Diary: (1) Geoffrey O‘Brien, Arabian Nights of 1934

Illustration from Arabian Nights 1934. Strand Theater, Lansing, Michigan, 1941. Photographer unknown

Home was to be escaped from. Some stepped into dark theaters to watch pictures of horses riding across ridges. A lone figure on a mesa peered down across bare flatlands toward a distant blaze. He lassoed a crag and swung to the far side of the crevice. Cruel rustlers with scarves over their mouths tied people up and abandoned them in cabins. Storms knocked down trees as a lost homesteader tried to find his way out of the forest. A fragment gleamed in the creek where a grizzled miner was panning. Then came the disorderly hordes swaggering down the muddy street who in their drunkenness threw chairs through the windows of barber shops. A wheel came loose and a chuck wagon smashed against the edge of a canyon. A bandit in an immense sombrero cracked a whip. A girl in a gingham dress cowered against a wall. She had come from back east after her father sent word of his illness. And now everybody wanted to get their hands on the scrap of paper that showed where the mine entrance was. Gunshots from an unseen marksman brought down the marauders before they could have their way with her. It was a good thing she had a cowboy for a friend. Now that there was no longer anything to fear or conceal, the two of them rode away and kept on riding. Dust whirled across open spaces that went on forever. There was nothing but air and rock.