Spooklights

23 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by in Podcasts etc.

≈ Leave a comment

On the BBC Radio 4 “Listen Again” online service: Spooklights…

“Folk tales are full of fleeting phenomena like will o’ the wisps, faint glows that must have spooked our ancestors. But these days, it’s just about impossible to escape the omnipresent illumination of modern life, and these evocative spooklights have vanished like ghosts. Chemist Andrea Sella explores the science of lights so dim, they can be witnessed only in complete darkness.”

Lovecraft’s donuts and chilli

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Historical context

≈ 1 Comment

The Billfold (a money-saving website) examines Lovecraft’s frugal eating habits…

“I never spend more than $3.00 per week on food, and often not even nearly that” — November 1932.

That’s $46 (USA) or about £25 (UK) a week on food, in 2010 prices. Later, as his poverty increased, he appears to have been down toward $2 a week…

“I do most of my own laundry, cut my own hair with a patent device that hitches on to a Gillette razor, never spend over two dollars or two-fifty per week on food, and wear my clothes for ever.” — Selected Letters V, 1934-1937.

When working out what he would be spending on food in today’s money, we also have to take into account that food has become very much cheaper for us, since the 1920s. So while £25 a week might sound liveable, if very frugal, to us, remember that we now have the advantages of food made cheap by modern efficient techniques in breeding, production, transportation, and storage.

100th anniversary of the mythos

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Historical context, Odd scratchings

≈ Leave a comment

If we date the inception of the mythos to “Dagon” (written July 1917), then July 2017 will be the 100th anniversary. Five years to go. Time to start doing some tentative planning?

Some ideas:

* Publication of a fully searchable “Selected Letters” in digital form.

* Lovecraft research library, containing a copy of all the scholarship ever published on the man and his work.

* Major conference.

* Global online film festival, with major sponsorship for a competition for new animated films of Lovecraft’s work.

* Major publicity push to try to recover ‘lost’ letters and other items from attics, archives, personal effects etc.

* Publication of a complete Lovecraft Studies archive set, in digital form.

* Worldwide sugarcraft cake-decoration competition.

Discover

21 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

I’ve discovered a magazine that’s not unlike the Popular Science magazine of Lovecraft’s day. Discover is full of interesting factoid-pumped ideas that are oven-cooked — ready for writers to take, blend, and adapt for use in fiction. I’m not sure we get the magazine over here in the UK (I’ve not noticed it, before now), but plenty of the content gets placed online for free at their website. Lots of articles that make you think “Lovecraft was right!” 🙂 Maybe they should have a whole themed issue on that topic.

Incidentally, the magazine is making an interesting move in response to the generally falling sales of magazines (digital editions are nowhere near making up the severe revenue shortfalls caused by: recession-hit consumers stopping spending on print mags; display-ad budget shrinkage; and competition from free online sources of news) — they’re quitting New York and moving to Waukesha‎, Wisconsin. Lucky Waukesha‎.