Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He spent several years a news reporter and editorial writer for the Culpeper Star Exponent in Culpeper, Virginia. His work has also appeared on the front pages of numerous newspapers in Virginia, including The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress. Eric entered the field of philanthropy in 1996, as a grant writer for nonprofit healthcare organizations.
Eric’s poetry has been featured by Dead Beats Literary Blog, Dagda Publishing, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere. His poetry will also be published by Illumen Magazine in its Spring 2014 issue.
The poster for The CW’s new “Containment” seems like a ripoff for some exceptional poster art for 2007’s outstanding horror movie, “28 Weeks Later.” That is just one of a few offhand references that the TV pilot seems to make to the film. At one point, a panicked character blurts out the phrase “zombie apocalypse,” even though that has nothing to do with the plot.
Whatever. Judging from the pilot, the new sci-fi thriller seems like a more or less average outing. It isn’t bad, exactly, but it’s got plenty of room to grow. Right now it seems like a undistinguished, mainstream television treatment of “Contagion” (2011). I’d give it a 6 out of 10.
And, hey … just to add to the confusion, last year there was a really good British independent sci-fi-thriller, also entitled “Containment,” that also portrays a fatal disease outbreak. I reviewed it here at the blog. It almost seems like The CW is adopting the “mockbuster” strategy of capitalizing on viewers’ confusion of their show with superior properties.
Here are just a few more shots of Washington, D.C. and the National Gallery of Art this past weekend. As I’ve lamented already, most of my photos did not turn out, so I am stealing many from my more talented friend. If any of the shots below appeal to you, rest assured that they are not mine.
I’ve come to understand that I simply do not enjoy Monet and Van Gogh as other people do. Their appeal is lost on me entirely.
But I damn sure enjoy Vermeer and Rembrandt. Even to an utterly unschooled like my own, the Dutch Masters’ method of rendering light was amazing. I told my friend that it almost seemed that sections of these paintings had light coming in from behind them … as though there were a hidden bulb beneath the canvas.
And I might have loved the incredible, sweeping, ethereal, dreamlike-but-detailed vistas of the American paintings even more.
That last shot should be recognizable to Civil War buffs, or even just those who can appreciate great war films. It’s Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ 1897 memorial to Robert Gould Shaw, who filmgoers might remember being portrayed by Matthew Broderick in “Glory” (1989). It’s huge. It actually is an immense sculpture that takes up an entire wall, and is much larger than you might understand from its inclusion during the closing credits of the film.
I am precisely the sort of weirdo who enjoys “people watching” too. And it’s easy at the Gallery, as visitors are so often occupied entirely by their objects of interest.
That gangly looking guy embarrassing himself in the video you see is me at the Canadian Embassy. (Do we really need embassies with Canada? We’re so chill.) The sly Canucks have actually incorporated an … echo chamber into the building’s superstructure. I know that sounds nuts, but it’s true. If you stand withing that domed structure, it sounds as though every word you speak is amplified down at you. It’s actually really incredible.
I was lucky enough to be treated by a rather generous friend to dinner afterward at La Belga. It is a fantastic Belgian restaurant in the gentrified Eastern Market area above the Capitol, and it’s modeled after traditional European sidewalk cafes.
Good lord! The “Mussels Diabolique” there were just … too damn good to describe. They were the best mussels I’d ever had. And that says a lot from a Long Island kid who grew up on seafood, working or chowing down in seaside restaurants. Really.
If you ever feel like taking a gander at Disney’s old “Silly Symphonies,” they’re available on Youtube. A lot of them are trippy, and a couple depict some pretty dark subjects.
Last night’s post-apocalyptic dream: Last Man on Earth.
No zombies, no nukes, just literally the last man on earth, as everyone else has vanished. A weeping willow, a waning sun, and a great red barn on the opposite bank of a slow moving river, like rippling black glass.
Seriously, I can no longer leave home without my camera. There is a veritable County-wide Inter-species Conference commencing right now at a single segment of my local creek. (We need to give that creek a name at some point.)
I saw a beaver for the very first time, and it was kind of a big deal to me, and if you crack the obvious joke, you’re a nine-year-old. Beavers look a hell of a lot like groundhogs, as it turns out, except they’re flat-tailed swimmers, of course, and they’re slimmer and far more graceful. A coffee-colored mama duck had marshaled forth her squabbling, fluttering, barely ordered brood on the opposite side. They seemed as interested in the beaver as I was. (Field trip?)
I endeavored to follow the beaver down the narrow waterway, trying to channel Meriwether Lewis without spilling the 7-Eleven “Double Gulp” Dr. Pepper that my doctor keeps telling me I shouldn’t have. (Donald Trump has inspired me to drink them to honor the police and firemen at 7-Eleven.)
A couple of still, solitary, cranky-looking snapper turtles were sunning themselves, too. They launched themselves like lightning onto the water at the sound of my approaching footsteps. A pissed-off bullfrog did the same, only very awkwardly, and while cursing me out with a “GROAK!” (The preceding term is an example of onomatopoeia, by the way. This is the only meaningful advice I will ever render to you as a writer.)
All of this was maybe 200 feet from that spot where I saw deer and heron commiserating a week ago. I am precisely the kind of guy who gets lost in the woods, so I’m no naturalist. (Seriously, that $+I+ happened when I went to New York in January, in the very same woods I grew up in.) But even I am starting to understand that diverse animals will be drawn to wetlands.
I might just finally figure out my camera’s zoom function and stake that whole area out, on a lark, at some point before Virginia gets too hot. If anything interesting transpires, I’ll post it here.
Donald Trump is an @$$+073.
What kind of name is “Meriwether,” anyway? That guy must have caught some heat in gradeschool.
I think the sugar and caffeine in this “Double Gulp” is doing a number on me.
I’m relaxing with the “Twin Peaks” soundtrack this Sunday afternoon; it was a favorite for Kathleen Nolan.
Once upon a time, when she was preparing a quite difficult teenager in Lake-of-the Woods, VA, for college, it was one of the few things that we could agree on. (Another that year was Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” on cassette tape.)
These were among some finds at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. yesterday — they were taken by a very dear friend and my traveling companion. She is not only extremely versed in art, but is also a far better photographer than me. (Very few of my pictures turned out well.)
This Internet thingy, however, allows me to easily abscond with her work and then share it with you. (I’ll run my inferior shots tomorrow.)
Operation Overlord (the Normandy Landings), D-Day, 6 June 1944. Men of the 13/18 Hussars on board LCT’s (Landing Craft Tanks) heading towards the Normandy beaches.
Photo credit: By Mapham J (Sgt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
“London Has Fallen” (2016) includes two very good action sequences. The first is an establishing major action set piece in which a state funeral in London is the occasion of a major terror attack. (SPOILER!) The second is a finale that should really please action fans — it’s fun and exciting to watch; the first-person-shooter style of it actually works, rather than coming across as cheesy.
That’s probably about all the positive things I could say about it … as others warned me, it was a pretty brainless movie. It’s a thin, poorly scripted story that isn’t nearly in the same league as 2013’s outstanding “Olympus Has Fallen.” The dialogue is painful to hear. And that’s especially sad considering that the film’s two fine lead actors (Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart) have terrific chemistry with each other.
The terrorists pull off an operation that is logistically incredible in this movie. No exposition is given about how the @#%$ they accomplished what they did, and in so little time. (Two years to put those assets in place?)
How does the entire population of London become invisible within minutes — even if they were told to stay indoors? Why did this movie suddenly turn into “The Quiet Earth” (1985)?
Am I mistaken, or did a Butler’s Secret Service Agent actually tell the terrorists exactly where he and the president were, as part of a macho personal challenge?
And if Butler and Eckhart are alone and on the run on the streets of London, doesn’t it make sense to seek refuge in a random home or apartment? The odds are astronomical that they person from whom they’d seek quarter would be in league with the bad guys.
I’d rate this movie a 6 out of 10. Honestly? I’d really recommend you wait until it comes out on DVD. Then watch only the opening and closing set pieces, and imagine your own coherent story and engaging dialogue in between. You’ll enjoy it more.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 