… that he refuses to read The Book of Revelation. He says he doesn’t want to know how the world ends.
True story.
Anyway, you learn something new every day. He corrected me about saying “The Book of Revelations;” the name of the text should NOT be pluralized. (I believe I have been misled by many third-rate horror movies trying to emulate “The Omen.”) Mary Washington College folks are a smart lot.
In the same manner that I also apparently have multiple Goodreads accounts?
I have either hysterical dissociative disorder or computer illiteracy … I am not sure which. Actually, I am probably a diverse enough guy to have both of those covered. (Just be glad you’ve got the “good twin” addressing you right now.)
Anyway, if anyone wants to reach me or follow me online (as is the fondest hope of the narcissist in me), you can best do so just by using the links in the “Contact” section of this site.
The above is excerpted from an engaging article in the Summer 2014 University of Mary Washington Magazine about the planned restoration of the fabled amphitheater — with which I am just thrilled, as it holds some of my favorite college memories.
And the article even quoted me, which I thought was quite flattering — I played Fletcher McGee in a 1990 Theater Workshop production of Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology.” I still remember running around that stage after class, trying desperately (and often in vain) to remember my lines, and snacking on chicken sandwiches and fishburgers form Seacobeck Dining Hall.
Check out page 24 of the magazine, linked below, for details about the project, which has been spurred on by a $1 million gift from Robert S. and Alice Andrews Jepson. The project sounds like it will create a great space — a modernized amphitheater that will seat 600, but with all of the classical architectural features with which it was originally built in the early 1950’s. I can’t wait to see it when it is finished, and it would be great fun to round up a few alumni to attend a student production there.
A friend of mine gave me homeopathic green tea to relieve stress … and it worked!
But then my preconceptions were challenged, and the contradictory evidence to my skeptical thinking caused cognitive dissonance.
So I’m stressed again.
You Wiccans and you’re Wiccy ways!!!!
Well, probably not … as Auden’s manmade “Tower” does sound different than King’s nexus of all realities. Nor does “The Quest,” the set of poems from which this is selected, parallel Roland’s journey.
Still, it’s a terrific poem.
“The Tower,” by W. H. Auden
This is an architecture for the old;
Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,
So once, unconsciously, a virgin made
Her maidenhead conspicuous to a god.
Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleep
Lost Love in abstract speculation burns,
And exiled Will to politics returns
In epic verse that makes its traitors weep.
Yet many come to wish their tower a well;
For those who dread to drown, of thirst may die,
Those who see all become invisible:
Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,
Long for a natural climate as they sigh
“Beware of Magic” to the passer-by.
dammit.
You’d figure that a learning curve as shallow as this one would have been eliminated by natural selection.
Then again … I’m still alive.
Or maybe Darwin was wrong, and the Creationists are right — and God deliberately made stupid animals to test us.
Sigh …
Robocop (2014) was a hell of a lot more cerebral than anyone expected, putting more thought into its script than did the gimmicky (but still quite classic) ultra-violent 1987 original. The new film is high-concept science fiction instead of over-the-top satire, touching on everything from drone deployment overseas to free will to domestic surveillance. The movie even gives a nod to the question of the existence of the soul.
It’s good, but it will never achieve the cult classic status of the original. As much as I liked it, I could have used a few more action scenes. This was a well made movie, but the kid in me wanted just a little more screen time for the ED-209’s, more bot-on-bot slugfests, or even a reappearance from one of the original franchise’s garish, comic book villains.
Still … this was well done. It was sure better than anyone in the fan community thought it would be. I’d recommend it. And, really … can any movie come CLOSE to matching one that casts Red Foreman, the Dad from “That 70’s Show,” as the Big Bad?
“The Disappearance of Little Tommy Drummond”
After a local boy is apparently abducted, hardware store owner Kira Manning reflects that a single incident of violence and loss can change a small town forever.
First published on November 5, 2013, Dead Beats Literary Blog
http://www.deadbeats.eu/post/66085895442/the-disappearance-of-little-tommy-drummond-by-eric
… because I had to rescue the young masked rascal again.
Again I made a milk-crate ladder, and again I had to coax the hapless breakfast-seeker to escape the dumpster in which he got trapped. But this time, after exiting, he hung around a bit … and gave me that same interspecies-detente look that MamaCat once gave me before she became a permanent companion, along with her TinyCat cadre. It’s that relaxed look an animal gives you that seems to say, “Okay, we’re friends now.”
I need to somehow decline this budding friendship tactfully. Because my building superintendent will tolerate my occasional Cat Advocacy. But I know he’d be less tolerant of Raccoon Rapport.
For a time, the TinyCats merely languished: lying about, mewling, suckling at MamaCat. Layabouts!
Imagine my surprise today when I walked in on Olympic Games taking place! (Kittens apparently become active very quickly.)
Here are pictures of the Wrasslin’ Matches:
Here are pictures of the Hide-and-Seek Event:
The Chew-the-Bag Competition!
The Staring Contest With The Human!! (TinyCat won.)
Stalking the Human’s Foot! (Then fleeing when he turns around.)
The necessary rest after the events:
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 