Category Archives: The West

"Captain Fantastic": Matt Ross's Ode to Life Off the Grid

Posted on February 13, 2017 by williamjcobb

So I caught the indie-hit Captain Fantastic (2016) recently, and after my post not long ago about adventure stories gone wrong, this is a paean to adventure as a lifestyle choice. It’s also something of a genre mixer: adventure tale … Continue reading →

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"The Sailor's Gift": Short Essay in the Dallas Morning News

Posted on February 9, 2017 by williamjcobb

So as I noted in my previous post (The Goodwill Genius: On Discovering Vladimir Nabokov’s Bend Sinister) I actually wrote the “wrong” essay for my editor at the Dallas Morning News, remembering it only to be about a book that … Continue reading →

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On Adventures Gone Wrong: Stephane Gerson's "Disaster Falls" and Jason Kersten's "Journal of the Dead"

Posted on February 5, 2017 by williamjcobb

So I stumbled upon a book that touches close to home for me, as a naturalist who drags his young daughter with him to various outdoor locales seething with both beauty and danger, filled with the confidence and aplomb that … Continue reading →

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On HBO's Westworld: Where Humans Go for Fun, Known to the Hosts as Hell

Posted on October 5, 2016 by williamjcobb

So out of pity for my poor blog that never gets attention, I’ll download myself out of the iCloud in which I reside to report that I’m jazzed about the new HBO series Westworld. For one thing it takes me … Continue reading →

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On Ian McGuire's "The North Water": a Revisionist "Moby Dick," With Echoes of "Blood Meridian" and "The Revenant"

Posted on May 4, 2016 by williamjcobb

So last week I had the gripping-if-ghastly reading experience of zooming through Ian McGuire’s new novel, The North Water. I’ll try to be circumspect in my comments here so as not to spoil the reading “fun” for others, as I … Continue reading →

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On T.J. Stiles's "Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America": a Pulitzer That Deserves It

Posted on April 20, 2016 by williamjcobb

So I’ve been a fan of both (the celebrated myth of) George Armstrong Custer and the excellent historian/biographer T.J. Stiles for many years, and when these two worlds collided, it’s not surprising that I read Custer’s Trials: A Life on … Continue reading →

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Monsters Within & Without the Bunker: On "10 Cloverfield Lane," Which High-Fives "The Revenant," With a Nod to the Original "Cloverfield"

Posted on March 18, 2016 by williamjcobb

So I was amused by the original Cloverfield (2008), with its cool poster of the Statue of Liberty and tagline: Some Thing Has Found Us. It’s no great film or anything—kind of a Heineken ad spliced with (the film version … Continue reading →

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They Eat Horses, Don't They? "The Revenant" v. "Backcountry": A Tale of Two Bears, With Nods to Peter Stark's "Astoria" and David Roberts's "A Newer World"

Posted on February 20, 2016 by williamjcobb

So I’ve been getting caught up on some of the Oscar-bait for this year, as in watching Matt Damon’s improbable space rescue in The Martian, and seeing The Revenant in a local theater, where I laughed and made too many … Continue reading →

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The Year Without a Winter: Two Centuries Later, a Climate Switcheroo

Posted on February 3, 2016 by williamjcobb

So some years back I read a good book titled The Year Without a Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History (2013), by William and Nicholas Klingaman (that name makes you wonder: or are they … Continue reading →

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On Flying Rivers and Ghost Forests: A Visit to Mesa Verde

Posted on October 13, 2015 by williamjcobb

So I spent last weekend at Mesa Verde National Park—a bit west of Durango, Colorado, in the famous Four Corners region of the American Southwest—grokking with the spirits of our Native American ancestors, hiking through ancestral puebloan cliff dwellings, and … Continue reading →

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