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Roughing It

Roughing It #10: Slade

By Nevada, Roughing It, Uncategorized

This is the tenth and final post detailing my 2010 photo series ‘Roughing It.’ The images are based on characters and scenes from Mark Twain’s eponymous volume about his travels and adventures in Nevada and other Western states.

 

“Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy revolver. The legends say that one morning at Rocky Ridge, when he was feeling comfortable, he saw a man approaching who had offended him some days before–observe the fine memory he had for matters like that–and, “Gentlemen,” said Slade, drawing, “it is a good twenty-yard shot–Iʼll clip the third button on his coat!” Which he did. The bystanders all admired it. And they all attended the funeral, too.”

Credits: Johnny Vandenberg as Slade.

Roughing It #9: The Assayer

By Nevada, Roughing It

This is the ninth in a series of posts detailing my 2010 photo series ‘Roughing It.’ The images are based on characters and scenes from Mark Twain’s eponymous volume about his travels and adventures in Nevada and other Western states.

 

“One assayer got such rich results out of all specimens brought to him that in time he acquired almost a monopoly of the business. But like all men who achieve success, he became an object of envy and suspicion. The other assayers entered into a conspiracy against him, and let some prominent citizens into the secret in order to show that they meant fairly. Then they broke a little fragment off a carpenterʼs grindstone and got a stranger to take it to the popular scientist and get it assayed. In the course of an hour the result came–whereby it appeared that a ton of that rock would yield $1,184.40 in silver and $366.36 in gold!”

Credits: Scott Reeves as the assayer.

Roughing It #6: Jim Blaine

By Nevada, Roughing It

This is the sixth in a series of posts detailing my 2010 photo series ‘Roughing It.’ The images are based on characters and scenes from Mark Twain’s eponymous volume about his travels and adventures in Nevada and other Western states.

 

“I learned then that Jim Blaineʼs peculiarity was that whenever he reached a certain stage of intoxication, no human power could keep him from setting out, with impressive unction, to tell about a wonderful adventure which he had once had with his grandfatherʼs old ram–and the mention of the ram in the first sentence was as far as any man had ever heard him get, concerning it. He always maundered off, interminably, from one thing to another, till his whisky got the best of him and he fell asleep. What the thing was that happened to him and his grandfatherʼs old ram is a dark mystery to this day, for nobody has ever yet found out.

Credits: Scott Reeves as Jim Blane

Roughing It #5: Pancakes

By Nevada, Roughing It

This is the fifth in a series of posts detailing my 2010 photo series ‘Roughing It.’ The images are based on characters and scenes from Mark Twain’s eponymous volume about his travels and adventures in Nevada and other Western states.

 

“And while upon this subject I will remark that once in Star City, in the Humboldt Mountains, I took my place in a sort of long, post-office single file of miners, to patiently await my chance to peep through a crack in the cabin and get a sight of the splendid new sensation–a genuine, live Woman! And at the end of half of an hour my turn came, and I put my eye to the crack, and there she was, with one arm akimbo, and tossing flap-jacks in a frying-pan with the other. And she was one hundred and sixty-five [Being in calmer mood, now, I voluntarily knock off a hundred from that.–M.T.] years old, and hadnʼt a tooth in her head.”

Credits: Steph as the old woman. Makeup by Kari Vandenberg.

Roughing It #1: Slade’s Wife

By Nevada, Roughing It

This is the first in a series of posts detailing my 2010 photo series ‘Roughing It.’ The images are based on characters and scenes from Mark Twain’s eponymous volume about his travels and adventures in Nevada and other Western states.

“Slade was captured, once, by a party of men who intended to lynch him. They disarmed him, and shut him up in a strong log-house, and placed a guard over him. He prevailed on his captors to send for his wife, so that he might have a last interview with her. She was a brave, loving, spirited woman. She jumped on a horse and rode for life and death. When she arrived they let her in without searching her, and before the door could be closed she whipped out a couple of revolvers, and she and her lord marched forth defying the party. And then, under a brisk fire, they mounted double and galloped away unharmed!”

Model & Makeup Artist: Kari Vandenberg