With 3 unsatisfactory draft post sittin’ in the chuck waggon. I am delighted to have to the opportunity to boil some coffee, sit back and shoot my mouth off. Or rather shoot this gif out from the hip:
If I have to justify this in terms of DS106 I refer to a bit of char on Alan and Mariana’s radio show: A Bit of Rodeo Clowning on First High Noon Radio Show – DS106 Tricks where Alan talked about thinking about size, quality and the like in animated gifs and trying to make them look good and keep the size down. Then Sandy mentioned on G+ that this gif was a bit quick.
Yesterday I read a great post on open which included this point:
Focusing on simple cost-benefit analysis models neglects the creative, fun and serendipitous aspects of openness and, ultimately, this is what keeps us learning.
When I heard about #western106 I was looking forward to messing about as an outrider to the main herd, have a bit of fun, running the odd gif down and perhaps have a few campfire podcasts, nothing to heavy.
I’d not watched cowboy movies much recently and associate them with my father whom I watched them with and childhood. I was vaguely aware of some of the problems of the genre, but thought my favourites: Shane, High Noon, The Searchers and the like would protect me from heavy thinking.
Being a child in the sixties (b 1958) I didn’t notice any disapproval of guns growing up, they were common toys and we played lots of fighting games. World War 2 based in the main rather than cowboys.
As I got older I’ve not been a great action movie fan, but enjoyed a few movie fights without really thinking about it for too long. As gun toys became less popular and I worked as a primary teacher I tried to encourage my pupils to make something more constructive from lego than ray guns and developed a reasonably negative view of guns.
But the fascination is still there, in ds106 I’ve giffed a few eastern ones:
ItalyA Hitchcock gun
Only occasionally reacting to the unsavoury aspects:
I guess it is time to start thinking about how we can live in harmony 2
I didn’t blog this episode during the #prisoner106 run but it will fit in with #western106 too. I am not sure that just giving up the gun will do. The prisoner manage a fair bit of punching in that episode.
Of course it is not just guns, we will have the chance to get to grips with other ornery, politically incorrect aspects of the western over the next weeks. I am sure we can have fun along the trail, but keep a weather eye on the morals too.
the goal of “Living in Harmony” and other padding episodes, was to “make them as visually exciting as possible but still retaining within them part of the theme of violence doesn’t pay off”
It was not shown as part of the first USA run of the series, worth reading the wikipedia article… ↩
I’ve not really watch cowboy movies for a long time, and there is a lot to dislike in the politics of the cowboy. The movies I remember best, High Noon & The Searchers hopeful push against this a little.
