomas, and Pueblos, among many others… he photographed more than 40,000 Native Americans representing more than eighty tribes.

The project would take him almost thirty years to complete and by the time he died in 1952 Curtis was bankrupt, divorced and had suffered a nervous breakdown. His work “had all but faded into obscurity”.

As Curtis embarked on his mission he soon realised that the great changes taking place in the West was destroying ancient cultures. His work proved popular with many but was often dismissed for the style and settings he shot his subjects in (the photo above shows ‘Old White Man’ from the Library of Congress collection).

In trying to celebrate Native American cultures Curtis often brought artistic flair to those he photographed. The dedicated microsite for the 2002 exhibition at the Peabody Essex museum states that his “photographs reflect both his extraordinary talents as a photographer and his dedication to the people whose majesty he wanted to preserve on film.”

Thomas Haukaas, a Sicangu Lakota Artist & Psychiatrist describes Curtis’s photographs in a brief video on the website. He suggests they were shot in the renaissance style and were overwhelmingly positive images - especially when contrasted with the portrayl of American Indians in traditional western movies.

Curtis was later called ‘Shadow Catcher’ by some of the tribes he photographed and “captured the likeness of many important and well-known Indian people of that time, including Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Red Cloud, Medicine Crow and others.”

Read George Horse Capture’s story on the PBS American Master series site for more info on the project and browse the photo archives at the Library of Congress.

As JK from Jamiroquai would sing in the 90s hit song Space Cowboy, I’ve just entered my ‘interplanetary good vibe zone’ with news that the web comic Cowboys and Aliens will soon begin shooting, quite possibly under the watchful eye of Iron Man movie duo Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr.

I can’t say I’d come across this comic before but since reading the gossip about the Dreamworks production I’ve read the online comic with interest. What better crossover is there than the wild west meets alien invaders?

The graphic novel mixes Western and science fiction genres. Set in 1800s Arizona, a skirmish between cowboys and Apaches is interrupted by the crash landing of a space ship. The alien commander plans to tame the Old West and enslave everyone, but the cowboys and Native Americans turn their six-guns against the alien invaders.

The comic artwork is amazing - just look at this screen grab featuring cowgirl Verity, the Trail Master partnered up with trail boss Zeke Jackson, blazing away at the alien hordes flying in on Judge Dredd style speeder bikes:

Let’s hope the movie does this authentic western imagery justice. It should do given that Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, the Platinum Studios CEO who created C&A (no, not that C&A) ran Malibu Comics when graphic novel Men in Black was transferred into a hit film.

Will Smith as Zeke Johnson? Well he does have the experience of working on Wild, West West…

Should be in cinemas in 2011.