Hello tiawahcowboy, nice to meetcha,
Question,
I get the impression from the text after Aguirre watched them the first time, that 10 minute period of watching, he observed what they did after that, too.
How did you know it was 10 mins?
and correction...
... before they had sex the first time which was after they had been up on the mountain for quite a while. It was well into summer before the first night in the tent session. Say . . . maybe 6 to 8 weeks after they started work.
Other BBM scholars have already calculated that is was exactly one month from the time that they arrived at BBM 'til FNIT. The method used for this calculation is the full moon on both of the nights in question.
Hello tiawahcowboy, nice to meetcha,
Quote from: tiawahcowboy on May 26, 2006, 11:38:21 pm
I get the impression from the text after Aguirre watched them the first time, that 10 minute period of watching, he observed what they did after that, too.
Question,
How did you know it was 10 mins?
Quote from: tiawahcowboy on May 26, 2006, 11:38:21 pm
I get the impression from the text after Aguirre watched them the first time, that 10 minute period of watching, he observed what they did after that, too.
and correction...
Other BBM scholars have already calculated that is was exactly one month from the time that they arrived at BBM 'til FNIT. The method used for this calculation is the full moon on both of the nights in question.
Are you referring to professionally educated Brokeback Mountain Movie Scholars or just folks who have seen the movie? I do have the book and the DVD.
Below quote is from the original short story about Aguirre watching them while they were up on Brokeback Mountain and it begins with particulars about the time period after Ennis opened up to Jack after they switched job assigments:
The summer went on and they moved the herd to new pasture, shifted the camp; the distance between the sheep and the new camp was greater and the night ride longer.
Ennis rode easy, sleeping with his eyes open, but the hours he was away from the sheep stretched out and out. Jack pulled a squalling burr out of the harmonica, flattened a little from a fall off the skittish bay mare, and Ennis had a good raspy voice; a few nights they mangled their way through some songs. Ennis knew the salty words to "Strawberry Roan." Jack tried a Carl Perkins song, bawling "what I say-ay-ay," but he favored a sad hymn, "Water-Walking Jesus," learned from his mother who believed in the Pentecost, that he sang at dirge slowness, setting off distant coyote yips.
"Too late to go out to them damn sheep," said Ennis, dizzy drunk on all fours one cold hour when the moon had notched past two. The meadow stones glowed white-green and a flinty wind worked over the meadow, scraped the fire low, then ruffled it into yellow silk sashes. "Got you a extra blanket I'll roll up out here and grab forty winks, ride out at first light."
"Freeze your ass off when that fire dies down. Better off sleepin in the tent."
"Doubt I'll feel nothin." But he staggered under canvas, pulled his boots off, snored on the ground cloth for a while, woke Jack with the clacking of his jaw.
"Jesus Christ, quit hammerin and get over here. Bedroll's big enough," said Jack in an irritable sleep-clogged voice. It was big enough, warm enough, and in a little while they deepened their intimacy considerably. Ennis ran full-throttle on all roads whether fence mending or money spending, and he wanted none of it when Jack seized his left hand and brought it to his erect cock. Ennis jerked his hand away as though he'd touched fire, got to his knees, unbuckled his belt, shoved his pants down, hauled Jack onto all fours and, with the help of the clear slick and a little spit, entered him, nothing he'd done before but no instruction manual needed. They went at it in silence except for a few sharp intakes of breath and Jack's choked "gun's goin off," then out, down, and asleep.
Ennis woke in red dawn with his pants around his knees, a top-grade headache, and Jack butted against him; without saying anything about it both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer, sheep be damned.
As it did go. They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, "I'm not no queer," and Jack jumped in with "Me neither. A one-shot thing. Nobody's business but ours." There were only the two of them on the mountain flying in the euphoric, bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back and the crawling lights of vehicles on the plain below, suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dogs barking in the dark hours.
They believed themselves invisible, not knowing Joe Aguirre had watched them through his 10x42 binoculars for ten minutes one day, waiting until they'd buttoned up their jeans, waiting until Ennis rode back to the sheep, before bringing up the message that Jack's people had sent word that his uncle Harold was in the hospital with pneumonia and expected not to make it. Though he did, and Aguirre came up again to say so, fixing Jack with his bold stare, not bothering to dismount.
It was May, a Spring month in the USA, when they were hired. While June is called a "Summer" month here, Summer does not officially start by Sun-Time until June 20 at the earliest and 22 at the latest. (Probably thought of the same way up in Canada, too.) I get the impression that it could have been close to July 1 when they changed camp/herd locations.