25 Monday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Lovecraftian places
Three Lovecraftian underground scenes that really exist…
‘World’s Largest Cave’ at Phong Nha-Ke Bang, Vietnam:
Giant crystals in Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico:
Majlis Al Jinn Cave, Salma Plateau:
23 Saturday Jul 2011
Posted in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts
Dejan Ognjanovic interviews the director of Arkham Sanitarium (an anthology film of: The Thing on the Doorstep, The Shunned House, The Haunter of the Dark), at the close of filming…
“we’re also faithfully recreating a number of Lovecraftian locations including The Shunned House, The Church of the Starry Wisdom, The Crowninshield Place, and Arkham Sanitarium itself (based largely on Danvers).”
23 Saturday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
So what would liven up Lovecraft? Show tunes! …
“a musical performance of horror writer H.P.Lovecraft’s 1920s short story “The Outsider” […] through live music, dance, and singing, calling upon Stu Watson to narrate, gymnast Jasmine Daly, choreographer Michelle Moya, Venezuelan folk punk musician Yva Las Vegass, Mason’s band Little Band of Sailors, and more to weave the story together. Performers wearing cat masks played guitar and even performed a yoga dance …”
They had me running away screaming at “Venezuelan folk punk”.
19 Tuesday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Summer School
There is still time to sign up for the Lovecraft Summer School 2011 — Wednesday the 20th is the sign-up deadline. Today’s assignment comes in the form of advance notice of the Final Project, which involves participants reading Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book of story ideas…
“Your final project can be any form of creative output: a story, a painting, a poem, a song, a work of collage, or a very short video — whatever appeals to you. Simply choose a concept from Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book and find a way to make it your own.”
Here’s my choice, if I were possibly to make some CG/Photoshop illustrations…
21. A very ancient colossus in a very ancient desert. Face gone — no man hath seen it.
61. A terrible pilgrimage to seek the nighted throne of the far daemon-sultan Azathoth.
110. Antediluvian—Cyclopean ruins on lonely Pacific island.
114. Death lights dancing over a salt marsh.
129. Marble Faun — strange and prehistorick Italian city of stone.
172. Pre-human idol found in desert.
178. A very ancient tomb in the deep woods …
189. Ancient necropolis — bronze door in hillside which opens as the moonlight strikes it — focussed by ancient lens in pylon opposite?
213. Ancient winter woods — moss — great boles — twisted branches —dark—ribbed roots — always dripping….
214. Talking rock of Africa — immemorially ancient oracle in desolate jungle ruins that speaks with a voice out of the aeons.
… although I think I’m inclining toward a story or poetry.
19 Tuesday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
17 Sunday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
IDW has announced a comic adaptation of “The Dunwich Horror”, by author Joe R. Lansdale and artist Peter Bergting. This team are a big deal in the world of contemporary comics, and Lansdale has won the Bram Stoker Award seven times. The aim is to produce… “a modern update” and it seems it’ll run to about 100 pages. The adaptation will first appear as a four-issue mini-series, and then be collected as a paperpack with the addition of Robert Weinberg’s adaptation of “The Hound” with art from Menton3.
16 Saturday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Podcasts etc.
And they’re off! The Vacation Necronomicon School, a summer school for literary Lovecraft fans, started today with an initial ‘taster’ assignment for beginners. Over the weekend, we’re reading “The Cats of Ulthar” if you’re a Lovecraft beginner. Or revisiting “At the Mountains of Madness” if you’re an old Lovecraft hand. More formal assignments start on 18th July.
If you’d like to listen to “The Cats of Ulthar” there are three free Librivox recordings. But I wasn’t satisfied with any of them — so I’ve created a new Creative Commons audio reading of the story to celebrate the return of the Summer School.
11 Monday Jul 2011
Posted in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts, Summer School
Excellent news. The Vacation Necronomicon School rises from its slumber! The Headmistress writes…
“it has become clear to me that the time for Vacation Necronomicon School is once more at hand.”
“Our second term begins 18th July 2011, with an additional orientation lesson for newcomers posted on Friday the 15th. Those interested in formal enrollment should e-mail the Headmistress, and all curious parties are encouraged to do so, as formal enrollment comes with formal acknowledgement.”
The email is on the blog’s sidebar, about halfway down.
06 Wednesday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Science fiction author Bruce Sterling annotates Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book through the prism of 21st century tech. Newly posted today, it makes for a bizzare little page.
28 The Cats of Ulthar […] (((endless seething primal LOLcat hordes)))
05 Tuesday Jul 2011
Posted in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts
The first carefully critical review (that I’ve seen) for the feature-length The Whisperer in Darkness. Tom Cruise isn’t in it, apparently. Darn.
Film Threat concludes…
“Branney nails the spirit of Lovecraft. Through voice-over narratives and frightened faces, The Whisperer in Darkness conveys a sense of human sanity being unraveled by too much forbidden fruit.”
There’s a new dedicated set of Web pages for the movie. The DVD should be out around… “October of 2011”.
04 Monday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast has finished its 7-part reading and discussion of At The Mountains of Madness. It’s free online.
04 Monday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Odd scratchings, Summer School, Unnamable
Here’s a bit of fun for the summer. I’ve written a brief Lovecraftian story idea/outline, in the manner of the short entries in Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book. The challenge is to write a short story that fleshes it out and gives it a strong conclusion, much like the challenge that Lovecraft occasionally had from his ghost-writing commissioners. There may be prizes!
“A scientific or scholarly protagonist discovers that each person’s mind contains the trigger for each person’s exact date of death. This is due to the gradual layered accumulation of dream-memories over a lifetime. The human mind is born with only a certain finite capacity to retain and hold these faint and fleeting memories of past dreams, and when the mind is full of these — then death is swiftly triggered by making the body an ‘attractor’ for some form of evil or harm. But the protagonist creates a device to capture and siphon off his own dream-memories into bell-jars or some other storage devices, and by this he hopes for immortality.
Only after some months does he realise that he cannot contain his siphoned dream-memories in artificial vessels (they begin to fester and mingle there, and in doing so open up dimensional-portals which threaten to allow unspeakable hybrid dream-entities into the world, entities which he thinks he sees scratching and whispering at the glass of the bell-jars, etc). He decides that his festering dream-memories must be passed into the mind of another human, where he hopes they may be better contained. While researching how to do this, he is led to understand that it is only the balancing and calming factor of the faint dream-memories in the human mind that is keeping the human race from seeing the true cosmic horror of their situation in the universe. He has condemned himself to madness by removing too many of his dream-memories, but yet he cannot restore them (in their corrupted form) to his mind.
Can he accomplish the transfer of his now-diseased dream-memories into another, before his dream-memory deprived brain is engulfed by the shattering awareness of the nature of the horrors pressing against the glass of the bell-jars? And what will happen to the chosen recipient?”
