There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
— excerpt from “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” by Shel Silverstein
Photo credit: Monika Wahi [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D
Houghton Mifflin Company.
There is one baby skunk who regularly crosses the street just after nightfall between one neighbor’s yard and the one opposite. I keep trying to get decent pictures or video when I spot him (from a discreet distance, of course). But no luck — my phone camera just doesn’t do terribly well in the dark. Hence the illustration below.
As you know if you’ve ever seen one, skunk look like shaggy, very unkempt cats. (The correct plural here is indeed “skunk,” although either “skunk” or “skunks” is acceptable; I checked.) They don’t move terribly quickly either — I guess speed wasn’t something they had to evolve, given their well known method of pushing back at trouble.
I thought of warning my neighbors that their yard is a thoroughfare for skunk, because that seems like a good thing to know. But that sounds too much like an insult, and these people have guns.
I’m also not sure why Burroughs’ illustration below appears to show baby skunk inside of a vast hornets nest, because I’m reasonably sure that’s now how it works with skunk. Although I’m admittedly no naturalist, so who knows?
[Update 10:30 PM: Now there is a skunk in my backyard!!]
I’m serious. Look at the picture below. This is from a pothole that was fixed yesterday.
If it were any hotter out here, it would be King’s Landing.
Remember, guys. Replenish your electrolytes by drinking lots of Mercury Retrograde.
It is by a blend of lively curiosity and intelligent selfishness that the artists who wish to mature late, who feel too old to die, the Goethes, Tolstoys, Voltaires, Titians and Verdis, reach a fruitful senescence. They cannot afford to associate with those who are burning themselves up or preparing for a tragedy or whom melancholy has marked for her own. Not for them the accident-prone, the friend in whom the desire for self-destruction keeps blistering out in broken legs or threatening them in anxiety-neuroses. Not for them the drumming finger, the close-cropt nail, the chewed glasses, the pause on the threshold, the wandering eye, or the repeated “um” and “er.”
— Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise, 1938
I’m honored to share here that Every Writer has selected one of my poems, “The Writer,” for publication. Editor Richard Edwards passed the news along to me this morning. Every Writer is one of the oldest comprehensive resources for writers on the net, and I’m grateful to Mr. Edwards for allowing me to join the creative community there.
I’ll post a link here when the poem appears.
Silkscreen color print on posterboard. Works Progress Administration.
I’ve got these guys running all over my neighborhood after dark every night. (I’m referring to deer — not staffers for the pre-WWII Works Progress Administration.)
Gnat really loving these bugs flying into my eyes.
You see what I did there?
God DAMN, I’m brilliant. This is why I will inevitably be recognized as one of the 21st Century’s literary lions. I won’t forget where I came from, though. I’m taking all of you WITH me. Mark my words.
“Us” (2019) passes the litmus test for a good horror movie — it is genuinely scary, thanks largely to Jordan Peele’s terrific directing and its cast’s immense talents. Lupita Nyong’o shines the most here; she gives a tour-de-force performance in the dual role of both a terrified woman and her savage, homicidal doppleganger. (If you’ve seen the trailer for “Us,” you know it portrays a nuclear family of four being assailed by their mysterious, murderous lookalikes.) Shahadi Wright Joseph is also especially good, in the dual role as both the family’s traumatized daughter and her cherubic-yet-stabbity twin. This is a creative horror film with excellent shooting and imagery, and I’d rate it an 8 out of 10.
I don’t know that everyone will enjoy the film as I did, as I don’t think it is perfect. Its overlong third act is easily its weakest, when the traditional cat-and-mouse horror-movie antics eventually take a back seat to the film’s key reveals. We do get an explanation for the clone-tastic shenanigans in “Us,” even if it isn’t altogether satisfying. There is actually an extensive fantasy/sci-fi backstory that Peele has prepared, and which I will not spoil here.
But I do think that many viewers would enjoy the story more without it, as I think I would have. The movie’s key reveals are implausible and slightly befuddling at first, and then grow preposterous in the viewer’s mind the more that he or she thinks about them. They’re presented a bit ploddingly, too, in a film that feels maybe 20 minutes too long. As good as it was, “Us” would have been a more entertaining film if it had left the genesis of its strange events a mystery. If it had been presented as a simple, violent parable about the id, for example, it would appeal to a far wider audience and might approach the status of a horror classic, as Peele’s outstanding “Get Out” did in 2017.
But that isn’t what Peele wanted. The friend with whom I watched “Us” last night sent me a great March 22 article by Aja Romano at Vox that admirably breaks down the movie’s ending. Peele indeed had a more detailed and thoughtful message than a general statement about mankind’s duality. Long story short — the movie’s mythology might not make a lot of practical sense, but it makes a lot of sense thematically. There is some intelligent social messaging here, even if it isn’t perfectly delivered. It helps if you think of “Us” as a surreal horror story instead of a realistic one. I found that I liked the ending much more after reading this, and you might too.
One more note — this is the first time I’ve seen Elizabeth Moss on screen. (She’s in a surprisingly hilarious supporting role here; I think most readers of this blog will recognize her as the protagonist of Hulu’s adaptation of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”) She’s got great comic timing, and she’s absolutely magnetic. People keep telling me that I should watch “The Handmaid’s Tale;” maybe I really am overdue for that.
“‘Where to spend a Half-Holiday. One hundred and eighty pleasant walks around Bradford … Illustrated.” Brear & Co.
“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”
— Cyril Connolly, The New Statesman, 1933
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 