“Merry Christmas!” Color lithograph.
“Frohe Weihnachten!” 1907
All posts by Eric Robert Nolan
The (Renovated) Arena Stage.
So this is the Arena Stage in Washington D.C., these days. I saw a play there as a college student in 1994 or so. (There was a major renovation and expansion project since my days at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia.)
I don’t even remember which production we saw, to be honest with you. (I’m pretty sure it was Shakespeare.) But I remember that the trip seemed exciting. Fredericksburg really was just a mid-sized town back in the 1990’s. Going into Washington D.C. at night with about 100 other theater students to see a live production felt like a pretty big deal.
And the trip and the show were a blast.
Photo credit: Ron Cogswell, 2011
Photo credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlTAobYSR5k&list=FLEjGv3WZw134CN_yJVg3_Hg&index=1143
Advertisement for “Harbinger Down” (2015)
Amalgamated Dynamics, Dark Dunes Productions.
You need to watch “The Fall of the House of Usher” (2023).
“The Fall of the House of Usher” (2023) is goddam terrific. I have never thanked a college buddy as enthusiastically for inviting me to watch his Netflix with him.
It’s unflinching and unfailingly loving of its Edgar Allan Poe source material. (The eight-episode miniseries actually draws from a number of Poe’s works — not just the eponymous 1839 short story.) The acting is top-notch — particularly from leads Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood and
Mary McDonnell. The dialogue is priceless. And it is genuinely scary! (Yes, a lot of us really love Poe, but you must admit that it is challenging to make his works fresh and truly frightening to a modern audience.)
I almost said that I loved it more than “The Haunting of Hill House” (2018), another superb horror miniseries by director Mike Flanagan that employs much of the same cast. “The Fall of the House of Usher” can be considered an unofficial sequel to both the 2018 miniseries and 2020’s “The Haunting of Bly Manor.”
My heart still belongs to Hill House, though — although “The Fall of the House of Usher” is Flanagan’s best, in some ways, I think “Hill House” tells more a human story, with redeeming, realistic characters that we genuinely worry over.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a close second, though.
“The Green Lizard,” Charles Edward Perugini
Oil on canvas.
Just a reminder …
If you’d care to vote for me for Spillwords Press Author of the Month for November, you can do so right here.
🙂
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“Stars,” Maxfield Parrish, 1926
“Love is the flower of life …”
“Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.”
D. H. Lawrence
“Girl in Blue Arranging Flowers,” Frederick Carl Frieseke, 1915
