I’m happy today to see one of my latest poems featured over at UFO Gigolo. If you’d like to peruse “Blue Wolves Move In An Indigo Wood” and you didn’t see it yesterday at Dead Snakes, you can read it here:
http://ufogigolo.blogspot.com/2016/05/eric-robert-nolan-poem.html
Again — UFO Gigolo is a terrific site. Its emphasis is poetry in the genres of horror, fantasy and science fiction, and it does accept reprints.
Check it out.
No, I’m not talking about the Marvel Comics adaptation of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981); I’ve written about that separately here at the blog. This was a regular ongoing comic book title between January 1983 and March 1986.
And every issue of it was a mind-boggling pleasure for a fourth grader whose favorite hero was Indiana Jones. I remember issues one and two waiting for me after school one day, displayed upright on the kitchen table. My Dad had picked them up for me. (He was constantly trying to help me with a problem that had plagued my childhood — I simply never owned enough comic books.) These were a departure from the “Sgt. Rock” comics that my father usually bought for me, but damn if they weren’t a thousand times better. I was stunned by the very concept of them. “Raiders” was a … COMIC BOOK now!?
Of course the plots were derivative of the film. Ninety percent of the places Indy went, an ancient artifact or temple held a terrifying secret, often unleashing a power that could control or destroy the world. And only Indy’s superior knowledge of archeology — or just his sheer pluck — would allow him to employ it to vanquish the bad guys. [Spoiler warning for “Raiders,” by the way.] The writing was damn good, as far as I can remember. And we got to see Marion, Sallah, Marcus Brody and even Captain Katanga again.
You see that cover where Indy is on the wing of a plane? That bad guy just might be one of the Hovitos … I can’t remember well enough to be sure. At one point this adversary steals Indy’s whip and tries to use it against him. (It doesn’t turn out well for him.) In fact …I think it was the scene you see on the cover. I’m not sure why the artist depicted a grappling hook instead. I remember the villain’s line being, “It would be fitting for such a man to die by the sting of his own weapon.” I have no idea why I remember that dialogue after 35 years (and little else about the issue). The mind is a funny thing.
All of the covers were damn cool. I happen to love that final one you see at the bottom. That was Indy’s adventure at Stonehenge. But the first two covers you see are the ones that I would eventually like to get framed, someday after fame brings me opulence — those were the ones waiting for me on the kitchen table that day in 1981.
I’m honored to share that two poems of mine were featured today over at Dead Snakes.
The first is entitled “Blue Wolves Move In An Indigo Wood.” The second is a short humorous poem that I wrote at the Metro stop at the Pentagon, and is entitled “Hot Cop.”
Thanks once again to Editor Stephen Jarrell Williams over at Dead Snakes!
To view both poems, click here:
http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2016/05/eric-robert-nolan-two-poems.html
SyFy’s (reportedly quite bad) “400 Days” poster shamelessly resembles that of 2014’s big-budget “The Signal.”
Now that I know this is a thing, I’m going to start spotting these everywhere …
“Thinner” (1996) was a fun enough outing; I’d give it an 8 out of 10. You can easily tell that this story originated with Stephen King. Only he can take an antiquated plot device like a gypsy curse and actually make it frightening.
I do get the sense that screenwriters Michael McDowell and Tom Holland stuck closely to the original novel (which I have not read). It seems like a character-focused story; I’ll bet the original prose really explored the incongruous friendship between Robert John Burke’s mild-mannered attorney and Joe Mantegna’s apparently psychotic mobster. I’ll bet that King’s unique style would have perfectly rendered certain plot points in the movie, such as one key conversation being overheard early on.
I feel like an idiot … For the life of me, I thought that actress Kari Wuhrer was Marissa Tomei. Her resemblance in this movie is striking. I can’t be the only one who made that mistake, can I? Anyway, I really panned Wuhrer’s performance in 2005’s disappointing “Hellraiser: Deader.” But she is damn terrific here in her role as the beautiful banshee adversary — she damn near steals the movie. Also outstanding is Michael Constantine as her haggard, curse-casting gypsy father.
Remember last week I was elated after seeing a beaver? That kinda didn’t happen. Turns out that the subject of my ecstatic interest was actually the unceremonious nutria (myocastor coypus), or, as I like to call him, the giant wannabe-beaver-rat.
I spotted the (apparently solitary) bugger again yesterday, and I was confused when I finally got a look at his rounded tail. Was it a huge rat? I followed him down the creek, because I am nothing if not a strange man with a lot of time on my hands. He appeared to submerge, swim underwater through an underground pipe for about three minutes, and then emerge casually on the other side of the road where the creek terminates in a sump.
I should have known it was a nutria before I looked him up. Believe it or not, I actually have heard of them before. A horror movie nerd like me remembers the species was supposedly used to portray giant rats for either “Willard” (2003) or its 1971 original. (I do forget which.)
They’re bad guys, too — at least from an environmental perspective. They’re an invasive, rapidly reproducing, semi-aquatic species that destroy wetlands and compete with the native muskrat. They themselves are not native; they were brought to the United States and Europe from South America by fur ranchers.
Anyway … if you’re able to catch 2003’s “Willard,” I highly recommend it. It starts Crispin Glover and R. Lee Ermey, and was penned by “X Files” greats Glen Morgan and James Wong. For the full spooky experience, first read Stephen Gilbert’s excellent 1969 novel, “Ratman’s Notebooks,” which served as the basis for both films.
Photo credit: By Philippe Amelant – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2027013.
When bookstores finally go out of business, will all we bibliophiles be Shoppers Without Borders?
Photo credit: By Dwight Burdette – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16277167
I’m honored here to report that Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine has again elected to publish a poem of mine. Today’s newly released April 2016 issue features “March Midnight Window” on page 17.
This piece originally appeared last year over at Dead Snakes.
I’d like to thank Editor Samantha Rose for this opportunity to see my work appear alongside that of so many talented people.
If you’d like to purchase a paperback copy of the April issue, you can do so over at Lulu.com:
Or, if you would like to download it in pdf format for free, just click here:
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 