“Portrait of Martha von Hembarg,” Heinrich Vogeler, 1894
All posts by Eric Robert Nolan
“I LOVE LAMP.”
Are these the coolest Valentines goodies ever?!?! That is a Himalayan Salt Lamp up top and that’s a big shiny lapel pin on the bottom. I think the lamp looks like one of the Sankara Stones from “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984).
And I think the anatomically accurate heart looks like one of the metal hearts created by Dr. Jacob Farmer in my horror tale, “At the End of the World, My Daughter Wept Metal.” My Valentine didn’t even mean it that way — she just thought the pin was funny … which just kinda makes it awesomely, ominously meta.
Now whoever sees me in my overcoat is forewarned that my hubris will destroy the world. (Clock’s ticking, people.)
“Seeküste im Mondlicht,” Albert Pinkham Ryder, circa 1890
“Moonlit Cove.” Oil on canvas.
(STAY FROSTY, PEOPLE!)
Today’s agenda:
1) Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.
2) Figure out whose woods these are. (I think I know — his house is in the village, though.)
3) Reassure my horse if he gives his harness bells a shake to ask if there is some mistake.
4) Keep my promises.
5) Go for miles.
6) Sleep.
“Treason seldom dwells with courage.”
“Treason seldom dwells with courage.”
— Sir Walter Scott
Portrait by Henry Raeburn of Walter Scott (1771 – 1832), novelist and poet.
Valentine’s Day Card, circa 1903
New York Public Library.
“Fellowship in treason is a bad ground of confidence.”
“Fellowship in treason is a bad ground of confidence.”
— Edmund Burke
Portrait of Burke by Joshua Reynolds, circa 1769
“Afectos en Pandemia,” Hilda Chaulot, 2020
“I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.”
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.
— Tom Brown, circa 1680 (apocryphal)
Chromolithograph of the Hall of Christ Church, Oxford, from the book Old England: A Pictorial Museum of Regal, Ecclesiastical, Baronial, Municipal, and Popular Antiquities (published by Charles Knight and Co., London, 1845)
(Your guess is as good as mine.)
Does this cozy Southern house
harbor an audacious mouse?
Because heaven only knows
what just ran across my toes.
