To all of the various good people that I am fortunate to know, Happy New Year. Our past year may have been difficult, and our days ahead may be more so.
But you are here, with me now, and we are friends. Those are three things that matter — three things without which this life would be a far lesser one.
We begin together.
Greeting card circa 1909. Source: Missouri History Museum.
If you happen to enjoy my mad scribblings, all of my poetry and commentary for 2021 can be found right here.
Have a safe and happy New year!
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.
Photo credit: Marc Nozell from Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
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.”
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.)
Christmas card, Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, 1899. Commercial color lithograph.
I hope that my friends near and far have lovely Christmas.
Photo credit: By aussiegall from sydney, Australia – Merry Christmas, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24660654
Roanoke, Virginia.
And by that I mean I’m gonna cross the kitchen to fit more pizza onto that microwave dish.
(I told this joke on Facebook and people really seemed to enjoy it.)
My friend Wednesday Lee Friday commented, “Well, you’re already telling everyone about it. That’s a good start.”
Think of what Stephen King’s “The Stand” would be like if you removed Randall Flagg and all of its supernatural elements — then told character-focused stories with an intertwining mystery in the manner of “Lost” (2004-2010). And then maybe peppered it with a little “Dead Poets Society” (1989).
I know that sounds weird, but if you pay attention, it totally works.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 