“Tomorrow I may be swamped with a burden of portentious mail…”

15 Sunday Mar 2020

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Just taken in a consignment of copies your new book or magazine, printed in somewhere like China or Italy? Or had curious Lovecraftian packages in the mail? Then you’ll be needing Less Wrong’s new “Comprehensive COVID-19 Disinfection Protocol for Packages and Envelopes”.

Or, rather more simply, you could just leave them in a hallway or spare room for 15 days, after which time any virus traces should theoretically be kaput — even at chilly temperatures. But it seems a freezing garage is probably not the best place to store the consignment, as such virii can go into cold storage and persist for longer. So if that’s all you have, add a low level of electric trickle-heat.

Also, some may be considering sending glossy cards/postcards to elderly and ill folk in isolation until perhaps the end of May 2020. There are such programmes starting up but they seem like a very bad idea, given the type of surfaces and the hand-contact and envelope-licking involved. Something virtual like Skype or a phone message would be better.

American Writers on Lovecraft’s 18th century

15 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in Historical context, Podcasts etc.

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A new American Writers podcast looks at Lovecraft’s “A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson”, and his love of the 18th century wits and satirists.

From the time-travel movie Berkeley Square (1933), one of Lovecraft’s favourite movies and set in the 18th century.

One of the best free public readings is “A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson” by H. P. Lovecraft by HorrorBabble.

Lovecraft in Greek

13 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by in New books, Podcasts etc., Scholarly works

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S.T. Joshi’s blog has updated. Among other items mentioned, a 15-volume Greek edition of Lovecraft is underway, with the third volume having been issued in 2019; there is a possibility that the Lovecraft biography I Am Providence could begin a Czech translation; and a set of ‘Providence Pals’ interviews (i.e. pioneer Lovecraft scholars, researchers and editors) is forthcoming in podcast format.

Friday the 13th: plague in Providence

12 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in Historical context, Scholarly works

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Friday the 13th approaches. Here in the UK, the 13th is a key virus infection-point. According to the UK’s Chief Medical officer the start of the peak in symptoms should then begin here on 19th-23rd March, rising thereafter and possibly continuing high for three or four weeks. (Update: he’s now saying “the peak” might last 10-14 weeks).

Thus, tomorrow we face a very scary Friday the 13th. There’s also a full moon in the night sky, possibly giving hysterical toilet-roll chewers an added dose of lunacy.

What better reading then, for this moment, than my account of H.P. Lovecraft and the deadly influenza epidemic? Accordingly here is a free chapter from my book Lovecraft in Historical Context #3, “A Real Horror: on the 1918 flu epidemic in Providence”. The chapter has been slightly revised, and there’s a new picture of one of the armed guards on the gates of Brown University.

Download: real_horror_1918_flu_in_providence.pdf

Lovecraft Annual on JSTOR

12 Thursday Mar 2020

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The Lovecraft Annual is now on JSTOR, as the full run. Reviews are fully separated and itemised by book title, as are the Briefly Noted paragraphs. JSTOR is a sort of ‘all you can eat buffet’ of a list of selected journals, which most academic libraries give their students and full-time staff free access to. Inclusion is a mark of high quality, and should help boost citations for those for whom such things matter. Those who have been quietly scourged in the book reviews may not be quite so happy.

As for me, I’m only two issues away from having a complete set in paper, needing only 2008 and 2010.

Update: I just remembered that JSTOR do offer limited access to off-site independent researchers. It seems this scheme is still in operation, though when last heard of it was limited to selected journal titles only.

New book: Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture

11 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by in New books, Scholarly works

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Theofantastique notices a new book-length survey from an academic, Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture…

a comprehensive tour of monsters on film and television, from the much-loved creations of Ray Harryhausen in Clash of the Titans to the monster of the week in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, before looking in detail at the afterlives of the Medusa and the Minotaur.

Also, the latest French open-access journal Leaves No. 9 is a special themed issue on the afterlife of Shelley’s Frankenstein in comics and sci-fi, etc. All in French, but since it’s open-access a translator-bot is only a click away.

Two Gentlemen Meet at Midnight

10 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts, Night in Providence, Odd scratchings

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New on Archive.org, August Derleth’s Arkham Sampler #4 (Autumn 1948). The journal ran for eight issues. This issue’s highlight, today, is a ‘poem for voices’ by Derleth. Inspired by reading Lovecraft’s letters he imagines the shades of Lovecraft and Poe meeting at last, one night in Providence.

And here’s a picture to set the mood for a reading. It’s not been seen here before at Tentaclii, and is from my late summer 2019 haul of such pictures showing Lovecraft’s 66 College St and its surroundings. The two men are at the Van Wickle Gates at the top of College Street, only a moment’s walk from 66 College Street. In fact, given the timing in the 1940s, one wonders if the picture wasn’t inspired by Derleth’s 1948 poem.

I don’t know who holds Derleth’s copyrights these days, but if they’re sensible descendents then there may be potential here for a musical album. Of soundscape / found-sounds / low-key ‘night music’, combined into tracks evoking Providence at night in the 1930s/40s leading into a dramatised vocal performance of this poem with FX. Perhaps earlier in the album one might also have some of Poe’s more ‘cosmic’ lyrics and then Lovecraft’s churchyard letters/poem, both mentioned in the above poem, done in the same way.

New book: His Own Most Fantastic Creation

10 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by in Historical context, Lovecraft as character, Lovecraftian arts, New books, Scholarly works

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I don’t usually cover anthology slabs here at Tentaclii, but I’ll make an exception for a fun one that features Lovecraft as a character, edited by the venerable S.T. Joshi. His Own Most Fantastic Creation is a £25 (about $40) hardcover from PS Publishing, and is pre-ordering now for shipping in April 2020.

The blurb is usefully descriptive…

Darrell Schweitzer focuses on Lovecraft’s childhood, when he was plagued with dreams of “night-gaunts” and was left bereft by the early death of his father. John Shirley depicts Lovecraft as a gawky teenager evolving his notions of “cosmicism”, while Scott Wiley emphasises Lovecraft’s devotion to cats. Stephen Woodworth and Donald R. Burleson ring changes on the Lovecraftian theme of personality exchange. Lovecraft famously collaborated with Harry Houdini on a story. Donald Tyson and Jonathan Thomas write very different stories on the association of these two figures. Mark Samuels focuses on Lovecraft’s creation of imaginary tomes of forbidden lore, while the stories by Richard Gavin, David Hambling, Jason V. Brock, and S. T. Joshi supply broader ruminations on the origins of Lovecraft’s revolutionary motifs. While eschewing Lovecraft himself as a character, the tales by W. H. Pugmire and Simon Strantzas exhibit figures who reveal strikingly Lovecraftian elements while probing the psyche of the man from Providence.

Super. It’s perhaps a pity that there’s not also an essay comprehensively surveying the uses of Lovecraft-as-character and Lovecraft-alikes in fiction, comics and poetry up to about 1969. Perhaps also appending the 1970-2020 titles in a simple checklist form. But I guess that might belong in a companion volume collecting such early stories and poems. However, Joshi does mention just a few of them in his short introduction…

Lovecraft the man has served as an inspiration for fiction writers as early as Edith Miniter (“Falco Ossifracus’ 1921), Frank Belknap Long (“The Space-Eaters’ 1928), and Robert Bloch (“The Shambler from the Stars:’ 1935) in his own day”.

What’s new on DeviantArt

09 Monday Mar 2020

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Another survey of what’s new on DeviantArt…

Azathoth, the demon sultan by Taisteng.

Lovecraft and Barlow by Loneanimator.

Iranon by FluoriteAmphibian.

Necronomicon 5 by Libriproibiti.

“Ketched in the rain, be ye?” by SamInabinet.

The Gilman House by MaestroMorte.

The Cats From Ulthar a mini-sculpture by DeterFArt. More.

Cthulhu in digital oil by Stayinwonderland. “This is the first in a series of paintings … I’m imagining a coastal town in England where a Cthulhu cult emerged. Either prior to, or in parallel with, the Innsmouth story and set close to 1900.”

H.P. Lovecraft by AnnaHSzymborska.