“Still Life,” by Katie Ford, is a particularly nice poem. I can’t reprint it here, as it is under copyright, but you can read it over at the Poetry Foundation:
All posts by Eric Robert Nolan
A new and improved promo for “The X Files!”
I’m still not sure whether to call this a reboot, a return, a miniseries or “Season 10.” Fox is calling it “a six episode event,” but that takes too long to type.
Now I’m starting to get excited. This ad, which emphasizes the monster-of-the-week-type episodes, looks a hell of a lot better than the trailers focusing on the conspiracy. The imagery looks damn cool.
DAMN FINE PRODUCT. (I am coming out of the closet as a Glade man.)
One of my eccentricities is a reverence for Glade. Yes, I did say “reverence.” If any commercial product can be said to be holy, then it is Glade — it effectively assails even my sneaker smells, which are the olfactory equivalent of whatever demon troubled that little girl in “The Exorcist” (1973).
I settled last night on the “Apple Cinnamon” variation. For some reason, the stores in Virginia do not carry “Lilac Spring,” and I’m disappointed, because I absolutely am weird enough to have a favorite Glade. Insert whatever joke you like to question my manhood here — I don’t care. It takes a real man to admit he loves the smell of lilacs. “Vanilla and Lavender” also figures prominently in my value system. I am perfectly comfortable with this part of myself, and I know I’m not the only one out there. I might start a Glade Pride movement. AND I SHOULD BE FREE TO MARRY WHOEVER I WANT. Including Caroline Dhavernas.
I especially need this perfectly designed product after a tray of nachos and cheese recently overturned in my new backpack. That event has resulted in the smell of nachos and cheese every time I open my backpack, which is weird. The upside, though, is the smell of nachos and cheese every time I open my backpack, which is F*****G AWESOME.
I figured I might be sending a weird message if I walked around as the human equivalent of a Mexico-themed scratch-n-sniff sticker, however, so today we are going to Glade that bastard. (Glade enthusiasts will occasionally use the product’s name as a verb.)
Lon Chaney as “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925)
Photo credit: By Movie still scan ([1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
In best Shaggy voice: “G-g-g-ghost!!”
Well, not really. Just a couple of Halloween decorations to keep the spirit.
Free online zombie short stories from “The Living Dead 2” anthology
This was too fun not to share — a handful of free online short stories from “The Living Dead 2” anthology. There’s some great stuff here, including an entry by David Wellington, one of my favorite zombie storytellers. But, of all of the free stories here, I think I am most partial to Genevieve Valentine’s “And the Next, and the Next.”
Here’s the link:
http://www.johnjosephadams.com/the-living-dead-2/free-fiction/
Anyway, on a related subject, I have NOT yet seen the entirety of last night’s episode of “The Walking Dead.” So PLEASE no spoilers here or on Facebook about the “major death,” even though I think the first half of the episode clearly broadcasts which character would be leaving us.
[UPDATE: I just watched “The Walking Dead.” Dear Lord.]
“Man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked.”
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
— from “Man’s Search for Meaning,” by Viktor Frankl
“Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?”
“A Dream Within A Dream”
by Edgar Allan Poe
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
“We found the mutual souring of our lives to have been rooted in the hems of our birthplaces.”
“On my ongoing canvas, there’s only been caricatures and carcasses, with a highway of torture dividing the two. Somewhere, I took a detour of forgeries and virgins, and lost the rest of America I was meant to see …
“Every time I try to measure time, I get a case of dry mouth. That’s how I met Ettey, Ettey Roth. She, too, had a memoir, not unlike mine, and it was over slugs in Seire’s Tavern time and again that we found the mutual souring of our lives to have been rooted in the hems of our birthplaces.”
— from “Fretensis, in the Image of a Blind God, Volume 1,” by Dennis Villelmi
Will Reichard favorably reviews “The Man in the High Castle” television adaptation.
Author Will Reichard gives us a nice rundown today of the small-screen adaptation of “The Man in the High Castle” (2015). Check it out over at his blog, right here:
http://plaeroma.com/2015/10/go-watch-the-man-in-the-high-castle/
I’ve been dying to get to this alternate-history dystopia — it looks so much more ambitious and thoughtful than the usual fare, and it depicts a Nazi occupation of the United States! I’ll review it when I get to it. Right now, I’m finding myself tempted by the “Limitless” television adaptation and that new “Tales of Halloween” anthology horror flick.
There is actually a really basic question I’d love to ask about the plot of “The Man in the High Castle,” but I’m afraid an answer would be too spoilerish. (It concerns the films that various characters watch within this show.)
