Work(ing Title)

The following is an excerpt from The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved:

“One of the key genetic rules in breeding dogs, horses or any other kind of thoroughbred is that close inbreeding tends to magnify the weak points in a bloodline as well as the strong points. In horse breeding, for instance, there is a definite risk in breeding two fast horses who are both a little crazy. The offspring will likely be very fast and also very crazy. So the trick in breeding thoroughbreds is to retain the good traits and filter out the bad. But the breeding of humans is not so wisely supervised, particularly in a narrow Southern society where the closest kind of inbreeding is not only stylish and acceptable, but far more convenient–to the parents–than setting their offspring free to find their own mates, for their own reasons and in their own ways. (”Goddam, did you hear about Smitty’s daughter? She went crazy in Boston last week and married a nigger!”)

So the face I was trying to find in Churchill Downs that weekend was a symbol, in my own mind, of the whole doomed atavistic culture that makes the Kentucky Derby what it is.”

The Nemesis of Evil sent me this article late last night. His simple mention of Thompson last weekend sent me to Powell’s Books in Portland, where I picked up Kingdom of Fear and The Rum Diary, the latter of which I tore through in one straight shot–a first for a slow reader like myself. Reading this essay has made me laugh out loud a half-dozen times this morning, and I haven’t even got to his description of the actual race.

Some writers just sync with my brain in a way I can’t describe. If pressed, I suppose the best attempt would be to say that they speak my inner language so naturally, I can read every 5th word and understand exactly what’s happening. Stephenson is one and Thompson’s another. Incredible.