Howdy partner
Dave just sent me photos of Palmer in his Halloween costume. He dressed up like a cowboy, and was really adorable.
Cowboys are an American icon, and sometimes it is hard to put one's finger on exactly makes them so symbolically rich. I think I have come to maybe a bit more of an understanding of them, now that I am living here in Iceland, ironically enough.
A book I did the proofreading for a few years ago, Images of the North (S. Jakobsson, ed.), had an interesting article by Kari Schram about the wild man figure of Iceland, a folk figure who survived in the wilderness basically, had no appreciation for the niceities of modern society. So I was thinking maybe this figure was like the American cowboy. But really, that is not the case.
The cowboys did survive tough conditions, hot and dusty, no women to comfort them, not enough food, too much hard work. But it is not their survival skills that made them an American icon.
To me the most salient image of the cowboy is the one where he is singing Home, Home on the Range, accompanied by the other cowboys. Cowboys are not in fact loners. A herd of cattle is moved by three or four cowboys at least. They form their own little micro-community, as they travel out over vast empty wilderness. And thus they have an appreciation for depending on another human being that makes them want to greet everyone they meet with a friendly, "Howdy partner." It doesn't always work. Sometimes they have to turn into gun toting gangsters to preserve their way of life, an odd combination of freedom and community all wrapped up into one.
Anyhow, this quintessentially American icon may not have an Icelandic equivalent.
Cowboys are an American icon, and sometimes it is hard to put one's finger on exactly makes them so symbolically rich. I think I have come to maybe a bit more of an understanding of them, now that I am living here in Iceland, ironically enough.
A book I did the proofreading for a few years ago, Images of the North (S. Jakobsson, ed.), had an interesting article by Kari Schram about the wild man figure of Iceland, a folk figure who survived in the wilderness basically, had no appreciation for the niceities of modern society. So I was thinking maybe this figure was like the American cowboy. But really, that is not the case.
The cowboys did survive tough conditions, hot and dusty, no women to comfort them, not enough food, too much hard work. But it is not their survival skills that made them an American icon.
To me the most salient image of the cowboy is the one where he is singing Home, Home on the Range, accompanied by the other cowboys. Cowboys are not in fact loners. A herd of cattle is moved by three or four cowboys at least. They form their own little micro-community, as they travel out over vast empty wilderness. And thus they have an appreciation for depending on another human being that makes them want to greet everyone they meet with a friendly, "Howdy partner." It doesn't always work. Sometimes they have to turn into gun toting gangsters to preserve their way of life, an odd combination of freedom and community all wrapped up into one.
Anyhow, this quintessentially American icon may not have an Icelandic equivalent.
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