Nature Photos: A Pond in the Evening

From an evening walk at a local park…

The taste for beauty is most cultivated out of doors.

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

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On ‘Stranger Things’ — Castle Byers and the Dignity of Hiding

NOTE: This is the seventh part in a series. For parts one through six, which show up top to bottom in reverse order, click here.

Deep in the woods of Hawkins, Indiana is a makeshift fort resembling a grounded treehouse. Go inside and you will find lining the walls, as stained-glass windows line the walls of a church, drawings depicting wizards, dragons, and other such fanciful creatures.

But you have to get past the curtained-off entrance first.

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Reblog: Robin Williams, Suicide, and Depression

Please don’t be sad, angry, or in a humor to un-follow me!

The follow-up to Will Byers, Scapegoat Priest isn’t ready yet. It’s one of those projects that just need a little more time to get right. Besides, I figure readers could use a break.

For now, I thought I’d “reblog” a piece I wrote on Robin Williams back in 2014, which seemed to be fairly well received:

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‘Stranger Things’ — Will Byers, Scapegoat Priest

NOTE: This is the sixth part in a series. For parts one through five, which show up top to bottom in reverse order, click here.

I find myself needing to adjust my method of procedure again, though not to the same degree as before.

You will recall (if you’re not just picking the thread up here) that in exploring a possible instance of the priest-prophet-king motif among Stranger Things’ Hawkins Tweens, I tentatively identified Mike with the king figure.

With similar tentativeness, I designate Will Byers as the priest.

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‘Stranger Things’ — El, Hopper, and Mutual Metanoia

NOTE: This is the fifth part in a series. For parts one through four, which show up top to bottom in reverse order, click here.

Chief Jim Hopper gives us what people expect from an 80s adventure epic: a male protagonist of the “old order,” as it were — the Harrison Ford, Tom Selleck type.

Hopper is the defender, the protector, the “sheepdog” (see my commentary on American Sniper for more on this classification). He fights the bad guys, and to everyone else he presents a tough exterior.

But beneath all this he harbors wounds of his own.

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