h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

wow! It always amazes me that you can find so much underneath all that dirt and scratches. Look forward to more revalations, also what you dig up in the history books.

You should see me. l literally have my nose three centimetres from the screen, while dinking with the shading knobs on the monitor, looking at this thing. lt's so subtle!

Would the cord he'd be holding be attached to that sash-thing? l can't think what that would be. Or are they two seperate things?

You should see me. l literally have my nose three centimetres from the screen, while dinking with the shading knobs on the monitor, looking at this thing. lt's so subtle!

Would the cord he'd be holding be attached to that sash-thing? l can't think what that would be. Or are they two seperate things?

Ooop. Apologies for the double-post (she said, bringing the post-number up to three...).

Let me start out by saying that I know absolutely nothing about Billy the Kid.

But, could he possibly be holding a cigar in his hand? I've seen guys holding a stogie in that manner, with the lit end facing backwards so the arm can be swung up to take a drag on it.

Well, there are photos from the time of cowboys holding stogies, but as it happens Billy neither smoked nor drank. He just stole cattle and occasionally killed people.

I have been looking through books on cowboy gear and engravings by artists for Harper's in the 1880's, and I am wondering if the object is a watch. A lot of cowboys wore them like city gents, on chains -- I think it was another twenty-five years before wristwatches.

If, as I now believe, Billy was wearing at least one sash, then he dressed to favor the Hispanic fashion. And that means I need now to find some photos of Victorian vacqueros.

Maybe a riding whip? He, no doubt, had to leave a lot of places in a hurry.

Although that's possible too, it begs the question of his needing that hand free to go for the colt. When you get closeup on his face you find that he was cutting his eyes in both directions as well as looking ahead. Let me see, do I have a copy of this machine of his re-arranged face on this laptop? Get ready to get infatuated with a wild boy, Odra.

It looks more like a piece of cloth than a cord to me. I simply isn't hanging correctly for anything else. Perhaps its a kercheif, which were very popular everywhere with everyone in that time frame.

Your deduction that he was dressed as a vaquero would make the most amount of sense, judging by where he spent most of his time. Lincoln County is still very heavily Hispanic today. 100+ years ago it was even more so. Besides, he spent much time across the border. The sash was used even before this time and you still see them today. It sounds corny, but look at traditional mariachi bands. They are dressed much like Billy here and do in fact have sashes, in addition to belts. (Let me be practical for just a moment. The sash was used not only as a belt, but also helped to draw pools of sweat away from the waist. In Egypt during this time period, the English wore "flannels" which were just flannel sashes to keep from being discomforted.)

All in all, Lil, my awe for your talent and your knowledge grows and grows!

G7

Oh! Oh! Oh! Another theory just forced its way into my head! Could it be a rosary?

G7

Mariachis! Yes! I can glean something off looking at mariachi costumes.

As to whether it was a rosary: Billy was purebred Irish, and so odds are that, yes, he was Catholic. Although his mother remarried in a Presbyterian church in Kansas, there may have been pragmatic reasons for that. Billy was also superstitious, and if he thought a roasry would bring him luck, he might have had it. But your first ideas about it being cloth are probably the soundest: the sash was blowing around. You can see afterimages of those tiny stud things all over the front of his trousers. In fact, if my eyes don't deceive me he had on two sashes, one on each side. Is that right? Anyway, it would make sense if he grabbed the edge of one to hold it steady.

It does look like there's more cloth hanging down on the other side, now that you mention it. depending on how he has it tied - which of course we can't see - it could be a seperate sash or it could just be the other end of the original. The funny thing is, now that I look more closely, it looks as if that first piece of sash was falling down when he caught it - look at the angles of the ghosting. Perhaps it had been working loose during the day and picked this moment to fall. I've had beeter attached clothes do far worse before...

G7

The blotchiness of the tintype's surface makes his skin look coarse, and I'm deliberately leaving some of that in at the moment so that skeptics will see that it's a rearrangement, not a painting. But if you sort of squint, you can see he was a fine-looking lad. He was 19 when this was taken.

The teeth lend him a slightly unnerving resemblance to a friend of mine -- rather cute friend of mine. With those eyes, and eyebrows, actually, he looks rather like an amalgam of two people l know.
Two very different people, come to think: one very driven, very achievement-oriented, very obsessed with success. The other, a son of two hippies, very outdoorsy, bit of a redneck, really, yet dreamy, a poet, and with a good intelligence and sense of humour.

Back to Billy himself.
l like his chin. lt's a very nice jawline, quite strong. Nice even slope on either side. An intelligent face.
Watchful, to a certain extent...yet all things considered, there's a surprising degree of relaxation about him. Almost something a touch fatalistic -- or am l just reading that in?

The eyes are interesting. You can see charisma, yes...and l love the eyebrows. They look as if they're issuing a dare.

What color eyes did he have, Lil? And what color hair? l know it's black and white, but have you ever heard, apocryphally?

*to self, quietly: l'd say he's a keeper...*

You certainly can see why people would be taken by him with the retouched face. He looks like he could talk himself into (and probably out of) a situation very quickly.

Lil, it's absolutely unbelievable how you've brought his face out. I feel like I'm looking right into the eyes of someone I could see today. I've come and gone several times to view this and cannot get his face out of my mind...you've been able to accentuate the light cast on his face to such a fine degree that I almost expect his adam's apple to move. Thanks for sharing your talent and giving us a look at Billy.

I have just added more text to this entry in the form of all the descriptions of Billy that I was able to amass for the article I wrote. See what his contemporaries said about him and judge for yourself.

Nice work, Lil. The new reconstruction of the face looks more "true" than the previous one, which looked pretty good itself!

When I first looked at the hand blow-up, it didn't look to me like he was holding anything - it just looked like his ring and baby fingers in the background. But then I held my own hand down by my side and looked at where the fingers naturally fell. The all were more or less lined up behind each other. Billy's, however, have the middle finger, and the fingers behind that, pulled up a little towards the thumb. They would be that way if he was holding something between middle finger and thumb. Alternatively, his hand could naturally be at rest in that configuration because it is how you would hold a gun - forefinger extended to trigger, others curled around the handle. There is something in the image between the middle finger and thumb, but I wouldn't know if that is something actually in the image, or some dirt or something.

Or he could very well likely be holding some taffy or licorace, or some such sort. I hear he had a sweet tooth

I see the little object as metalic and round with a hole in the middle, with the loop of cord actually looping through the hole and back through the cord itself. It reminds me of the southwestern silver and leather studs I had on a belt years ago.