My buddy photoshopped me as Wolverine; now I’m seeking an audition with the MCU.

[UPDATE: You people DO realize this is s a joke, right? I am not actually seeking the role of Wolverine.]

Wish me luck.  Below is the full text of my e-mail to Kevin Feige:

*****

SUBJ: Eric Robert Nolan *IS* Wolverine!!!

Mr. Kevin Feige
President, Marvel Studios

Dear Mr. Feige:

I am writing to you today about an immeasurable benefit that I can bring to the Marvel Cinematic Universe — a definitive silver screen interpretation of Marvel’s iconic character, Wolverine. Behold, please, the photoshopped image of me attached to this e-mail, which shows that I am uniquely suited for the role. (To fully appreciate my uncanny likeness, Mr. Feige, I must ask you here to vocalize the classic sound effect “Snickety-snick” when viewing the photo.) Although my body at age 49 might look slightly different than conventional representations of the character, I feel certain that modern CGI could remedy this.

I studied extensively with the Mary Washington College Drama Department between 1991 and 1994. I studied comic books at the same time — outside of an academic program but with an unbridled enthusiasm I never showed any of my formal studies. I also periodically defeated my formidable classmate John Matthias in debates about whether Wolverine could beat Silver Surfer — and even wrestled him about it in the lobby of New Hall before the 1994 Fall Formal. (I surprised him with the classic tactic with which you are doubtlessly familiar, Wolverine’s roaring, berserker leap.)

There are other benefits as well, should you choose to employ me for this role — I am highly skilled with puns, free-verse poetry, and deconstructing arguments made by Donald Trump supporters. I feel certain that all three of these skills would promote an enlightened and entertained workplace. I will contact your office next week to determine whether an audition can be arranged.

Kindest regards,

Eric Robert Nolan
Roanoke, Virginia

ericrnolan@gmail.com
https://ericrobertnolan.com/

P.S. — You did an outstanding job with “What If …?,” by the way!  It’s truly amazing stuff!

wolvey

lockdown

Roanoke, Virginia, September 2021

Beside Williamsburg Road downtown.

20210905_225244B

20210905_224308

20210905_224349

German movie poster for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961)

Paramount Pictures.

tiff - Copy

“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” by W. B. Yeats (read by Eric Robert Nolan)

ZM-11wrzesnia

Zbigniew Markiewicz, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

We were a nation of neighbors.

September 11, 2001.

We were a different country then: wounded, but undivided; scarred, but undeterred; enraged, but not at one another.  The America that rallied and unified in the wake of the terror attacks seems as vanished now as the Towers themselves.

We were a nation of neighbors, as though the dust thrust up from a burning New York City had cleared to reveal an even greater Republic.  We huddled together under the smoke blowing up from the charnel pit, then reached to lift one another to higher ground.  We bolstered one another with whatever words we could find, in the interminable spaces after our dead had fallen silent, after the soot in the emptied streets had muted even our own footfalls.

We rose up as one to retaliate — and struck out across the world with a single fist.  We were more than a superpower, more than an aggrieved people.  We were these United States.

I want to believe that we can be that country — those people — again.

That is why today, fully two decades later, I will picture who we were.  And I will tell myself, never forget.




OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Kim Carpenter, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons


A pal of mine told me that she was so happy that she could go out and eat lobster in a suit.

I told her that she was better off ordering a lobster that wasn’t wearing anything.

I’m so funny.



t

Raphael Tuck & Sons. London. 1903.

This is me reading comments on social media.

You can actually see my glasses starting to fog up.



WIN_20210909_13_40_40_Pro (2) - Copy

Illustration by Franklin Booth for Harry Van Dyke’s “The Proud Lady,” 1917

Harper’s Magazine.

proud - Copy

Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers