About Me
- Jonathan
- Adalbert is a forum for me, to post ephemera, photography, poetry, occasional travel notes, and various spontaneous motions. Cover photo: Parsonage where my great-grandfather spent his early years. Taken near Liegnitz, Silesia, ca. 1870. The "xothique" portion of the web address is a nod to Clark Ashton Smith's fictional continent of Zothique.
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Poem: Dialects of the Dead
Saturday, July 27, 2024
16th Anniversary of Adalbert/ Xothique Blog
Here we are -- today is the 16th anniversary of this blog, as we slither deeper into the third millennium. To mark today, I'll post a digital collage/ drawing -- Charleville Transmission -- which I concocted the other day. It's dedicated to the memory of blogger, and collage artist, Ray Wallis. #rimbaud -JF
Saturday, June 8, 2024
Recent Collage
Sunday, April 14, 2024
New Story: Algernon Signals
Sunday, February 11, 2024
The Wreck of the Deutschland: Familial Echoes
I recently discovered (reading in a poetry anthology), that the poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, contained an indirect reference to my ancestor, Adalbert Falk. The mention was not in a favorable sense. In the piece I assembled above, I selected the extract from Hopkins' poem from: Poetry Foundation. -JF, 2-11-2024
Monday, January 1, 2024
Conflagration Echoes
Monday, November 13, 2023
In Kyoto Station, September 2023
Sunday, October 22, 2023
Thursday, July 27, 2023
15th Anniversary of Adalbert
Sunday, June 25, 2023
Alaska Correspondence, 1958
Here is a bit of postal/correspondence material (from 1958) from my father's (Bruce W. Falk) time in Alaska, connected with the White Alice project. -JF
Saturday, April 8, 2023
Draft Cards: Moe, Larry, Curly, and Shemp
Here are WWII-era draft cards for Jerome Horwitz, Louis Feinberg, Moe Horwitz, and Samuel Horwitz (AKA Curly Howard, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, and Shemp Howard, all members of the Three Stooges, in various lineups -- along with Joe Besser, and Curly Joe De Rita). The draft cards have a straightforward, sober feel, in contrast with the Stooges' comic personae. Source: Ancestry .com
Sunday, March 26, 2023
35mm Slide: Stardust Resort and Casino, 1958
Thursday, March 2, 2023
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
A photo, from Jimmy Carter's Visit to Mt. Hood Community College, 3 November, 1978
The limousine, carrying President Jimmy Carter, at Mt. Hood Community College (Gresham, Oregon); 3 November, 1978 (the photo was either by me, or by mom). -JF
Monday, January 2, 2023
Collage: Infinitesimal Balcony
A new year, a new collage, Infinitesimal Balcony (which I created 1-1-23). I made this entirely with material by Laura Lee Burroughs, the mother of writer William S. Burroughs. The cut-ups have some mysterious oracular flashes. Happy New Year!
--JF
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Draft Card Roundup; H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, William S. Burroughs
Sunday, November 6, 2022
H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon 2022
On October 8th and 9th, I shewed up (as I have many times, starting with the first one) at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, at the Hollywood Theatre; staying for two full days. I took in Freeze, directed by Charlie Steeds, Short Blocks Three, Re-Animator, and Bride of Re-Animator (both followed by question-and-answer sessions, with Jeffrey Combs -- he made reference, to among other things, how Re-Animator originally took off through word-of-mouth, and then rentals). I also attended a showing of Night of the Comet (first time for me to viddy this hilarious, and atmospherically campy cult film), with Kelli Maroney appearing afterward (she provided great insights into the movie, mentioning for example that the sequences at the department store were filmed after hours, at the real deal).
I also attended some panel discussions, on Lovecraft's Favorite Films, The Aquatic Origins of Weird and Cosmic Terror; along with one on comics, and one on video games. Sipping beer, then alternately removing a mask, I tossed the panels a couple questions, including one involving Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen; and another with reference to Skull Comix.
Thursday, September 8, 2022
Alice's Restaurant Massacree Doesn't Live Here Anymore
The name of Alice has a recurring association with restaurants, in a song, in (unrelated) movies, and in the TV series of the same name (based on the Martin Scorsese movie). During the original run of the show, I was aware of it, but only viewed it a few times. In 1975 or 76, 1977, for example, the show would not have formed part of my gestalt. Rather than watch television, I might have been ranging in the deep forests and creeks of the area where I then lived, in the midst of the Boring Lava Buttes. I could have been occupied reading comic books, or books. I might have been on family trips, to California, Nevada, eastern Oregon, Idaho, Montana. I had also started on some initial creative projects, including collages, and a bit later, writing. The world of waitresses in old school utilitarian uniforms, humor, drama, failed romance and jokes based on the bad quality of Mel’s cooking, would not have drawn me in. The signals from the broadcasts remained unseen, passing the atmosphere, and drifting into the outer spaces.
The show was threaded with light (if often repetitive) humor, guest spots by celebrities such as Martha Raye, Joel Grey, Telly Savalas, and Robert Goulet, and topical references which would have hit the spot in their day. I’ve written elsewhere of how my family often brought up the sudden death of Frank Sutton (who played Sergeant Vince Carter, on Gomer Pyle). Vic Tayback, as his diner-owner character Mel Sharples, even eerily foreshadowed his own relatively early passage, on one episode. There is a cluster of premature, or tragic deaths with the series (including Tayback, Philip McKeon, and Charles Levin). – JF, 9/2022
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Above: An instant photo I took, 23 June, 2022, at the Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial. And this post marks the 14th anniversary of this here blog; which started in the murk and distance of 2008.
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Ray Wallis
Thursday, May 5, 2022
The Magic and Mystery of a CV
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
1917 Draft Registration Card for Farnsworth Wright
WWI draft registration card (which I located on Ancestry.com) for future Weird Tales editor (and journalist, veteran, Esperantist, and author) Farnsworth Wright.
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
More from the H.P. Lovecraft Annotated Bibliography
From the final version of my H.P. Lovecraft Annotated Bibliography, for Professor David Holloway's class at Portland State University; 1994.
Monday, January 24, 2022
From the Leaves of an H.P. Lovecraft Annotated Bibliography
Friday, December 24, 2021
Season's Greetings and Yuletide Visions
I'm posting this photo I took in Paris, 17 December, 2013 (at a Christmas market on the Champs-Élysées), as we creak past another solstice. Holiday greetings!
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
From Hubbard to Hamm
Sunday, October 10, 2021
The Charring of the Flag, 23 September, 1989
A piece I wrote, after an event, at the long-defunct Blue Gallery (the actual performance took place outside the space),which I attended on 23 September, 1989 (along with my friend, artist Roman Scott). Nirvana (as a replacement for a band called Cat Butt!) had performed at The Blue Gallery, just a few months prior to the flag burning -- I wish I'd seen that concert.
Thursday, September 23, 2021
The Pallid Giant
A few years ago, at a going- out- of- business sale at a bookstore contained in an older house, in Portland, Oregon, I purchased The Pallid Giant: A Tale of Yesterday and Tomorrow (1927), by Pierrepont Noyes.The book is a curious novel, with some disorienting leaps in pacing and style. The initial parts take place in Europe, during and after the post-World War I peace conference in Paris. The book has different elements and tones (including a section, ostensibly a translation of a manuscript from a group of humans in an ancient epoch) which are inconclusive, and which never cohere. The opening chapters contain some engaging narrative, including an account of an exploration of a cavern in the Pyrenees, along with the discovery of enigmatic artifacts. The unnamed narrator, together with other characters, including Grudge, Professor Gribbon, and the local woman Mraaya, have some suspenseful and enthralling adventures on their quest for new knowledge. The novel loses momentum with its tale-within-a tale, with coined words, names, and disquieting elements of eugenics; but the author does loosely, and correctly, anticipate a future of cataclysmically destructive weapons.