exactly! or break a chair over someone's head so that they fall backwards through the doors and out of the saloon. Every epiosode of Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wild Wild West, et al that i've ever seen.
Maybe not far from reality. From Oscar Wilde's Impressions of America (he toured the US in 1882) :
From Salt Lake City one travels
over the great plains of Colorado and
up the Rocky Mountains, on the top
of which is Leadville, the richest city
in the world. It has also got the
reputation of being the roughest, and
every man carries a revolver. I was
told that if I went there they would
be sure to shoot me or my travelling
manager. I wrote and told them that
nothing that they could do to my travelling manager would intimidate me.
They are miners — men working in
metals, so I lectured to them on the
Ethics of Art. I read them passages
from the autobiography of Benvenuto
Cellini and they seemed much delighted. I was reproved by my hearers for not having brought him with me.
I explained that he had been dead for
some little time which elicited the
enquiry "Who shot him?" They
afterwards took me to a dancing
saloon where I saw the only rational
method of art criticism I have ever
come across. Over the piano was
printed a notice : —
PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT THE PIANIST.
HE IS DOING HIS BEST.
The mortality among pianists in
that place is marvellous. Then they
asked me to supper, and having accepted, I had to descend a mine in a
rickety bucket in which it was impossible to be graceful. Having got
into the heart of the mountain I had
supper, the first course being whisky,
the second whisky and the third
whisky.
I went to the Theatre to lecture and
I was informed that just before I went
there two men had been seized for
committing a murder, and in that
theatre they had been brought on to
the stage at eight o'clock in the evening, and then and there tried and
executed before a crowded audience.
But I found these miners very charming and not at all rough.
... So infinitesimal did I find the
knowledge of Art, west of the Rocky
Mountains, that an art patron — one
who in his day had been a miner —
actually sued the railroad company for
damages because the plaster cast of
Venus of Milo, which he had imported
from Paris, had been delivered minus
the arms. And, what is more surprising still, he gained his case and the
damages.
yesenadam|5 years ago
From Salt Lake City one travels over the great plains of Colorado and up the Rocky Mountains, on the top of which is Leadville, the richest city in the world. It has also got the reputation of being the roughest, and every man carries a revolver. I was told that if I went there they would be sure to shoot me or my travelling manager. I wrote and told them that nothing that they could do to my travelling manager would intimidate me.
They are miners — men working in metals, so I lectured to them on the Ethics of Art. I read them passages from the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini and they seemed much delighted. I was reproved by my hearers for not having brought him with me. I explained that he had been dead for some little time which elicited the enquiry "Who shot him?" They afterwards took me to a dancing saloon where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice : —
PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT THE PIANIST.
HE IS DOING HIS BEST.
The mortality among pianists in that place is marvellous. Then they asked me to supper, and having accepted, I had to descend a mine in a rickety bucket in which it was impossible to be graceful. Having got into the heart of the mountain I had supper, the first course being whisky, the second whisky and the third whisky.
I went to the Theatre to lecture and I was informed that just before I went there two men had been seized for committing a murder, and in that theatre they had been brought on to the stage at eight o'clock in the evening, and then and there tried and executed before a crowded audience. But I found these miners very charming and not at all rough.
... So infinitesimal did I find the knowledge of Art, west of the Rocky Mountains, that an art patron — one who in his day had been a miner — actually sued the railroad company for damages because the plaster cast of Venus of Milo, which he had imported from Paris, had been delivered minus the arms. And, what is more surprising still, he gained his case and the damages.
DrScump|5 years ago
solstice|5 years ago
m463|5 years ago
(there's one more thing I remember about westerns besides folks going through saloon doors or windows - the f-troop lookout tower falling over)