Well the western obsession as an escape from the realities of the first month having two kids continues unabated. As tough it was to find, I tracked a slightly worn copy of Blood Meridian down a few weeks back and read it. While not a huge fan of westerns, I took a Western literature class in college that started with The Virginian (of course) and ended with a few post-modern Indian novels. Why the prof didn’t have us read Blood Meridian I will never know as it’s one of the best books I’ve read, and possibly the best picaresque (I know, I know–what can top Unfortunate Traveler?). In trying to piece together the ending I stumbled upon this two part lecture by a Yale Professor for what looks like a freshman lit survey course. While they dig into the book something fine, the lectures thankfully do not get into the sad and rather pathetic mental masturbationist textual analysis I suffered through in a few classes, wherein the professor spends a majority of the time dealing with what other professors have written about other professors writings about the text in literary journals (in exclusionary language no less) rather than the book itself. What’s more, there’s apparently a movie in the works.