Hey, guys — if you happen to be amused by any of these poemy-type things that I repeatedly fumble at, you can find all of my 2019 publications right here:
All posts by Eric Robert Nolan
“Pluto,” Franz von Stuck, 1909
“Her son, her daughter.”
Her son,
her daughter,
have the same happy eyes.
As though their auroral kindnesses
were a shining blue birthright —
a girl’s compassion can apprise
a legacy of sunlit skies.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2019
Photo credit: Larali21 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D
Cover to “House of Mystery” #289, Joe Kubert, 1981
DC Comics.
“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.”
“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.”
— Edward Gibbon
“Sturmlandschaft,” Franz von Stuck, circa 1920
“Storm Landscape.”
It’s a Christmas Twitter Political Limerick Miracle.
So, dudes, this really cool thing happened during the first wee hours of Christmas 2019. I couldn’t sleep (yet again) so I was Twittering in bed — I wound up responding to the #Dimerick hashtag, where people were poking fun of Donald Trump with limericks. I wrote four.
George Conway retweeted two of them. (As you’re doubtlessly aware, he’s the husband of White House spokesperson Kellyanne Conway — which is funny, because he’s an outspoken and highly visible critic of Trump. He’s also a very smart guy — if you’re not following him on Twitter, then you should remedy that right now. )
The two tweets just took off. I got 8,000 “likes” on the first one that you see below, and 5.8 thousand “likes” on the second one. (Both got more than a thousand retweets.) All sorts of people were retweeting them at Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the rest of the Senate GOP leadership. (If the secret police come for me, I love you all, by the way.)
I know it’s a silly thing to be proud of. But these limericks are … my most popular poems to date. I might have finally found my real niche.
Just for kicks, I’m sharing the other two that I wrote below as well.
“Hanging Out the Clothes,” Charles Courtney Curran, 1887
Oil on canvas.
Throwback Thursday: January 1, 1980 magazine covers
I hope that you are all looking forward to a rockin’ New Year’s Eve. It’s hard to believe that we are not only ringing in a new year, but also a new decade — “2020” still sounds like science fiction to me.
Where does the time go? Somewhere irretrievable.
Anyway, here’s a couple of Pinterest finds for my fellow 1980’s nostalgia nerds. (We’ve got a nice little subculture goin’ on Facebook.) These are a few covers from January 1, 1980 (or in the case of the weekly TV Guide, the decade’s first full week). Try to wrap your head around the fact that, in a few days, the decade will have begun a full forty years ago.
Oh … I couldn’t resist throwing in a couple of comic book covers dated January 1980, too. I actually had that issue of “Battlestar Galactica.” I still remember it sitting in a stack at the bottom of my closet, with one or two others — vastly outnumbered by “Sgt. Rock” and various “Archie” titles.
Cover to “House of Mystery” #261, Mike Kaluta, 1971
DC Comics.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 