The Lovecraft Arts & Sciences 2023 Winter Fundraiser has opened on GoFundMe.
Lovecraft Arts & Sciences 2023 Winter Fundraiser
23 Saturday Sep 2023
Posted in Odd scratchings
The Art Club
22 Friday Sep 2023
Posted in Picture postals
This week on ‘picture postals from Lovecraft’, a continuation of last week’s theme. A look at some of the little side-ways that Lovecraft enjoyed and ventured down. Here is what looks like a press photograph (likely made with the ubiquitous pressman’s Rolleiflex square format camera, possibly late 1950s?). We see the Providence Art Club seen from an unusual angle. I’ve newly colorised the picture, which I’m fairly sure is from the Public Library collection.
A little way ahead of the cameraman, but before the artists on the sidewalk, we glimpse the archway and cobbled entrance… which was where Lovecraft used to often meet ‘Old Man’ after the master’s return to Providence…
He belonged to a market at the foot of Thomas Street — the hill street mentioned in Cthulhu as the abode of the young artist […] Occasionally he would stroll up the hill as far as the Art Club, seating himself at the entrance to one of those old-fashioned courtyard archways (formerly common everywhere) for which Providence is so noted. At night, when the electric lights make the street bright, the space within the archway would remain pitch-black, so that it looked like the mouth of an illimitable abyss, or the gateway of some nameless dimension. And there, as if stationed as a guardian of the unfathomed mysteries beyond, would crouch the sphinxlike, jet-black, yellow-eyed, & incredibly ancient form of Old Man. […] I came to regard him as an indispensable acquaintance, and would often go considerably out of my way to pass his habitual territory, on the chance that I might find him visible. Good Old Man! In fancy I pictured him as an hierophant of the mysteries behind the black archway, and wondered if he would ever invite me through it some midnight … Wondered, too, if I could ever could back to earth alive after accepting such an invitation.
Opening letters…
21 Thursday Sep 2023
Posted in New books
A useful new page at hplovecraft.com details exactly what’s in the book H.P. Lovecraft: Letters to Hyman Bradofsky and Others. Includes his letters to…
a pair of brilliant weird artists, Virgil Finlay and Frank Utpatel
According to S.T. Joshi’s latest blog post this is… “the second-to-last volume in the Lovecraft Letters series, to be followed next year by A Sense of Proportion: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Belknap Long”. He also notes that the new For the Outsider: Poems Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft is in his hands.
Call: Dark Worlds Quarterly
20 Wednesday Sep 2023
Posted in Odd scratchings
Dark Worlds Quarterly has An Open Invitation to Bloggers…
I am quite interested in writing guest posts for your blog. (And equally interested in having your posts appear here.) I want to write about Space Opera, Cthulhu Mythos, Sword & Sorcery and other topics (robots, comic books, strange Northerns, Pulp in general.) But primarily these three.
Frank Utpatel’s jacket for Lovecraft’s Collected Poems
19 Tuesday Sep 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Assembled from the best pictures on various listings, here’s a closer look at the fine detail and penmanship of the pleasing Frank Utpatel cover for the Arkham Press edition of Lovecraft’s Collected Poems (1963).
In Photoshop I’ve repaired a couple of bits of edge-wear and de-saturated some tobacco staining.
The scene must evoke Lovecraft on his favourite bluff above York Pond in Providence, overlooking the real River Seekonk. Though here the view of opposite bank of the wide river is more akin to Ulthar than to the humdrum East Providence.
And here’s a look at the full dustjacket, in which we see the full curve of the tree…
Of course, today you can obtain a fine edition of the complete poetry in its second edition, for which I recently made a free back-of-the-book index. It’s missing only one newly-discovered early poem from 1912, which was recently printed in the Lovecraft Annual and is on the Brown Repository here if you want to print it out and slip it in the back of the book.
Also, newly listed on Honest Abe’s site is an apparently “scholarly” Lovecraft ‘zine from the 1970s…
More Lovecraftian arts
18 Monday Sep 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
As we approach October, some Lovecraftian arts announcements…
* “The Shadow Over AFRU” – a show of Lovecraftian & cosmic horror in Portland. A gallery exhibition at the AFRU gallery. Timed to coincide with the Lovecraft Film Festival, then continuing to 29th October 2023. There’s still time to get 2D and sculpture into the show…
Bring out your visions of incomprehensible entities from unknown realms! Forbidden and dangerous knowledge! Irreversible madness from glimpsing creatures beyond the stars! Scientific curiosity decayed into existential dread! And, let us not forget – the catastrophic results of exploring the frozen, lightless corners of the world!
Submission deadline: 22nd September 2023.
* The Lovecraft Sextet’s The Horror Cosmic 12″ LP, due for release 27th October 2023. It’s a move forward for the group’s ambitions, being the…
first soundtrack to a yet-to-be-created movie. ‘The Horror Cosmic’ is a Lovecraftian cosmic horror short story which dives into the existential dread of the infinite nothingness. The album was composed as a soundtrack to accompany the illustrated short story and is an expanded step in the multidisciplinary aspect of the Lovecraft Sextet project. Therefore this release should be listened to as a soundtrack with compositions working to accentuate a specific mood to the specific chapters of the story. ‘The Horror Cosmic’ will also be release as a very limited custom hardcover illustrated short-story book with a special vinyl color LP.
* And don’t forget the Innsmouth Literary Festival in the town of Bedford, UK, on 30th September 2023. A rare Mythos writers event in the UK.
* In RPG games, the planned release of a Trail of Cthulhu 2nd Edition, revised in various ways.
* Lots of videogames too, which can’t be covered here. But I note that the latest trade magazine Edge (November 2023) has an article on the annual tidal surge of such games, “The Call of the Weird” and confirms that…
The videogame influence of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos is only growing.
Still no dedicated ‘zine for them though, which is perhaps something of a missed opportunity?
Hommage a H.P. Lovecraft, Paris 1979
17 Sunday Sep 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Quite a rarity, new on Honest Abe’s site…
Science-Fiction aux Etats-Unis. – Quatre artistes contemporains (8 février – 17 mars 1979) – Suivi de : Hommage à H.P. Lovecraft Published by Centre In-8° broché, Culturel Américain, Paris, 1979
A 24-page booklet issued for what might have been a four-man exhibition at the American Cultural centre in Paris in 1979, of Lovecraft inspired SF art. I must say three of the small images don’t look especially inspiring, but some readers may be interested. Especially if they know that one of the artists became more well-known than the others.
The other Lovecraft Film Festival
17 Sunday Sep 2023
Posted in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts, Odd scratchings
The other Lovecraft Film Festival, the 28th Annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, has dates: 6th-8th October 2023…
three days of the best new independent short and feature films in the cosmic horror genre, classic screen gems, special Guest speakers, author readings, panel discussions, art, live events
S.T. Joshi’s blog has also noted that the 2023 Portland (Oregon, USA) version of the annual Festival will have a “Lovecraft and Cats” discussion panel.
There are also plans to take the Festival to Mobile, Alabama in November.
Fables comics IP goes public-domain
16 Saturday Sep 2023
Posted in Odd scratchings
Nice…
As of now, 15th September 2023, the comic book property called Fables, including all related Fables spin-offs and characters, is now in the public domain. What was once wholly owned by Bill Willingham is now owned by everyone, for all time.
It’s the result of strong dissatisfaction with the publisher DC comics…
The one thing in our contract the DC lawyers can’t contest, or reinterpret to their own benefit, is that I am the sole owner of the intellectual property. I can sell it or give it away to whomever I want. I chose to give it away to everyone.
His Substack has the full details about his giving away a best-selling, long-running and Eisner Award-winning property, which Comic Book Treasury summarises as…
The series is about people from fairy tales and folklore who really exist in magical realms, but they were forced out of their worlds by The Adversary… and now live in exile in ours!
A sample page…
The already existing comics volumes themselves (at least 22 collected trade editions) are presumably not public domain, due to the involvement of others in their making. I assume it’s the formerly Bill Willingham-owned IP (characters, costumes, names, powers, world, storylines, backstory, settings) which is now freely usable. There’s a handy 256-page Encyclopedia for the series.
The old Courthouse, and lane
15 Friday Sep 2023
Posted in Picture postals
Following last week’s steeple picture, another bell-tower. The old Courthouse in a misty picture placed online by the Providence Public Library, here cleaned and colorised. This was presumably where the arrangements for the Lovecraft divorce were made, with Eddy Jr. giving testimony.
It was however gone by the time Lovecraft moved into No. 66, replaced by a new neo-Georgian Court House which retained the bell-tower.
In Letters to Wilfred B. Talman, on page 86 Lovecraft remarks that he especially likes ‘survivals’ rather than ‘restorations’ in antiquities, and he makes the distinction between the two. An example of a cherished survival is “a lingering bit of the past [such as] the lane back of the Athenaeum” in Providence. In the above picture we see the start of this lane, on the near right of the picture…
Here we see the lane in a more familiar view, looking up College Street…
The map shows the lane as quite long, and giving access to many back-gardens, presumably via gates…
This lane was still there when Lovecraft was in No. 66. Because here we also see the start of the same little lane at the back of the Athenaeum, although the time is the early 1930s and the new Courthouse is under construction beyond…
This picture suggests that by circa 1931 the lane had been “improved”, with new fencing and what looks like a stern sign which says “No (something)”. Possibly “No Parking”, as the blight of mass car-ownership was then spreading. It seems to still be there today, though no Street View camera has ventured down it…
As seen above, the 1870s building was replaced in the early 1930s by a new Courthouse. Here we see the Benefit Street ‘top level’ corridor inside that new building, and the entrance to the elevator.
Elderly ladies, and perhaps some elderly gents such as Lovecraft when with visitors or his aunt, could enter at South Main Street (street market, former Old Brick Row, and a car park by the mid 1930s) on the lowest level, and then ascend by elevator to the higher Benefit Street exit, thus bypassing the steepest part of the climb up College Street. Here we see the imposing corridor which the intrepid elevator-hopper would then have to brave to reach the top exit.
This would also have been the long walk made to arrange matters involved in the disposal of Lovecraft’s estate.
Cthulhu Cantata / Colour on stage
14 Thursday Sep 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
New to me, Cthulhu Cantata on the HPLHS Store…
It’s weird, it’s classical. HPL would probably have loved it. We think you will too. Composer Richard Thomas Hill (b. 1969) fuses a baroque sacred music form with 21st century musical language using prose and poetry of H.P. Lovecraft as well as original lyrics by the composer and Charles Moore, Jr. The result is a piece of ritual music worthy of the cult, featuring stunning vocal performances from professional singers well versed in baroque and classical music as well as modern techniques.
Performed by “The Arkham Virtual Chamber Orchestra” and singers, and Bandcamp has it as being released there 31st October 2022. HPLHS has the CD.
Meanwhile, in Manchester UK in November 2023, a stage adaptation of The Colour Out of Space at The Edge Theatre…
MAYT Theatre, in association with The Edge presents The Colour Out of Space. A collaboratively devised adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmically thrilling short story.
AI declaration rules at Amazon
13 Wednesday Sep 2023
Posted in AI, Odd scratchings
Amazon’s has new ‘AI declaration’ rules, currently only being applied to ebooks…
We define AI-generated content as text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool. If you used an AI-based tool to create the actual content (whether text, images, or translations), it is considered “AI-generated,” even if you applied substantial edits afterwards.
Book creators must declare any use such of generated AI, even if later heavily edited by a human.
Thus it seems important not to have book covers that include any AI created elements. Even if you use a stock AI-created backdrop for a book cover, and it’s only 20% of the final cover, Amazon requires the whole book be labelled “AI generated”.
If not labelled then there seems a real risk it will be pulled from the store. This will be especially relevant when AI watermarking is rolled out, as Amazon’s bots will then be able to auto-detect the AI. In the meanwhile there’s also a risk with content that might attract the attention of activists of either the right or the left, seeking a way to have it ‘cancelled’. They might pounce on an undeclared use of AI.
AI translation is also covered. Thus if a scholar uses an AI-powered translation service to translate just one required quote (from Latin, say), then presumably again the whole book has to be labelled “AI generated”. AI-made abstracts, tables-of-contents, cover blurbs (and eventually AI generated back-of-the-book indexes) could also fall foul of the new rules. Even if heavily edited by a human.
And you might say… how will they tell? Ah, well… AI output from the main corporate tools is set to be invisibly watermarked, with Google already rolling out its version of the watermarking last week. Nvidia just signed up to watermarking, raising the prospect of embedding at the graphics-card level. Steganography… look it up.
And where such labelling leads to is very uncertain. For instance, having your book labelled “AI generated” might soon mean it doesn’t appear in search, or is only to be found on the Amazon store with difficulty. You may even find it’s blocked by some third-party Web browser add-on, cooked up by an AI-hater.
An example is DeviantArt’s AI declaration, required of people posting pictures. This seemed benign at first… until it wasn’t. Some weeks later, users found they could block all those “AI” tagged images. Those who had been honest and trusting of the company suddenly found their work being automatically ‘disappeared’.