Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Pancho Villa - William Lanford

When in Barcelona two years ago, Grant Peterson and I befriended a trio of young Mexican artists. These were brilliant guys whose keen perceptions awed both Grant and I. Surprisingly, they enjoyed our company and called us the "coolest Americans they had ever met." We spent a few days with these guys and on the last night we saw them, they gave us posters that they had made of Pancho Villa for a Monterrey film festival. They were infatuated by Villa and proudly explained, "He was the only mother fucker with enough balls to attack the United States before Osama Bin Laden." I took this poster as my greatest souvenior of the trip (which was quite remarkable considering I had also received a Compestella from the Catholic Church, eliminating my time in purgatory). For the past two years, Pancho Villa has hung on my bedroom wall, but I have never taken the time to learn much about him. When I saw this book at a used book sale, I couldn't resist. This book is supposed to be an unbias non-fiction work about Pancho, but is written as a narrative which constantly praises him. I admit that this book was fun and made me really admire Pancho (a 20th century Robin Hood); however, it had a larger slant than that horrible Kerrie Miller on public radio.

Complete April 13, 2007

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