Author Archives: asdjfdlkf

Rocking in Minneapolis

18 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by in Odd scratchings

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A “MinnConn” paper flyer, said to be from Minneapolis in 1975. The picture is from a new Abe sale listing (now sold). “MinnConn” was presumably fannish, but nothing can be discovered about it under that name. Possibly a mis-typing for Minicon (Minneapolis)?

Ah yes, here we go… it must have been for the Minicon 10 (Minneapolis) fan convention held in April 1975. There was no autumn fall-con in Minneapolis in 1975, so that must be it. Sadly Archive.org only has the convention booklet and not the initial PR flyers.

The photo is of Lovecraft somewhere out in the wilds, standing on a spur of rock. Possibly a coastal rock-cleft. He looks to be a chunky young fellow (no ‘reducing’ diet, yet), and may be wearing glasses. Honeymoon?

Do any Tentaclii readers know, offhand, where a larger version of this picture might be found?

Update: It’s August 1922 at Magnolia, Mass., though the online version that gives the date/location is still small and also cropped. Is there a bigger print version somewhere?

PDF chatters

18 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by in AI, Scholarly works

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I’ve learned of an interesting new type of text extraction and query AI. They seem to have become public during March / Easter and I’d not previously been aware of them. You upload a single PDF, have an AI auto-tag, segment, summarise the segments, and cross-page links built for its various topics and facts, etc. Probably more, ‘under the hood’.

All this is done in order to make the PDF more searchable in the form of “chat”. After upload and analysis you can “chat” with the uploaded PDF, by asking it natural-language questions. Results have natural language answers, and links to the relevant page-numbers. Which means you can check that the AI isn’t getting it wrong (as they often do) due to dodgy ‘facts’ in the model inputs and/or confabulation when forming the reply.

Such things are exemplified by the likes of ChatPDF, Humata, Unriddle, Docu-Talk and Docalysis. Doubtless Microsoft Office is also ‘on the case’ with this sort of thing, if they don’t already have it in Office 365. I no longer have access to 365, and it’s difficult to discover a good overview explaining their vast range of new AI assistants.

Anyway, the new assistants are perhaps useful for those who want to plump up a traditional back-of-the-book index, and be sure they’ve not missed anything. Doubtless you’ll think of other uses.

As usual with such services, you don’t know where the PDFs or the questions are going after they hit the remote servers in Whereizitagin. So sending PDFs or asking questions that could reveal business or research secrets is not advisable. But I imagine that this sort of ‘one-book analysis’ is not too processor-intensive, so doubtless there will be local non-cloud versions soon enough. If there aren’t already.

But I also wonder what would happen if one uploaded a single-file PDF of the collected fiction (or even letters or essays) of H.P. Lovecraft. To what extent would it be like ‘talking’ with Lovecraft, and how original would it seem? In other words, would it be doing a minimum of comparing statements across disparate pages, then bringing them together in a way that offers a more powerful insight into the topic in question? And could a further ‘style model’ be built from the PDF, which would mean that the replies are given in a Lovecraftian manner?

Meanwhile, a second fully and properly ‘open source’ chat AI is released, OpenAssistant. The first was OpenChatKit a month ago.

“Of his madness many things are told…”

17 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by in Lovecraft as character, Scholarly works

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A new consideration of Lovecraft’s own “psychopathologie” and also a survey of “the various diagnoses that have been issued” for him posthumously. Regrettably the new article in the journal L’Evolution Psychiatrique is both in French and behind a paywall. But there’s a generous sampling for free and in HTML, which means Google Translate can be used. The author concludes that not only did Lovecraft keep madness at bay by writing it out in various ways…

Writing is for him an addictive, continuous, protective and necessary exercise: he never stops writing.

But that he also embarked on…

an extraordinary journey of self-therapy

A Suitable Flesh / Dredge

16 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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Nightmare on Film Street reveals a new big-screen Lovecraft adaptation by director Joe Lynch…

“The thing that I loved about this particular script, which was originally based on the Lovecraft short story ‘The Thing on The Doorstep’, was the lineage involved … Brian Yuzna is one of our producers, who produced Re-Animator, and From Beyond, and directed Society. Dennis Paoli who wrote those movies, wrote this script.”

Sounds promising, and I see he has a half dozen big-screen movies to his credit. The title of the new movie is A Suitable Flesh, and it seems it hasn’t yet screened at a film festival. With Barbara Crampton.

Update: It will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2023.

Elsewhere, RPGFan reviews the much-touted Lovecraftian videogame Dredge…

While not a hardcore gaming experience, Dredge certainly sates the thirst for Lovecraftian vibes. … Authentically Lovecraftian.

Just one of an ongoing tidal wave of Lovecraftian games, including the newly remade mystery Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened.

The Story of Saxon and Norman Britain Told in Pictures

15 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by in Historical context, Scholarly works

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New on Archive.org, a key ‘picture-book history’ from a series that Lovecraft collected and enjoyed after he saw some of them offered at budget prices in the local Woolworth store. The upload of The Story of Saxon and Norman Britain Told in Pictures (1935) is of a good clear scan, and the 122Mb PDF file is freely available for download.

Also uploaded a few months ago “to borrow”, another in the series, The Story of Tudor and Stuart Britain Told in Pictures.

“The requisite impression of lurking terror…”

14 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by in Picture postals

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I’m still not feeling 100%, what with a lurking and persistent cough. So this week’s ‘picture postals from Lovecraft’ is a quickie and actually a rubbing. A ‘brass rubbing’ as they’ve often known, or a ‘grave rubbing’ when done from stone.

Last I heard such things were frowned on by Lovecraft’s cemetery, even when using specialist soft-wax and paper materials that don’t damage or mark his plain grave-marker. But a while back such rubbings could be found listed on eBay. Above is a pleasing and clear one I snagged then, now able to be enlarged a bit by AI.

I’m uncertain if Lovecraft ever habitually ventured into Swan Point Cemetery for walks while alive, though he certainly anticipated the outcome of his…

ancient plan of shuffling off to a Swan Point subterranean repose. […] among the sepulchres of Clark ancestors extending back to 1711. Green wooded slopes rise beside the mournful spot, and close by is a great hollow tree inhabited by a woodpecker

I seem to recall he didn’t favour it as a destination for walks, other than that fateful walk on a “June day in 1917” which began his weird fiction writing career. But if he ever did explore properly then this spot then would have surely attracted his attention. The cemetery’s “rock garden” overlooking his beloved Seekonk…

The Weird Tales Story reviewed

13 Thursday Apr 2023

Posted by in Scholarly works

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Gary Romeo usefully takes a comparative look at The Weird Tales Story in its three editions, including the “expanded and enhanced” third edition of 2021. This is then reviewed, and the new additions and omissions noted.

It seems the third edition is still only available in paperback, at present. No ebook, at least not on Amazon UK.

The Dark Man journal also has an online review of the latest edition.

Black metal in Norway

12 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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Norwegian black metal has a major exhibition at the National Library of Norway…

Once feared and frowned upon, Norwegian black metal has finally come in from the cold. Norwegian black metal bands are enjoying considerable success with good record sales, sold-out tours and mainstream awards. The exhibition tells the story of this journey in the form of media coverage of 30 years of Norwegian black metal.

Runs until the 16th September 2023, at the National Museum in the capital Oslo. Free entry.

“The Call from Beyond” (1950)

11 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by in Podcasts etc.

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New on Librivox, Ben Tucker’s 70-minute public-domain audio reading of “The Call from Beyond” by Clifford D. Simak.

Back in 2016 Michael May appreciated “The Call from Beyond” for its Lovecraft derived ideas and links…

The May 1950 issue of Super Science Stories has a Simak story called “The Call From Beyond.” The very title rings of Lovecraft’s “From Beyond” and “The Call of Cthulhu.” […] He obviously had a lot of fun with the Lovecraftian elements, though they made the story unsellable to John W. Campbell at Astounding. Thus [it appeared in] Super Science Stories, a crappy low-pay mag.

Although be warned of May’s huge plot-spoilers. He recounts the entire plot including the finale.

Despite its super illustrations, the story is not one of Simak’s best. But it was written in the late 1940s and at that point he was only a few years into writing some good and enduring SF tales. It’s thus interesting to see him leaning on Lovecraft to keep his writing moving forward.