Cover to “House of Secrets” #88, Neal Adams, 1970

DC Comics.

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“Whoa.”

I really want to see that “Matrix Insurrections” movie where thousands of would-be “patriots” fight for their carefully constructed, shared artificial reality …

… but in the real world they’re actually terrorists having their minds controlled by machines and the Internet. And they’re a fully disposable resource to the system that uses them to retain power.



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Photo credit: Marc Nozell from Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons.

I survived #Whamageddon 2021!

Can I social distance or what?

Yeah, I do realize that Wham!’s “Last Christmas” is the least of 2021’s existential threats, but it’s an existential threat nonetheless.  Take your victories where you can.



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It’s a replicant Christmas!

Hot damn, my best friend gave me the coolest presents for a writer!  What you see are “Poe-ka Dots” socks, sculpted raven bookends from the New York Public Library and the piece de resistance …

… a lapel pin fashioned after the origami unicorn from “Blade Runner” (1982).  I didn’t even know such a thing existed, so I wouldn’t have even known to ask for it.  I can’t believe she found it!

“‘MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN’ IS OUR MOTTO.”



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“Glade Jul,” Viggo Johansen, 1891

“Joyful Christmas.”  Oil on canvas.

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My dudes, this looks like the ghost train I was trying to find out by Brandon Avenue!

Full disclosure — there is no ghost train in Roanoke, Virginia … at least as far as I am aware.  In our Propaganda Era, I am loathe to start even a harmless urban legend.  (Santa Claus is quite real, however.)



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Christmas card, Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, 1899.  Commercial color lithograph.

Merry Christmas, All!!!

I hope that my friends near and far have lovely Christmas.

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Photo credit: By aussiegall from sydney, Australia – Merry Christmas, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24660654

There’s a terrific new poem by Dennis Villelmi over at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

You can find it right here.




Christmastime in Market Square, 2021

Roanoke, Virginia.

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Christmas card by Louis Prang, 19th Century

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Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers