Tentaclii Towers basks in a rare bit of real English sun-kissed summer, and the quasi-dimensional barometer suggests I may just be starting to move over into my usual ‘Lovecraft research’ phase of the year. This phase usually kicks in once the flurry of fine May weather evaporates in a welter of rainy downpours and the muggy heat of late June, dampening the desire to go out. Which requires walking because the Towers stables can offer me no horseless carriage, still less the sort of hyper-air-conditioned panjandrum which transports most Americans.
The notion of ‘research’ has been rekindled by the arrival of a new book of Lovecraft letters (the Talman/Sully volume), which I was able to bag at a very nice price. The Letters volumes are mostly stuck at full price these days, but evidently the patient watcher will sometimes find a genuine bargain. One that can also be sent free to an Amazon locker, thus avoiding the nightmare of couriers. Many thanks on this to a kind patron and his small Amazon gift-card. I’ll be starting a new “Notes on the Letters” series of posts shortly.
This month in my regular ‘Picture Postal’ posts I visited Lovecraft’s Marblehead in both winter and summer. Finding the very snow-laden spot from which he had his chilly Marblehead epiphany. I also had a more artistic splosh around his Cat Swamp, with the aid of one of the new AI art-generators. I was very pleased to find an excellent public domain picture of where Lovecraft passed away, and so far as I know this picture will be new to Lovecraftians. I even had a long trawl through the Smithsonian’s collection of 4.5m online pictures, and found a few Lovecraft-adjacent images. Including a fine on-the-spot etching of the huge snowstorm that hit New York very shortly after Lovecraft had moved to Red Hook.
In academic work, I noted some interesting items on Lovecraft’s adaptation to different media and how that changes the nature of his fandom. I spotted “Understanding H.P. Lovecraft’s Anxiety Narratives through the Medical Humanities”, the second such article I’ve found recently. I suspect there will be more, updating old attempts at armchair diagnosis in the light of the past fifty years of medical advances. It’s a pity he didn’t leave samples of tissue, glands, etc, to be pickled and left in some dusty cupboard, or we might have been able to zap them with the new technologies. On Archive.org I spotted older scholarly fan-writing, such as the long and footnoted “Lovecraft and The Necronomicon”. In my own work, I’m putting the finishing touches to an 8,000-word article which I hope may be accepted for the next Lovecraft Annual.
Few journals in May, which is usual for the time of year (May-June is busy for academics). Only the new Dead Reckonings: A Review of Horror and the Weird in the Arts (No. 33, Spring 2023). In archives of online journals, I found that the FantaelX event in Spain has produced four annual volumes of scholarly work on the fantastic, free in PDF. Signum University has a conference-moot in New England, “Perilous Realms & Haunted Spaces”, set for 21st October 2023, which at a guess may result in some sort of publication.
The John Hay Library in Providence, home to Lovecraft’s archive of letters, appears to have re-opened after the lockdowns. I guess this might speed up the online delivery of the new Long letters online as scans, thought I see they’re not yet online. I checked to see what the S.T. Joshi Fellowship was doing, too. I assume a Joshi Fellow has been appointed at Brown for 2023 (no news on who, if any), and I see that applications will open again in Spring 2024.
No new books this month, but I noted that the forthcoming ‘HPL in New York’ book Midnight Rambles: H.P. Lovecraft in Gotham had been dated for 7th November 2023. No further news of the known forthcoming probably-2023 books on Lovecraft and Astronomy, and Lovecraft and Florida.
In comics, the collected Lovecraft: Unknown Kadath graphic novel was put back to 12th July 2023. But it’s now complete as a part-work, in what the trade calls ‘floppy’ issues. Cross-border shipping of such paper things is going to become far more expensive to the EU, if the EU’s idiot politicians and bureaucrats have their way on a crazy new customs system (all mail-order sellers into the EU forced to charge EU customs duties and VAT [national sales tax] at the time of even the smallest purchase, while registering with a giant new EU Customs Authority with which they must log all transactions and buyers). In this and other moves they seem intent on taxing or banning or ‘regulating’ the EU back into the Stone Age. Thankfully, here in dear old Blighty we’re no longer part of all that nonsense.
In cinema, the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival had its 2023 deadlines and dates, and I noted a Lovecraft film festival down in Mexico. In theatre, Cthulhu: the Musical! is soon to tour the USA and looks rather fun.
In audio, Dark Adventure announced their next full-cast recording. It’s to be Lovecraft’s “The Shunned House”, due for release on 21st June 2023. I was pleased to find “A Lecture on Dreaming, Writing, PKD, and Lovecraft” by Erik Davis. Elsewhere, some may be interested to know that Tolkien’s seminal essay/lecture “On Fairy-Stories” is now a free two-hour audiobook on YouTube.
The usual Lovecraftian videogames and role-playing games were noticed, but these are not usually covered at Tentaclii. But I did link to what the Germans are doing with their FHTAGN open source ‘pure Lovecraft’ RPG game. FHTAGN has started moves toward a full English version.
I posted a links round-up for Howard Days 2023, although unfortunately no-one has linked to it. Also in events, I found and linked one of the few NecronomiCon 2022 reports.
I posted my annual prognostication about the public domain. In the Lovecraft Circle, the three core Munn ‘werewolf’ books finally enter the public domain in January 2024. The other writer of interest is the pre-Tolkien Christian fantasy writer T.F. Powys, one of the Powys brothers.
There were of course various arty posts in May, from early Chaosium artwork to book covers to the latest AI twiddlings. Several AI Lovecraft-related calls or contests were spotted and linked.
Over in Tolkien-land, my Tolkien Gleanings No. 4 appeared as a free PDF ‘zine. Including a new 5,000-word article on Radagast which, at least to my satisfaction, solves 98% of ‘the Black Riders problem’ (only their supernatural speed in the final race to the Shire remains unexplained). Sadly Gleanings has not turned out to be a money-spinner. Having in its four issues so far generated only enough donations to cover the $12 or so I spent on getting items for the review pages. And no purchases of my own books, that I can see. Oh well, it’ll carry on for now.
I’m still slowly working through the latest Lovecraft Annual, making notes for a review in the late summer. Though that’s been sidetracked somewhat by the new and unexpected volume of Lovecraft letters.
As always, offers of regular paying work are welcome. Or small boosts to your Patreon, or even an Amazon gift-card.
