So as I proceed through Paredes’ With a Pistol in His Hand, two things come to mind. The first is the idea of various versions of an event as a manufactured reality and the second is the evolution of the English lexicon with words such as ‘booty’.

Manufactured Reality
What I mean by this is how various people can experience or witness an event or an occurrence and each of those people can relay their experience in a completely different way. We have the events of Gregorio Cortéz’ life, what he did, who he shot and when and the events of him being chased or pursued by the Rangers. Only Cortez and those who were present at the time of these occurrences know what happened. Without a doubt they shared this experience with people they thought may be interested and those people added some spice for intrigue, based on personal style, and then relayed it too a further audience. Lather, rinse, repeat and we end up with something like this ballad.

Does that make each version of the ballad invalid? Absolutely not. But I like what Paredes has done, lining them up in parallel so that they can each be analysed for what they are, who wrote them and from whose perspective we are being told the tale.

This makes me think again about the stories that circulate on the news these days, whether it’s that Orange Turd down south saying something ridiculous based on some version of the truth his henchmen have relayed to him, or perhaps it is some other far flung tale that makes us wonder. The media is in a unique position to take facts and manipulate them to create intrigue, which results in viewership and ultimately sponsorship from companies seeking advertising space. Perhaps one of the companies doesn’t like the spin put on a story a media outlet covers, so they are obligated to report through the eyes of those who pay them biweekly. In the end, where is our news coming from and at what point do we start thinking for ourselves?

Booty call
So I was reading along, minding my own business, when I came across the following line: “Indians descended on the whole Mexican frontier, armed and supplied by American traders who accepted their booty in exchange for arms, whiskey, and other articles” (133). At first, I just blindly read through it, and as I started the following sentence, my eyes wandered up a line for a moment and I thought I saw the word ‘booty’. I cleaned my glasses and replaced them on my face, to see that the word ‘booty’ was indeed part of the text. Well I’ll be. What does ‘booty’ mean? I only know it to mean one thing thanks to the superfluous nature of the Kardashians posteriors on TMZ and the Buzzfeed articles that appear on my Facebook feed.

So I looked ‘booty’ up on the Cambridge online dictionary, and this is what I found: “any valuable things or money stolen by an army at war or by thieves”. I chuckled a little, rereading the line in the text again and it made more sense. I’ve only ever heard ‘booty’ in reference to a bum or calls. So then I started thinking about words that are used today that used to mean something different (or more wholesome) in my parents or grandparents generations. Even you young whippersnappers in our class use words that I have no idea what they mean. I guess I did too when I was younger, I just don’t remember what they are. I wonder how María Ruiz de Burton or Américo Paredes interpret some of our euphemisms that are more recent. My mother still has an issue with calling milk ‘homo’. In light of this bodacious line in the text, here is a song that came to mind. It’s a rather clever cover done by the Postmodern Jukebox of Meghan Trainor’s “All About the Bass”.