John Clayton's Blog

I've been following Steven Johnson since I came across his wonderful essay on narrative structure in TV at the time that I was thinking a lot about the narrative structure of The Cowboy Girl. This weekend I'm finally getting around to reading the full text of the book that arose out of that essay, Everything Bad is Good for You. It's a wonderful book, in the tradition of very smart people making formerly-counterintuitive arguments. But it also puts an old story that's long puzzled me into interesting light.

When the TV show Survivor first came out, a major network started a conversation with the nature writer Gary Ferguson about going on the air as a Survivor analyst. The opportunity never panned out, in large part because, as Gary shared with some of his friends, he couldn't figure out what he could possibly say about Survivor. "It has nothing to do with nature at all," he said. "Being out in nature is about appreciation and teamwork. But the show is made-up world full of invented threats and invented competitions."

In retrospect, Johnson's appreciation of reality TV also validates Ferguson's perspective. Reality shows, Johnson says, are not about the setting, but the social dynamics. The success of Survivor is not its depiction of people surviving in a natural environment, but people adapting to new, complex social environments. The setting is just a vaguely-familiar hook, in the same way that many game shows have a setting similar to a high-school quiz. It's silly to analyze the setting: Survivor analysis doesn't need a nature writer any more than Jeopardy analysis needs a social studies teacher.

At the time we couldn't appreciate the distinction (Johnson fears that many of us still can't). But I still wish Ferguson and the network had gone ahead with their plans to highlight it.

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As I've frequently mentioned, I first encountered Caroline Lockhart when I stumbled across her old ranch on the east slopes of the Pryor Mountains. It's now part of the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, and at my first encounter was in a semi-abandoned state, a romantic decay that allowed me to picture Lockhart living there.

The Park Service -- mainly in the person of Chris Finley -- has been working to restore and preserve the buildings while maintaining their romantic allure. He's done a great job, and I was excited to be included in a huge feature in Sunday's Billings Gazette lauding it.

PS The Gazette paired the article with a generous review of The Cowboy Girl. Links to many other reviews are available here.

I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com

Up around 10,000 feet on the Beartooth Highway, you come across a sign pointing out the Bear's tooth. In the panorama of high peaks, it's not as dramatic as in this cropped photo, and it's rather far away, but you do get the sense that it could belong in the mouth of a giant carnivore.

Recently, however, I've found some 1930s promotional materials that put the Bear's Tooth in a very different place. In this picture, we see Beartooth Butte, one of the iconic images of the highway and a frequent stopping place. According to this view, the namesake tooth is directly under the middle Northern Pacific logo. Tough to see from this angle, but from other angles it too could qualify as resembling a tooth.



I've been driving the highway for 20 years now, and had never heard of this second tooth. But it does make sense: closer to the highway and easier to see. What has never entirely made sense to me, however, is how the entire Beartooth mountain range could have been named for either of these remote peaks. Before the Beartooth Highway was constructed in the early 1930s, how would anyone have seen such peaks in order to name the range after them?

Anyone with expertise, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

The autumn issue of The Montana Quarterly magazine has hit the stands, and as usual Thomas Lee's photography is gorgeous. This quarter my words are a particular beneficiary, as Lee's art graces my exploration of the Bighorn Canyon.

I had first proposed a history column covering Edward Gillette's early descent of the canyon. But the editors, seeing more broadly than I, came back with the idea of a full-fledged feature. A couple of background notes: I'm indebted to Dr. Marv Kauffman for improving my understanding of the area's geology. Marv also got me to use the phrase "fault plane" instead of "fault line," which makes me sound much more geologically sophisticated than I deserve to.

Also, though the adjective didn't make it into the article, Greg Shanks should probably be known as a semiprofessional walleye fisherman.

The article is not available online, but to subscribe to the magazine (and get a free copy in the process), you can start here.

I'm always interested in feedback, via comments below or info at johnclaytonbooks dot com