Entranceway Park, Roanoke, Virginia. The butterflies were monarchs, I think.
Why are they called “butterflies,” anyway? Did some weirdo try spreading them across a slice of bread at one point?
All posts by Eric Robert Nolan
Spillwords Press publishes my zombie tale, “The Siege of Fort Buzzard.”
ls it too early to get into the spirit of Halloween? Spillwords Press today published my zombie story, “The Siege of Fort Buzzard.”
Thanks once again to Chief Editor Dagmara K. for allowing me to be a part of this fun creative community!
“The View From My Window,” Fredrik Borgen, 1888
“Purple-coloured Shack in Kayamandi, Stellenbosch,” photo by HelenOnline, 2013
South Africa.
Photo credit: HelenOnline, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Source: All Things Scottish on Facebook
I saw a steam train!!
No, I did not get a picture — which is why I am relying on the below photo from Wikimedia Commons. Roaring through town yesterday morning was the vintage Norfolk & Western Class J #611, “The Spirit of Roanoke.” You can read about it here at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.
Steam trains are pretty damn loud, as it turns out. And those columns of steam are tremendous.
It’s really cool looking too — it has a black-and-red, 50’s-era design. (It was built in 1950.)
Photo credit: Mobilus In Mobili, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Cover to “30 Days of Night Deluxe Edition: Book Two,” Ben Templesmith, 2024
IDW Publishing.
Throwback Thursday: “The Sting” (1973)!
“The Sting” (1973) was probably the first movie I ever saw starring Robert Redford; it was a family favorite that made the rounds on television in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. (Though I will note here that “A Bridge Too Far” (1977), was also a family favorite, and also circulating on television in roughly the same time. Redford was in that film too.)
I remember asking my father how the ruse worked for that guy in the beginning who fell for the handkerchief trick. And I remember the movie’s theme music (Floyd Cramer’s “The Entertainer”) being an impossible earworm.
The next movie I saw starring Redford would probably be “All the President’s Men” (1976) when I was 14 or so; that was with my uncle John Muth, who had a wealth of such treasures on VHS. After that, it was the wonderful “Sneakers” (1992) in the theater in my college town of Fredericksburg, Virginia.
What I remember about Redford is just how goddam likeable he was in every role. It was uncanny — there was just something about him. It’s kind of like Carey Grant was so inexplicably suave, or how Harrison Ford always seems so sincere. I’ll bet something like that can’t be learned in an acting class.
Rest easy, Mr. Redford.
By the way, I am linking below to Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers and MovieClips on Youtube.
Detail from “Sextus Pompeius Consulting Erichtho before the Battle of Pharsalia,” John Hamilton Mortimer
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 