Vaya Con Dios

We’ve just hit a milestone at 4 Color Cowboy—our post on Mexican cookbook Villa Montaña Cuisine was our 200th. It’s been great fun, but regretfully the blog will need to be placed on hold for the unspecified future.

Ever since 4 Color Cowboy migrated from Tumblr to Blogger two years ago, it was my goal that the obscure books, brochures, magazines and other printed ephemera highlighted reveal a bit about us and how we consume information. Whether the subject was a small town in 1970s Pennsylvania, religion-soaked etiquette for 1930s kids, or keeping parakeets as pets in the 1950s, each item served as a cool mini-research project for the attitudes, people and aesthetics of the eras they came from. Although it was time-consuming, the geeky wannabe-librarian in me delighted in putting together each and every one of these posts. In this age of mega-corporations serving up regurgitated nostalgia for the masses, there was something of a subversive thrill in sharing forgotten pieces of the past this way. It holds a lot of value, too. “Why are you putting it on hold?,” you may wonder—well, the current format of 4 Color Cowboy failed at attracting an audience. After 200 posts, there have been zero link-backs, a handful of comments (all from my husband!), and as far as I can tell the visitors have been the same random ’bots (many coming from shady websites) that I had when I started. Granted, this ain’t exactly blockbuster audience-grabbing stuff, but I was hoping for something—even meeting one other fellow ephemera-collecting geek as a result would have been nice.

So, it’s with some bittersweet regret that I have to put this project on hold. Perhaps the forgotten books, magazines etc. will pop up in the future on a reformatted 4CC, or maybe a collaborative project will beckon—until then, enjoy our archives and thanks!

— Matt Hinrichs