April 11, 2006
Clear skies and balmy, beautiful desert weather. Took the dogs up the road at 7:22. As Napoleon Dynamite would say, “Sweet!”

Darcy Peterson came out this morning, bringing a carload of cabinets and book shelves. We loaded a table and bookshelf into the studio bedroom for my designated Honkytonk Sue work area. Upstairs in the loft area, a specialized video, CD, DVD bookcase was filling up as I left to come into the office (one whole shelf is Starz-Encore (Westerns Channel’s True West Moments).

Robert Ray and I are dealing with computer woes, playing computer chess, moving Gus’s old computer over here, my laptop over there, a new screen over here, better scanner over yonder. Meanwhile, I brought in some new Sue drawings and 1940s postcards and told Robert I want to take Honkytonk Sue to the next level. When he asked what that means, I said it’s time to colorize the strip and I want it somewhere between Nagel (artist Patrick Nagel) and those pale, hand-tinted postcards from yesteryear.

Meanwhile, we got some art images from Wayne Justus from Pagosa Springs, Colorado and he’s quite an artist.

Deadwood Prep
“In preparation for the new season of Deadwood, I just ordered Geoffrey Hughes' new 600 page magnus opus, AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SWEARING. It's a whopping $110, but no one ever said erudition was cheap.”
—Dan Buck

When I Emailed Dan back and asked if he is serious and is there really a book with that title, I got this:

“Geoffrey Hughes is a professor of History of the English Language at the University of Witwatersand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and the author of several books, including HISTORY OF ENGLISH WORDS (2000) and SWEARING: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF FOUL LANGUAGE, OATHS AND PROFANITY IN ENGLISH (1991). AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SWEARING will be released April 20 and can be ordered here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765612313/qid=1144705154/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8320315-6091211?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

“Now you know.”
—Dan Buck


Here’s a website that may be of interest to you. It’s the Kansas Historical Quarterly, which has been archived online. Starts in 1931 so it appears to be a veritable gold mine.

http://www.kancoll.org

Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Great-Grandmother Actually Not That Great

“It’s not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.”
—Old Vaquero Saying