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Tentaclii

~ News and scholarship on H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937)

Tentaclii

Monthly Archives: August 2013

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #11

26 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in NecronomiCon 2013

≈ 1 Comment

My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* S.T. Joshi had received the Robert Bloch Award at NecronomiCon 2013. The award was set up by the 1995 NecronomiCon committee, and was administered by the New England Lovecraft Society. Joshi once gave the award to Lovecraft scholar Dirk W. Mosig, at the NecronomiCon 1997. Below is Matthew Carter’s photo of S.T. receiving The Shining Trapezohedron from convention organiser Niels Hobbs…

trap

* Matthew Carpenter has big photo sets of the Costume Ball at the NecronomiCon, and the Ars Necronomica art show…

necroball2013
ars

* A Facebook news snippet, from NecronomiCon, to the effect that…

“the entire print run of The Crypt of Cthulhu [fanzine] will be reprinted in a series of hardback collections. These will be made from scans of the originals”

* Nazo monster seen on the water at WaterFire on Saturday night…

nazo

* The first of the written convention reports online: K.H. Vaughan, on the Saturday. Vaughan volunteered as a helper Minion.

* Sounds like the weather’s been nice. Despite a heavy rain shower just before the convention started, humidity has stayed down. SSY writes…

“this weekend in Providence there is both a Lovecraft convention and a Rocky Horror convention running at the same time, it’s also pretty cold for this time of year … Chilly enough that I want to get a jacket. August around here is usually insufferably humid…”

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #10

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in NecronomiCon 2013, Scholarly works

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My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* Steve Ahlquist’s videos of some of the scholarly talks…

Lovecraft’s Monsters: Rationalism, Anti-Rationalism and Lovecraftian Modernity

It’s Only Dark Because You Can’t See: A Posthuman Look at Lovecraft’s Cosmology

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn’: The Language of Lovecraft

Lovecraftian Religions: Yesterday, Today, & When the Stars are Right

Thinking Ecocritically: A Look at Embodiment and Nature in H.P. Lovecraft

… Dialogic Ontology of Martin Buber to Evaluate H.P. Lovecraft’s Materialist Cosmic Dread

Dagon and Derrida: Lovecraft’s Texts and Postmodernity

Emerging Scholarship Symposium: Monstrous Modernism: Lovecraft’s Theory of the Aesthetic in Modernity

Emerging Scholarship Symposium: The Shadow of His Smile: Humour in H.P. Lovecraft

Emerging Scholarship Symposium: “… Mind, Body, and Phallus in Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep”

 

* The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets band on stage, Saturday evening…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpwnG6-fqEA&w=420&h=315]

* Big Nazo creatures on stage at WaterFire…

stage

Cthulhuoid dances…

cthdance

* Now available: the Amazon Kindle ereader edition of WaterFire’s reprinting of the corrected H.P. Lovecraft: New England Decadent. It’s a rather crude Kindle auto-conversion, and is without hyper-linked footnotes or navigation — but it’s vastly more affordable than the paper version.

* Now available: Charles Harrington’s Amazon Kindle ereader edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s Tour of Providence was published just yesterday on the Amazon Kindle store. Might be especially useful if you’re staying on after the convention to explore Providence…

“An updated walking guide to locations associated with Howard Phillips Lovecraft and his fiction. The approximately three-hour route winds through Providence, past Lovecraft’s haunts and influences for his macabre tales.”

* Picture from the live HPPodcraft podcast from NecronomiCon…

hppod

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #9

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in NecronomiCon 2013

≈ 1 Comment

My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* Another super NecronomiCon 2013 video from Steve Ahlquist, 88 minutes of the panel on HPL’s Phobias: race, class, and “The Outsider” (Friday, 4:00pm – 5:15pm, Grand Ballroom, Biltmore Hotel)…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO5wOys7lBI&w=560&h=315]

“… analyzing Lovecraft as an individual and in the context of his society and time period. (Peter Cannon, Bob Price, Scott Connors, Lois Gresh, with Rory Raven as moderator)”

* Todd Chicoine’s compilation video of snippets from Thursday and Friday at NecronomiCon 2013… the gaming panel looks surprisingly under-attended…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE4veLSJ2R4&w=420&h=315]

* Wessendenwoollies’s nice unfiltered macro, showing the wrinkles on Lovecraft’s own rough sketch of the statuette in “The Call of Cthulhu”…

wessendenwoollies

* Another preview of the Big Nazo creatures which will be roaming the streets tonight at WaterFire…

bignazo

* Short blurb in The Providence Journal on the art shows…

“Of special note: John Coulthart’s “Cthulhoid”, a creepy digital print that suggests a kaleidoscopic version of the monster from Alien…”

cthulhoid

* Good to see that Lovecraft’s gravestone isn’t swamped with a heap of tacky schwag…

grave

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #8

24 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in NecronomiCon 2013

≈ 2 Comments

My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* Pic of Jo Pulver, Laird Barron, and Wilum Pugmire, glimpsed on the “Writing Mythos Fiction Today” panel (Friday, 10:30am – 11:45am)…

pugmire

* New 57-minute video version of the opening keynote addresses for NecronomiCon 2013, at the First Baptist Church.

* 70-minute video version of the “HPL’s Providence and Arkham” discussion panel (Friday, 2:30pm – 3:45pm Friday: Garden Room, Biltmore)…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4nb_27aGNU&w=560&h=315]

“Few writers have as strong a sense of place as Lovecraft. His often quoted remark, “I am Providence” shows this. Many of Lovecraft’s places are based on real towns and areas. We look at the influence of Providence on Lovecraft’s work, as well as the imaginary locales he created. (S.T. Joshi, Will Murray, Steve Mariconda, Faye Ringel, Caitlin Kiernan + Donovan Loucks as moderator).”

S.T. Joshi throws out a couple of stumpers during this panel discussion…

i) Why did Lovecraft use “100 Prospect St.” as the address of Ward’s house in “Dexter Ward” (1927) — when the actual house is clearly, according to Joshi and others, based on 140 Prospect Street. (140 Prospect was apparently a house that Lovecraft could glimpse from his study windows, at that time?)

Henry Samuel Sprague (1847-1929) was resident at 100 Prospect St. in 1919 (Who’s who at New Port gives his Providence address alongside his 1919 holiday address). But modern architectural research shows Sprague was at 100 Prospect St. from c.1902 to c.1929. Sprague was also listed as a member of the Rhode Island Historical Society in 1920 and 1928. Henry was listed as in charge of “Hay and Grain” at the Providence Chamber of Commerce (Chamber magazine, November 1919) as he was “in the grain business”. He had the wholesale grain business from his Connecticut family, Sprague Flour & Grain: “their mills being the largest in this city [Providence], and perhaps in the state”, the works site being “The Columbia Elevator and Grain Mills” and its associated rail yards. By the time Lovecraft was writing “Dexter Ward”, Henry Samuel Sprague had very probably retired — since he was then nearing age 80.

Henry S. Sprague appears to have been closely connected to a John L. Sprague who had graduated from Cornell in 1918, and who was receiving mail at 100 Prospect St in 1921 (Cornell Alumni News, May 1921). John was either Henry’s son or a ward. The Cornell graduation date would make John L. Sprague approx. the same age as Dexter Ward (Ward born 1902). John L. Sprague was seemingly the namesake of an older man in the same family who died in 1917. Could Lovecraft have known the young John L. Sprague and his father Henry, perhaps via his research for “Dexter Ward” at the Rhode Island Historical Society, and for that reason felt able to use 100 Prospect St. as Ward’s address?

ii) Joshi said something I didn’t quite catch and can’t find again on the video. Something about there not being an actual post of Semitic Languages in Brown University. Presumably this was a reference to… “George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.” (“The Call of Cthulhu”).

The nearest match seems to be a Henry Thatcher Fowler, professor of Biblical literature and history at Brown from 1901-1934, a specialist on early Judaism (Origin and Growth of the Hebrew Religion, 1916). His assistant professor at the time of “Cthulhu” was Millar Burrows, who was at Brown from 1925-1934 and who was later famous for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

iii) Joshi also mused during the panel on how to pronounce “Dunwich”. I can confirm that the British pronunciation is (and would have been) “Dunn-itch”, as Joshi suggests, with a silent “w”. As someone from the British Midlands I can also confirm that Warwick is not pronounced War-wick but “Warr-ick”, as the second “w” is silent. Greenwich has another silent “w”, and is pronounced “Grrenn-itch”. Although there are some places suggested as models for Lovecraft towns, such as Oakham, which consciously shunned the British pronunciation.

Historic New England

24 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context, Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

Historic New England magazine, online and free from 2000 onwards.

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #7

23 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in NecronomiCon 2013

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My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* Registration opened this morning and the NecronomiCon weekend is now officially underway. Here’s video of S.T. Joshi’s speech to the city at the First Baptist Church…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3-hBz0x7k4&w=560&h=315]

S.T. was preceded by the official church historian Dr. Stanley Lemons, giving details of Lovecraft and his connection with the church [video].

* The bronze bust is unveiled and in place…

bust

Iz guarded by Ulthar Kittee Patrol…

ulthar-kittee

* Rhode Island Public Radio has a short interview on NecronomiCon.

* A Lead Editorial on Lovecraft, today in The Providence Journal.

* A short video on the origins on “The Call of Lovecraft” augmented reality app, which is debuting at NecronomiCon…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i32eCiE6dCI&w=420&h=315]

* The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast guys are now in Providence.

* The Arab Times, and The Bangkok Post (Thailand), have both picked up the Associated Press news story on NecronomiCon.

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #6

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in NecronomiCon 2013

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My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* Online now: the official NecronomiCon Sales Room Vendors list, plus a map of the vendor tables.

* Also the official final WaterFire schedule for Saturday.

* The Providence Journal‘s architecture specialist David Brussat has a short column “Lovecraft’s Providence, real and unreal”. With a neat cartoon by Chris Schweizer…

ChrisSchweizer2013

* The website for The Call of Lovecraft augmented-reality walking-tour app is now fully live…

callof

* 1,000 copies of the new The Cthulhu Commune fanzine are being hefted to NecronomiCon for free distribution. The editor writes that a free PDF of the zine should also be available online, after the convention…

CthulhuCommuneboxes

* The Miskatonic River Press guys may be a little late in arriving at NecronomiCon, as they have to wait at home for a last-minute order of print books to arrive.

* The city’s H.P. Lovecraft Memorial Square sign is officially up…

sign

* Strange-looking folk already wandering the streets of Providence…

nazo

* A “suspicious” Lovecraft fanboy has been turned back at the border.

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #5

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Maps, NecronomiCon 2013

≈ 1 Comment

My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* The convention’s All-Weekend Pass ticket-sales have now ended, at least online. With just 9 general weekend Pass tickets left unsold. Which will doubtless be snapped up on the door. Nicely judged — Full House!

* S.T. Joshi is now in Providence and in residence at the Biltmore Hotel.

* The Providence Phoenix wakes up to NecronomiCon, with a pretty good report: “Have you met H.P.? — NecronomiCon Providence resurrects Lovecraft” accompanied by sidebar “From Dam Nor to T’yog”.

* News that a new corrected edition of a 68-page booklet will be available this weekend…

“WaterFire Providence is re-publishing, H.P. Lovecraft: New England Decadent by Professor Emeritus Barton Levi St. Armand. First published in 1979, the book, which examines the history of Lovecraft scholarship and his roots in the decadent movement of 19th Century [Britain and] Europe, has been corrected and re-released for NecronomiCon Providence 2013. Copies will be available digitally and in hard copy on Amazon beginning on 24th August 2013 [actually already listed at $16.65 on Amazon USA], as well as for sale at WaterFire Providence and NecronomiCon events”

The 1979 first editions of H.P. Lovecraft: New England Decadent now go for silly prices. S.T. Joshi, in A Subtler Magick, called it a… “Provocative study of the influence of Puritanism and the French Decadent movement upon Lovecraft. Perhaps overstates its case…”. If it’s a reprint of the 1975 journal article then it also has “close studies” of “The Music of Erich Zann” and “The Horror at Red Hook”. Looks well worth getting, and — although a little over-priced for a booklet — presumably the sales benefit the city’s WaterFire fund?

* A free Steampunk-themed performance-art / gallery show has popped up in Providence this weekend, running alongside NecronomiCon…

“Steampunk art in the Old Stone Bank [in Providence] on Saturday 24th August 2013 from 2 p.m. to midnight, and Sunday 25th August from noon to 8 p.m. Performance artists, circus acts, and musicians from across the U.S. will perform. Free and open to the public.”

redfork

* The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets (a Lovecraftian band) are practicing their Cthulhu worshiping skillz already, at rehearsals for Saturday night. See the band live and free on the WaterFire outdoor stage, Saturday 24th August 2013 at 10pm…

darkest

* Found a cool c.1930s photo-postcard of the Biltmore, with twin RKO-style ‘Radio Age’ masts on the roof…

biltmorerko

* Lovecraft’s map of his study “WALL PLAN OF GRANDPA THEOBALD’S STUDY”, drawn on Biltmore Hotel headed paper, 2nd May 1924…

lovemap

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #4

21 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in NecronomiCon 2013

≈ 1 Comment

My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* Important PDF downloads now available from the official NecronomiCon Providence website. The official maps, and the final at-a-glance schedule.

* I guess most attendees have harnessed the night-gaunts, and are in flight now. Follow the Blue Moon, guys! According to Space.com the night of August 20th is not only a full moon in Providence — but also officially a Blue Moon. This “once in a blue moon” moon will be in its prime fullness in the USA in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Should also look nearly-full over the weekend, for added spectral ambiance.

* NecronomiCon 2013 story in The Japan Times, but it’s merely publishing the Associated Press story.

* To be seen on Google Street View, just a few steps across the small Park that’s opposite the Biltmore Hotel, is the main entrance of the old Union Station. Once almost burned down, Union Station is now the smart HQ of the Rhode Island Foundation and apparently also houses the city’s public radio station. But in Lovecraft’s time it was… “the main terminal of the Providence train station, a role it fulfilled for 88 years, from 1898 to 1986″…

provstation

So this site was where Lovecraft fatefully mislaid the story “Under the Pyramids” when setting off for his honeymoon: “MANUSCRIPT — Lost, title of story, ‘Under the Pyramids,’ Sunday afternoon, in or about Union Station. Finder please send to H.P. Lovecraft …”. It was also the site of his triumphant return home from the Pest Zone in 1926: “HOME—UNION STATION—PROVIDENCE!” (Selected Letters II: pp.46-47). In Lovecraft’s time it had a covered extension (seen in the photograph above).

* Providence Journal architecture critic David Brussat writes that he has a forthcoming…

“column on Thursday, which deals with the intersection of Lovecraft and Providence”

* Photo from the street window of the Providence Art Club, by early-bird attendee Philip Eil…

artshows

20th Aug 2013: Lovecraft’s 123rd Birthday

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian arts, New discoveries, Podcasts etc., Scholarly works

≈ 4 Comments

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lovecraft! Some of the presents, so far, that have been given away for Lovecraft’s 123rd Birthday:

* Axel in Germany has today launched the ArkhamInsiders podcast. It’s a new German-language Lovecraft podcast (first edition here) which…

“in the future [plans] to do interviews with international Lovecraft scholars, writers and so on.”

* My own birthday gift is a new The annotated “The Lurking Fear” as a free PDF, with 8,000 words of new scholarly annotations. The PDF is set up so it can be printed as a 46-page booklet on a home laser printer (use the likes of the FinePrint software to print a PDF as booklet-sheets).

* Fangoria has an interview with Bryan Moore, the maker of the Lovecraft Bronze Bust set to be unveiled at NecronomiCon Providence 2013.

NecronomiCon Providence 2013 update #3

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in NecronomiCon 2013

≈ Leave a comment

My unofficial round-up of NecronomiCon Providence 2013 news and links…

* NecronomiCon Providence 2013 organiser Neils Hobbs has published a new last-minute official newsletter for attendees, with lots of finalised events information and important updates.

* Caitlin R. Kiernan reports from Providence on your chances of dipping with the deep ones…

“Summer seems to be making a last stand here in Providence. It’s a bit more summery out there than the Curse of Green Autumn. We’re aiming for the beach on Wednesday, one last chance to swim, probably. Though the sea will be freezing.”

* Wilum Pugmire plans to fly into Boston on Wednesday. He has a new blog post that details his plans and schedule for the convention.

* The NecronomiCon art shows are already open now, but the first official convention time-limited event is today, 20th August 2013…

“THE CALL OF CTHULHU screens with a couple of surprise shorts, at 7pm at the Black Box Theater, 95 Empire Street, Providence”

* The city’s big free Waterfire event will have tentacles, courtesy of the BiB Nazo workshops…

bignazo

* The Associated Press news report on NecronomiCon has been picked up by newspapers all over America. Even the Mormons of Salt Lake City are hearing about it. Praise be!

* Buzzing Insectoid Wings of Blood-Sucking Death Alert: relax, Providence mosquitoes are disease-free according to the latest official tests. You can leave the pump-action DDT sprayer out of your travel bag 🙂

* “You’ve arrived on a rather special night. It’s one of the master’s affairs”: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Convention is a fan convention happening in Providence on the same days as NecronomiCon, presumably to unofficially segway with all the cool NecronomiCon public film screenings…

“Some 300 devotees of the 1970s cult classic are expected to descend on Providence Thursday for a four-day Rocky Horror bash that includes a showing of the film, panel discussions, a costume contest and a late-night “Time Warp” dance party lasting into the wee hours.”

New ebook: Lovecraft in Historical Context: a fourth collection

19 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context, NecronomiCon 2013, New books, New discoveries, Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

Available now, and just in time for your flight to NecronomiCon 2013. The Amazon Kindle ebook of my latest Lovecraft in Historical Context: a fourth collection. Buy the book on Amazon USA or on Amazon UK, or the other national Amazon websites. It has a linked table-of-contents, and a fully-linked “round trip” endnotes system.

cont4cover

Please note: I’ve had to remove the Arthur Leeds story from this ebook version, since Leeds has no firm death-date. Which means Leeds might still be in copyright, and so Amazon’s caution on copyrights would have prevented publication.

To compensate for the loss of the Leeds story, buyers of the ebook version instead get Lovecraft’s story “The Lurking Fear” — annotated by me with 8,000 words of new scholarly annotations.

You can also obtain my new book by mail as a paperback.

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