Blankenship's professional rodeo season thus far, he's ranked No. 19 in the Badlands Circuit standings with $701.

During the high school rodeo season, Blankenship didn't score any points until the West Fargo Rodeo on April 28. He finished runner-up on the opening day with 70 points and followed up the second day with a first-place ride of 72 points. Blankenship ended the season with 66 event points for North Dakota's top spot.

"My buddy Jake kind of got me to rodeo in the spring," Blankenship said. "Once I went at it, I knew that I could win it and I did."

Though he knows the bull riding championship isn't going to come easy, the Killdeer cowboy is facing the top high school competitors from around the country. For right now, BlankenshipOne that I would throw out there is Pat Murphy's The City Not Long After. Partly because it is about the power of art, partly because of the art pieces she discusses could show up at BRC--I'm thinking especially of the mirror garden and the shoes--not that BRC has such a staircase. Also, it was written in San Francisco (and set there) in the 1980s so I think it has sort of a zeitgeist of that time, that place that connects to the Cacophony society and other things that went into the birth of Burning Man.

And I'd throw in Murphy's friend Lisa Goldstein's A Mask for the General and especially her surrealistic Paris inThe Dream Years for simelar reasons.

is Pat Murphy's The City Not Long After. Partly because