The Google-ocracy

19 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Odd scratchings

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readinglevel

“The healthiest aristocracy is the most elastic — willing to beckon and receive as accessions all men of whatever antecedents who prove themselves aesthetically and intellectually fitted for membership. It gains, moreover, if its members can possess that natural nobility which is content with a recognition of its own worth, and which demonstrates its superiority in superior works and behaviour, rather than in snobbish and arrogant speech and attitude.” — H.P. Lovecraft, October 1921.

week

The Once and Future Antiquity

19 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Scholarly works

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“The Once and Future Antiquity: Classical Traditions in Science Fiction and Fantasy” conference, Seattle, 27th-29th March 2015.

“What roles has classical antiquity played in visions of the future, the fantastic, the speculative, the might-have-been?”

Given Lovecraft’s abundant uses of classical antiquity in his fiction and poetry, I’d be surprised if the organisers can’t squeeze in at least one Lovecraft paper.

The Old refrain…

18 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Odd scratchings

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Ah yes, the kids of today: no energy, no hope, no talent, and they dress funny too… 🙂

   “… our languid youth to gloom resort,
and listless children must be taught their sport:
whose arts the stamp of waning pow’r confess,
and hide their weakness in eccentric dress;”

H.P. Lovecraft, from “Old Christmas”, written at the end of 1917.