I just got some nice news from Samantha Rose, Editor of Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine — a poem of mine entitled “Bumblebee” will appear in the August 2016 Issue. This piece was originally published by Every Day Poets in 2013.
Thanks again, Peeking Cat!
These are a few (poorly taken) shots of rural central Virginia between Alleghany County in the southwest and Fauquier County. It’s a beautiful journey. F. Scott Fitzgerald described the American Midwest as “that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” I myself have always thought his description it fits the Commonwealth just fine.
Most of these aren’t great photos. For one, they were taken from a moving car, as you can tell from the reflections in the window. For another, I am a terrible photographer, as you can tell from the unintentional shot of my giant white nerd face. (My phone is new.)
The best shots were those I didn’t get. Lord knows I scrambled to get a picture of that bear on Skyline Drive, but it was a blink-and-you-miss-it opportunity.
There were other things that I saw, too, of which I’d love to have gotten pictures. The first was the thin, immaculate strip of white headstones in a family cemetery, lying adjacent to their farm’s vast, green square of a cornfield. The juxtaposition of life and death in that image was perfect. Another was a sullen-looking cow, lying in the exact center of a fenced front yard, regarding passing cars like an apathetic despot.
As you can see, what I captured are really just your standard road trip pics, but they still manage to show some of the beauty of the Commonwealth.
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Heading north.
Imbecile.
Skyline Drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park. [In best Stephen Colbert voice:] “Watch out for bears!”
Creepy solitary abandoned mountain shack is creepy.
New Yorkers, these are dormitories for Chicken University, where poultry prepare earnestly to graduate someday to a culinary position with your household. (These flat, low buildings are often visible from the road in the valleys — I remember thinking that they resembled dog kennels, except that they are entirely enclosed and look quite neatly maintained.)
“Meet Virginia.”
I think this is the southern fork of the Shenandoah River, but I’m not sure …
Here are a couple of more shots of Iron Gate and Clifton Forge, in the Alleghany Highlands of southwestern Virginia. Words can’t convey the immensity and beauty of the 400-foot-high Rainbow Rock, towering over Rainbow Gorge and the railroad tracks.
Norman Rockwell’s first cover for “The Country Gentleman.”
This past Monday marked the 35th Anniversary of MTV. It aired its first music video, ironically The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” on August 1st, 1981.
That’s a cool answer for a trivia question, but it’s not actually a memory for a lot of people. Not everybody had premium cable packages back then. My family didn’t. And if we’d had fancy cable channels like that, I’d have been far more thrilled to get Showtime or the legendary HBO. (We called the latter “Home Box” back in the day.)
The first time I laid eyes on MTV was at a friend’s house, and it seemed weird to a fourth grader. I thought it was an inscrutably dumb idea — why did we need to see the music being played? That seemed like something appropriate only for fanatical music fans. In my child’s mind, I pictured them as the weird, overly nostalgic, long-haired men who purchased those “Hits of the 60’s” cassettes that were so often advertised on non-primetime television.
I only gave it a glance; my friend and I then went on to play in the woods, maybe to build a tree-fort. The 80’s were a different time.
Adults, too, scoffed at “Music Television.” I heard more than one opine, disapprovingly, that “music is meant to be heard, not watched.”
MTV also arrived with little initial fanfare, of course, because nobody knew how big it would be. By the end of the 80’s, even describing it as a cornerstone of popular culture would be an understatement. It was … I dunno … a cultural conduit. It was part of life, if you were a teenager.
By the time I graduated from Longwood High School in the spring of 1990, I was watching it nightly, just like countless other kids. This was arguably MTV’s Golden Age — it would be many years before its inexplicable, universally maligned transition away from music videos to brainless, bread-and circuses”reality shows” and other questionable programming.
The countdown show in the late 80’s was “Dial MTV,” Wikipedia reminds me. (Why do I feel like I remember it being called something else?) I didn’t pay much attention to “120 Minutes,” which focused on alternative music. And that’s weird, because I would go nuts for alternative music when I was bitten by the Depeche Mode bug early in my freshman year of college.
MTV could be found on Channel 25 in my part of Long Island; its sister channel, VH-1, was on Channel 26. I remember thinking of VH-1 as “MTV for old people.” And, by “old people,” I did mean people in their 30’s.
For some reason, I had quite a preoccupation as a teenager with Vee-Jay Martha Quinn. I definitely had Martha on my mind, back then. I’m not sure what was up with that. Looking back, I think she resembled a mild-mannered, nondescript librarian who dressed just slightly cool, maybe because she just got a job at the local high school. Or maybe because she was sneaking up on 30.
Here are a few more pictures of our campsite on the Cowpasture River in Iron Gate, in Virginia’s Alleghany County. The river snakes and winds throughout its 84 miles until it combines with the Jackson River to make the James River. The Native Americans called it the “Walatoola,” or “Winding River.” The arriving British renamed it, Wikipedia informs me — there are “Bullpasture” and “Calfpasture” rivers too, and they are all apparently named according to some confusing early American folklore involving stolen cattle.
The water was perfectly clear, and as warm as a mild bath after the late July sun hit it for a little while in the morning. I remember thinking that my friends and I had an endlessly stretching hot-tub beside the place where we slept.
The riverbed and the hills through which it cuts are composed of jagged, gigantic jigsaw pieces of sedimentary rock — shale, sandstone and limestone — tilted askew. They’re slippery. But above those, in most places, are scattered wide beds of perfectly smooth, smaller stones that are comfortable to walk on.
There are often scores of small fish that hug the bank or quietly dart about the ankles of visitors wading in. These are a staple for the eagles. Flycasters, too, pursue larger quarry on the western bank, while people swimming and tubing stay to the right — I suppose this is river etiquette?
Upriver from our campsite, there are also “riffles” — miniaturized rapids that offer a bumpy but easy ride to anyone “tubing.”
House Stark’s invading army bivouacs on its way south to King’s Landing. NOBODY GET MARRIED.
I found the ancient Native American Magic Machete of Legend beneath the river’s clear waters. Because I am strong and pure of heart. (I also found the ancient Native American stone cell phone.)
Wielding the legendary blade allowed me to walk on water, as you can see. Having thus conquered it, I then claimed the river for New York.
I tried unsuccessfully to prank a friend by placing a Blair Witch stickamajig outside his tent. Unfortunately, it kinda unraveled. I even managed to position it outside the wrong tent, actually leaving it for a nice girl who had never seen “The Blair Witch Project.” I was really off my game.
The quick, shy skink. After nearly two years in Virginia, I finally snapped a pic. I indeed mean “skink,” and not “skunk.” It’s a lizard. It’s got a glittery blue tail, though you can hardly tell in these pictures.
So the Mary Washington College alums finally shanghaied me into the annual campout at Iron Gate, Virginia (population 388). It was amazing.
I saw a bear (on the ride home); a bald eagle; cows and horses; huge snorting hogs and friendly little piglets (hoglets?); a bat; a glittering blue-tailed skink; a wrinkly, red-faced turkey buzzard (up close); finger-length iridescent blue dragonflies; and innumerable wildflowers.
We smelled skunks too — several times along the way and once downtown in neighboring Clifton Forge.
This was all in the company of some amazing friends, schoolmates and their families — a couple of whom I haven’t seen in nearly a quarter century.
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Approaching Iron Gate via Clifton Forge and the Allegheny Mountains in southwest Virginia. What you see is not fog — these mountains are high enough so that the road runs parallel with the clouds.
The Cowpasture River and its vicinity.
Camp Nolan. The bat is for bobcats or The Blair Witch.
The magic bacon-creating creatures of legend!!!
I made friends with these adorable bacon beans! After I called them, they decided they liked me and tried to follow me out! I wanted to adopt one and name him “Delicious.”
Accidental overhead abstract mountain shot is creepy as f#%k. I’m pretty sure this is the last thing a murder victim sees …
The first fireworks photos I’ve ever taken that have actually turned out. I am 43 years old.
Hey, horror fans — today is the release day for my friend Lily Luchesi’s “Life Sentence!” This will be the third book in her popular “Paranormal Detective” series:
She can fight evil, but can she fight the darkness in her own blood?
After the disastrous events with Miranda have subsided, Danny and Angelica have to adjust to a new kind of life at the Paranormal Investigative Division.
Fiona is still on the loose, and she has all of Hell on her side. Danny begins to enhance his psychic abilities with the help of a soul just like his. Angelica is caught between a rock and a very dark place.
Can their love survive these new trials, or will the past tear them apart?
You can find “Life Sentence” at Amazon.com right here:
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Sentence-Paranormal-Detectives-Book-ebook/dp/B01JH4FQ8A?tag=smarturl-20
But first, stop by today’s release party via Facebook for a chance at some great giveaways:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1746192272321581/
Etching by Bernard Picart, 1713, after Charles Le Brun.
I endured more than a few WTF moments trying to configure my new cell phone. I was holding it my lap when trying to figure out its features; it kept showing me pictures I accidentally took of my own crotch and then cheerfully assuring me “SETUP COMPLETE!!!”
I finally pulled up the “Gallery” function on the damned thing, and there they are — eight photos of my lap. I don’t even know how to erase them. Gonna put ’em together and make a “Crotch Shot Collage,” and then seek an NEA grant.
It’s things like this that inspired the Luddites.
Anyway, those are indeed wood chips you see — I actually live in a giant hamster habitat.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 