The chill breath of Autumn exhales softly over the moistening land, and the rolling acres of Tentaclii Towers settle into a yellowing mellowness. A long-dreaded ‘second wave’ of the virus seems to be producing no more than a sniffle here, and things are slowly returning to a less nervous state. Children once again traipse through fallen leaves on their way back to mundane schools, with Halloween and fireworks on their vague horizons.
Talking of fireworks, things were popping this month on Tentaclii for material related to Lovecraft’s life; a new mapped cache of photos of New York City in 1939/1940 appeared, including one of his rooming house on the edge of Red Hook, Brooklyn, and more pictures may be mined this source in the future; a good 1930s night-view from Prospect Terrace was found, as it would have been seen by Lovecraft; I finally lighted on a photo of the Twin Islands in Providence, these islands being a possible partial inspiration for “Dagon”; I took a close look at Lovecraft’s walk into the India Wharf rail yards in Providence and discovered there a plausible inspiration for one aspect of his “Under The Pyramids”; I looked at “Lovecraft in Harlem” in the mid 1920s, and found Morton’s address and a photo of the place. I also looked at The Brooklynite (Blue Pencil Club) and wondered why the run of the latter publication has not yet been digitised and put online; I dug out a fascinating mid-1920s report on crime and gangs in Red Hook, which also had precise details on the demographics of the area and some small points which illuminated Lovecraft’s “Red Hook”; I pondered which exact edition of Webster’s Lovecraft had, re: the visual inspirations he found at the back of it as a lad; I found and acquired a good bird’s eye view of the back of the John Hay Library, on which more next month; I noted a few more facts to fit into the life-story of Kalem member and Lovecraft friend Arthur Leeds; and a few more early instances of “Lovecraft as character” were found, one being penned by Robert E. Howard.
In scholarly work, the 2020 Lovecraft Annual shipped this month, with the lead article being what should be a major essay by Steven J. Mariconda; S.T. Joshi’s blog returned to life after a short disappearance; The Fossil for July 2020 was found to have items of Lovecraft interest; there was a call for a 2021 conference ‘Proliferations of Lovecraft’, in which it appears that academics will ponder why he’s so popular; France’s Association Miskatonic kindly sent details of their 2021 plans; H.P. Lovecraft: A Bibliography (1952) appeared free on Archive.org, and it was found to have a still-useful list of ‘Lovecraft in anthologies’ during his lifetime and beyond; Hathi at last returned to usable speed; a number of free scholarly papers and chapters on Lovecraft were linked here; and I released version 1.0 of my Annotated “Hypnos”.
In new books, the major H.P. Lovecraft: Letters to Family and Family Friends began shipping as a two-volume set; a new ‘Lovecraft illustrated’ letterpress book Dark Dreamlands II was announced as imminent; in Brazil a sumptuous illustrated widescreen edition of “The Haunter of the Dark” was successfully crowdfunded; also in Brazil, Lovecraft’s collected works appeared as Contos Reunidos do Mestre do Horror Cosmico; in Italian there was the new non-fiction book Chi ha paura di H.P. Lovecraft. Some of my own non-fiction books became available again, as I was able to fix three broken links to Lulu.com.
With the free Digital Art Live magazine I was able to produce an August 2020 issue on the somewhat Lovecraftian theme of “Beneath”, though it leans more toward “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”. The issue is out now and has a long lead interview with one of the world’s leading pre-vis story-artists, and he was very generous with his time and good advice for artists.
The month in Lovecraftian audio was a bit squeaky, though it did produce news of “The Dunwich Horror” which it appears is shipping on two twin vinyl LPs; and booking began for H.P. Lovecraft Walking Tours in late October 2020 — also a polished kind of audio performance.
And finally Tentaclii also rounded up Web links to various items for Lovecraft’s 130th Birthday. Though there may still be a few more Birthday items out there as yet un-noticed, from places like Sweden, Poland and Japan. Lovecraft is, of course, doubtless still alive and sailing somewhere out in the vastness on a White Ship. Or perhaps, like St. Brendan, living after death in a tiny observatory built on the back of a whale…
Sadly my Patreon lacks, as yet, a whale-like size. It remains in the shallows at $69 a month, and even a few extra $s a month from you will be most welcome please. The aim is still to reach $100 a month for Tentaclii.
