ATDTDA (3) Dynamitic mania, 80-86

[Monte Davis]

On p. 80, Merle and Dally continue across southern Colorado, past the Sangre
de Cristo range, to end up in San Miguel County. About five inhabitants per
square mile these days. Probably more then, as long as the silver held out.
http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=9681

Geologic/mineral orientation with some mine photos (uranium,molybdenum,
vanadium these days):
http://www.dregs.org/fldtrips.html

Scenery, not without its powerplant (!)
http://www.ucsanmiguel.org/

81: Nitroglycerin oozing out of dynamite in the heat -- in effect, reversing
the process that was making Alfred Nobel a multimillionaire, the unstable
liquid separating again from its kieselguhr clay binder.   

Cowboy Chriistmas: http://rodeo.about.com/od/faqs/f/cowboychristmas.htm

Nitro headaches: a consequence of the same vasodilation by which
nitroglycerin pills open up coronary arteries for angina patients.

82: "In the middle of the night, deep in the southern San Juans, the train
came to a halt, there was metallic thumping overhead, the door slid open.
'End of the line for you all,' called an unfriendly voice, and few there
were ready to hear it in any but the worst way." We've had too many dark
reflections on too many European train rides in GR not to hear the overtones
in this.

Or in meeting other displaced persons, the Indians, "some of them already
believing that Colorado, because of its shape, had actually been created as
a reservation for whites." I once heard someone say vaguely that a certain
national park was "in one of those square states with all the mountains."
Rectilinear boundaries paying no attention to watersheds, passes, ethnic
distributions, etc: sure signs of empires in a hurry.

***

I hope Heikki Raudaskoski will weigh in on Veikko Rautavaara ("iron
hills"??) and on Finland's restive status as a Grand Duchy within the
tsarist empire since 1809. Note for the moment the deliberate emphasis on
pictures of stamps and pictures of postmarks: representations of
representations. _Minneskort_ is an anachronistic joke: a memory card is
also what you put in your digital camera, PDA or Nokia cellphone.

The discussion of how and where to strike at the railroad, blending into
Webb's anger "like a kid about to cry" at  _provocateur_ attacks arranged
"not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves," opens a can of worms, of
ends and means, of justifications and smoke clouds tinged with blood, that
will be with us throughout the book.

Remember how Dally and Merle were knotted into nature in their travels,
"scanning like journeyman hawks for the next day's work" (72). What does it
tell us that Webb becomes irritable, "did not much admire himself," when for
a moment he sees his own war projected onto redtail hawks and field rodents?
What is the divide he stands at in his dream, waking "to the day and its
dread"?   




 

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