Saturday I drove down to Baltimore to visit Loudon Park Cemetery. I hadn’t been since the end of January, it was a nice day, and a cemetery is a place where one can socially distance without much difficulty. I had no idea if I would be able to get into the cemetery; some cemeteries are … Continue reading Questionnare!
Author: Allyn
A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.
This week, Elbow released a new live album. Unfortunately, because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the band has cancelled their live dates for this spring and summer, so they’ve been posting videos on YouTube of the band, separately, playing some of their songs from home, the #elbowrooms sessions. These aren’t polished, there are occasional fluffs, but … Continue reading The #elbowrooms Sessions
Even in the midst of a pandemic, laundry must be done! I could have done it over the weekend. The rainy, dreary, chilly, gross weekend. Instead, I decided to do more to clean up my office, throwing out boxes of magazines I’d saved that I’d not looked at, not even thought about, in years. I … Continue reading Multitasking Laundry
If the first day of working from home was a strange and new and exciting experience, the second day felt more routine. I got out of bed at 7:30, though I’d been awake for several hours before that. It was another night of rough sleep; it was difficult to get comfortable temperature-wise (take a blanket … Continue reading Diving in on Day Two
For ten years, the Snoopy coffee mug sat on my desk at Diamond, first on Greenspring Avenue, then on York Road. I’d bought it some years before at the Big Lots in Eldersberg. I liked the message — “Is there no one to rescue me?!” It seemed… apropos. As I gathered up things in my … Continue reading My Work-From-Home Experiment Begins
This week, I explained to several colleagues at Diamond what the desktop wallpaper on my monitor at work is, which you can see above — a painting of Washington, DC done by Edward Sachse in the early 1850s. (Be sure to check out this Maryland Historical Society article on his Bird’s Eye View of Baltimore.) … Continue reading The Most Notorious Brothel Owner in Civil War Washington
I went to Big Lots yesterday. I didn’t intend to go to Big Lots — it was T.J. Maxx I wanted to visit — but while at Big Lots I snapped the photo above, of the crescent moon and Venus just after sunset. I wanted to go to T.J. Maxx because I’ve seen reports that … Continue reading The Cosmic Dance
My optic nerves are angy! Stan Lee would have written this line unironically, circa 1965, in an issue of The Incredible Hulk or Avengers with a cover burst that screamed, “Tremble before the rage of the monster’s eyes!” It also happens to describe what’s happening inside my own eyes. I spent almost a week in … Continue reading The New Optical Adventure
I went to church this morning. Not from any religious conviction, but because I spent the last week in the hospital (that story to come) and my sister said to me yesterday that, after a week of being surrounded by doctors and nurses, I must be lonely at home by myself. And where can one … Continue reading Out and About on a Dreary Sunday
Today I took at tour of Washington’s National Cathedral. This is something I had been wanting to do for a while, ever since they announced they were building a LEGO replica of the cathedral, and it was just a matter of finding the time. A vacation day was scheduled, a ticket for that night’s Washington … Continue reading Touring the National Cathedral
It was one of those Septembers when it seemed that the summer would never end. Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service For the first time since 2013, the Harrisburg Senators were in the Eastern League postseason. In 2013, I attended two postseason games in Harrisburg — the clinching game of the first round, … Continue reading Summer’s End in Harrisburg
Apologies to Simon and Garfunkel. This week marks the annual Dallastown Fair. Having nothing to do last night, after eating dinner, I walked into town and went to the fair. It was every bit as unenthralling as I remembered. A midway of carnival rides and games. Food stands by local restaurants and churches. Farm equipment. … Continue reading Are You Going to Dallastown Fair?