Have been looking forward to scratching these three books (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain) off my reading list for a long time. If you’ve enjoyed any of McCarthy’s other work this trilogy is essential reading. Three stories of good ole’ American boys seeking adventure and a simpler life across the border in Mexico. Of course nothing is simpler down there. Or maybe it is, but not in a way that is identifiable by any of these characters.

One of McCarthy’s strengths is in reducing the world to it’s true nature: primordial, savage, unnameable. Set in a time when the United States was shedding it’s wild history on the verge of becoming a global super power, Mexico sits in perfect contrast: a country still evolving, raw, mysterious, and violent. These stories explore the alienation of men unable to adapt to the new way of life.

Quotes after the click.

“… men believe the cure for war is war as the curandero prescribes the serpent’s flesh for its bite.”

“He said that if a person understood the soul of the horse then he would understand all horses that ever were … Finally he said that among men there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men can be understood at all was probably an illusion.”

“For me the world has always been more of a puppet show. But when one looks behind the curtain and traces the strings upward he finds they terminate in the hands of yet other puppets, themselves with their own strings which trace upward in turn, and so on. In my own life I saw these strings whose origins were endless enact the deaths of great men in violence and madness.”

“… he held out his hands … as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead.”

“…the wolf is a being of great order and that it knows what men do not: that there is no order in the world save that which death has put there. Finally he said that if men drink the blood of God yet they do not understand the seriousness of what they do. He said that men wish to be serious but they do not understand how to be so.”

“Los que no pueden recordar la sangre do la guerra so siempre los más ardientes para la lucha.”

“For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but is a tale. And all in it is a tale and each tale the sum of all lesser tales and yet these also are the selfsame tale and contain as well all else within them. So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made.”

“As with all priests his mind had become clouded by the illusion of its proximity to God. What priest will denounce his robes even to save himself?”

“… the wicked know that if the ill they do be of sufficient horror men will not speak against it. That men have just enough stomach for small evils and only these will they oppose.”

“Your kind cannot bear that the world be ordinary. That it contain nothing save what stands before one. But the Mexican world is a world of adornment only and underneath it is very plain indeed. While your world … totters upon an unspoken labyrinth of questions. And we will devour you, my friend. You and all your pale empire.”

I drew this for K with ink and watercolour. It’s the HMCS Thorlock which is a flower class corvette her grandfather served on during WW2. It’s main role was to escort transatlantic convoys for the Allied forces. In 1945, the Thorlock was also involved in a U-Boat surrender. It was eventually sold to the Chilean Navy where it was used until 1967. There was a time when Canada could boast the third largest navy force in the world. Today it’s quite the opposite despite a strong campaign for increased recruitment and budget.

Just got the prints for the Buried Inside May shows and they look really sharp. Jesse Purcell at Repetitive Press did a great job with these. There will be 50 signed and numbered available at the shows (May 27th in Toronto, May 28th in Montreal). See you there.

This just in, this will be the last time Buried Inside plays Toronto and Montreal. There will be a final Ottawa show sometime later this year. After 13 years the band has come to an end. Lots of great memories for me with this band, happy to be playing these final shows.

DCT Posters are screened, signed, numbered (edition of 50) and ready for consumption. Grab one from the band next week on their tour.

March 30 Toronto @ Silver Dollar
March 31 Montreal @ L’Escogriffe
April 1 Ottawa @ Atomic Rooster
April 2 Quebec City @ Bar Le Scanner
April 3 Moncton @ Oxygen
April 4 Halifax @ Gus’s Pub
April 5 Halifax @ Reflections

DCT // Miesha and the Spanks