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Cthulhu: the Musical!

28 Sunday May 2023

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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I’m always partial to a bit of good song-and-dance musical theatre, and so was pleased to hear of a new musical version of Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu”. Albeit done with puppets, in a Muppets style. Sounds fun, and it runs for two hours under the title of Cthulhu: the Musical! (R-rated). You can catch it touring America with the ‘Puppeteers for Fears’ troupe, a puppeteer troupe based out of Oregon, USA. They’re now a month away from setting out on a 2023 post-lockdown summer tour, with a banner tour headline of “Back from the Dead”. Also on the road with them will be a full rock band, multimedia projectionists and (one hopes) some cute 1970s-style groupies.

Booking now.

Update: Reviews say it’s only very “loosely based” on Lovecraft’s story.

In Cat Swamp: Lovecraft’s Herbarium

26 Friday May 2023

Posted by in AI, Lovecraftian arts

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Readers will recall the young Lovecraft roaming in Cat Swamp, Providence. It was also a richly wild and raggedy hunting-ground for botanists, at around the same time (c. 1900), and thus the plants of the swamp were both drawn/painted and preserved as botanical pressings. Brown University now shows many of these in their online Herbarium catalogue.

So, something a little different for this Friday’s ‘Picture Postals from Lovecraft’.

Using some of the Brown (literally brown) scans of the botanical plant-books as sources, and sprinkling a little magic AI pixie-dust over them brings them back to horrible Lovecraftian life…

Berkeley Square

25 Thursday May 2023

Posted by in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts

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A new upload of Lovecraft’s fave movie, Berkeley Square (1933) and it looks like slightly better quality (less over-sharpened) than the version uploaded last October. These are the only two versions on Archive.org.

Neither is the 2011 restored 35mm print, though, by the look of it. So far as I can see that version still languishes in the archives, and hasn’t had a DVD release.

Festival Nocambulante Lovecrafiano

24 Wednesday May 2023

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A Lovecraft film festival in Mexico. The ‘Festival Nocambulante Lovecrafiano’ is a camping overnighter on 17th June 2023, in the Xochimilco Ecological Park (about 15 miles from Mexico City). 20 movies will be shown. It looks a little like the Dark Swamp in places, so hopefully the organisers have booked a big solar-powered midge-zapper. Or perhaps big outdoor cinema screens come with such things built-in, these days.

The Lurker on the Cover

24 Wednesday May 2023

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A nice scan of a supposed “H.P. Lovecraft” novel, newly popped up on honest Abe’s sales site. The cover demonstrates that, even as late as 1993-95, the average person could pick up a Derleth paperback at a news-stand book-spinner rack… and think it was by Lovecraft. In fact, just over 1,000 words by Lovecraft, with the rest of the novel by Derleth.

The British publisher Panther was rather more honest in 1973-75, admitting up-front on the cover that it was likely to be a Derleth stitch-a-thon.

Interestingly, for a book that supposedly shifted some 100,000+ copies in all, an Amazon UK search suggests it’s now thoroughly out-of-print and has no audiobook. Are the currently owners of Derleth’s estate missing a trick there?

Certain cert’s

22 Monday May 2023

Posted by in Odd scratchings, Scholarly works

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I see that hplovecraft.com has recently…

Created a series of pages showcasing several Lovecraft-Related Documents including his birth, marriage, and death certificates.

And talking of old documents, Brown University Library (i.e. the John Hay Library) is open again to students and visitors, with masks optional…

Spring 2023: Welcome back to your Brown University Library!

This is pinned on their blog, so I assume the Library has been closed until recently due to Covid? Presumably this re-opening means the 2023 S.T. Joshi Endowed Research Fellowship in H.P. Lovecraft fellow will now be able to lovingly sniff Lovecraft’s letters in person. Currently…

Applications for the next cycle of fellowships will open in Spring 2024.

The haunted typewriter, the haunted paintbrush…

21 Sunday May 2023

Posted by in AI, Lovecraftian arts

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A possible merry task, for a dull Sunday…

A new competition offers $300 for the best sci-fi prompt. The aim is to craft a prompt for an AI-writer that will produce a ‘mind-blowingly readable’ first chapter of a science-fiction novel, such that the story makes seasoned readers want more. Deadline: 31st December 2023.

I assume the organisers are willing to also accept donations to improve the prize-pot or provide second-place prizes or training workshops for entrants.

Also, the fledgling AI Art Weekly newsletter has a Lovecraft challenge. Unfortunately entries can only be submitted on Twitter, which counts me out. But some may be interested, not least by the $50 prize.

Possibly a candidate for the free Dream by Wombo AI’s new “Horror” style module…

… or you could just choose the cute kitties.

Released: Tolkien Gleanings No. 4

20 Saturday May 2023

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My latest Tolkien Gleanings ‘zine is now available. This is the fourth issue, a free 64-page PDF magazine for scholars of the life and works of Tolkien. May also be of interest to collectors, artists, and in this instance to historians of Edwardian Birmingham.

It has articles, artwork, a book review, vintage pictures, and extensive notes on new Tolkien items of interest which I found from April to May 2023. Basically, it does for Tolkien what I also do for Lovecraft, and as such I also make a number of new discoveries. Not least on the name “Anduin”, in this issue.

Designed for easy reading on a larger digital tablet, such as the Kindle Fire 10″.

Available on Gumroad (no sign-up needed, donations welcome) or on Archive.org.

Contributions, especially reviews of less-known non-fiction books, are welcomed for future issues.

The lanes of Marblehead

19 Friday May 2023

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This week, more pictures from the Samuel Chamberlain Photograph Negatives Collection, 1928-1971, held at the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem.

Summer is “a cummin’ in”, and thus it seems apt to have the pictures reflect Lovecraft’s summer travels. These show the fabric of some of the Marblehead lanes which he found so alluring.

old streets and gables and chimney-pots, and the endless maze of fanlighted Colonial doorways. … ancient houses set at all possible angles on moss-grown rock foundations and weird terraces

I’ve given them a tickle with Photoshop and a colourising, to give a flavour of the shades he loved. Though these scenes are pictured decades later, at a guess, and in the meanwhile there’s probably been a certain amount of sprucing-up, tourist-ification and antique-shoppery going on.

whilst conversing with natives there [in Salem], I had learnt of the neighbouring fishing port of Marblehead, whose antique quaintness was particularly recommended to me. Taking a stage-coach thither, I was presently borne into the most marvellous region I had ever dream’d of, & furnish’d with the most powerful single aesthetic impression I have receiv’d in years. Even now it is difficult for me to believe that Marblehead exists, save in some phantasticall dream. It is so contrary to everything usually observable in this age, & so exactly conformed to the habitual fabrick of my nocturnal visions, that my whole visit partook of the aethereal character scarce compatible with reality.