Saturday, July 28, 2012

Lady Gail and Lady Bird

     My blog is having days of getting as many page views as 41 or 42. The popularity of the internet is really blossoming, and like a piece of beef on a shishkebob skewer I am taken along in the stream. And this is my review of Gail Collins' book, which is not called Tejas.

                                            Book Review - Gail Collins

     Lyndon Johnson, whose name I always thought acceptable -- rather nice -- had a wife with an unusual name ... Lady Bird.
     Now I realize it was a kind of Texas thing (which is what I suspected in my so-called subconscious or "invisible mind").
     This is a state of individuals who say things like "Howdy," and, "there's going to be a crisis boiling point." That latter is an actual quote thing, something they actually said, and that's just the beginning. (reported in Gail Collins' book, about Tejas)
     Americans are not terribly sophisticated in their use of language. And, many of us talk a little roughly. And we all seem to think we are 'equal.' This is one of our charming national characteristics: talking trash and being equal. Howdy.
     I know I have written pieces with slang and vernacular.
     I know I have done that, but Texans have simply been walking backwards longer than most of us have.

     I drove across Texas once. I drove from the eastern part (Galveston) all the way to New Mexico, and I noticed Texas people think they are being "big," or something. They have a real affinity for the larger than life or the super-sized. 
     I think this is connected with industrialization. The arrogance of industrialized civilization is now causing almost every day to go to 90 degrees, or higher where I live.    

     Arrogant life kills normal life... ...

     But Texans are also extremely cute, according to Gail Collins. She always makes it seems so, in her new book, published by Harper and Row, or Simon, or Norton, or whoever it was ... it is the book that proves, on paper, that Texans are cute, after all. Real cute stuff. Bad - but also cute!
     I heartily endorse the book, though, since I enjoyed reading the first part of it. It is a book equipped with a money-making, grammatically poor title. The cover: (1) a large white cowboy hat tops awkwardly the Washington Monument in D. C. But wait!!! I have a crisis boiling point!!! Why is a white hat topping off the Washington monument? Why not a black hat? That would be good -- what, in general, makes us choose one thing over another? Why not a black hat? I think there's a very major issue there. A big one, but not big merely out of the deluded arrogance of Texas. Are we playing good cop-bad cop with the color of the hat? Thanks for the book, little Gal!

(1) As Texas Goes... [exact copy except italicized of the book title, iterated in large letters on said cover]

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