About Me

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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, July 27, 2016

Blog Birthday



Today marks eight years since I started this blog. I'll have Jimi Hendrix (with Curtis Knight) play a version of "Happy Birthday," to mark the anniversary.

And here's the first journal-like post from the distant parallel universe of 2008...Myspace and after-rumbles of the Surge:

Sunday, July 27, 2008


First entry

Just re-watched Marathon Man last night... Is it safe? Dim memories of seeing clips from it in 1976 on television...



Sunday, July 24, 2016

The Black Angel of Council Bluffs



The Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial, also known as The Black Angel, by the sculptor  Daniel Chester French. I visited the site in August, 1994.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Rebel Without a Copernicus


In recent weeks, I watched, for the first time in its entirety  the deeply accursed film of Nicholas Ray, Rebel Without a Cause. I saw a little of it on a videocassette once, which unraveled while the movie was in progress.

I was pleasantly startled to find an element of cosmicism, conveyed through astronomy, in the planetarium sequence, embedded in the James Dean vehicle.

What visions of Porsche Spyders and wind-up toy monkeys did Jim Backus have on the isle? "You're tearing me apart, Gilligan!"

Collage by JF, Independence Day, 2016