19 Wednesday Apr 2023
Posted in Historical context
“Providence lost, regained IV”, being the final part of a recent set of blog posts which give…
the epilogue of my book, Lost Providence, entitled Providence Lost, Providence Regained. Published in 2017, the book is a history of the design of the modern-day capital of Rhode Island, specifically of its downtown.
18 Tuesday Apr 2023
Posted in Odd scratchings
A “MinnConn” paper flyer, said to be from Minneapolis in 1975. The picture is from a new Abe sale listing (now sold). “MinnConn” was presumably fannish, but nothing can be discovered about it under that name. Possibly a mis-typing for Minicon (Minneapolis)?
Ah yes, here we go… it must have been for the Minicon 10 (Minneapolis) fan convention held in April 1975. There was no autumn fall-con in Minneapolis in 1975, so that must be it. Sadly Archive.org only has the convention booklet and not the initial PR flyers.
The photo is of Lovecraft somewhere out in the wilds, standing on a spur of rock. Possibly a coastal rock-cleft. He looks to be a chunky young fellow (no ‘reducing’ diet, yet), and may be wearing glasses. Honeymoon?
Do any Tentaclii readers know, offhand, where a larger version of this picture might be found?
Update: It’s August 1922 at Magnolia, Mass., though the online version that gives the date/location is still small and also cropped. Is there a bigger print version somewhere?
18 Tuesday Apr 2023
Posted in AI, Scholarly works
I’ve learned of an interesting new type of text extraction and query AI. They seem to have become public during March / Easter and I’d not previously been aware of them. You upload a single PDF, have an AI auto-tag, segment, summarise the segments, and cross-page links built for its various topics and facts, etc. Probably more, ‘under the hood’.
All this is done in order to make the PDF more searchable in the form of “chat”. After upload and analysis you can “chat” with the uploaded PDF, by asking it natural-language questions. Results have natural language answers, and links to the relevant page-numbers. Which means you can check that the AI isn’t getting it wrong (as they often do) due to dodgy ‘facts’ in the model inputs and/or confabulation when forming the reply.
Such things are exemplified by the likes of ChatPDF, Humata, Unriddle, Docu-Talk and Docalysis. Doubtless Microsoft Office is also ‘on the case’ with this sort of thing, if they don’t already have it in Office 365. I no longer have access to 365, and it’s difficult to discover a good overview explaining their vast range of new AI assistants.
Anyway, the new assistants are perhaps useful for those who want to plump up a traditional back-of-the-book index, and be sure they’ve not missed anything. Doubtless you’ll think of other uses.
As usual with such services, you don’t know where the PDFs or the questions are going after they hit the remote servers in Whereizitagin. So sending PDFs or asking questions that could reveal business or research secrets is not advisable. But I imagine that this sort of ‘one-book analysis’ is not too processor-intensive, so doubtless there will be local non-cloud versions soon enough. If there aren’t already.
But I also wonder what would happen if one uploaded a single-file PDF of the collected fiction (or even letters or essays) of H.P. Lovecraft. To what extent would it be like ‘talking’ with Lovecraft, and how original would it seem? In other words, would it be doing a minimum of comparing statements across disparate pages, then bringing them together in a way that offers a more powerful insight into the topic in question? And could a further ‘style model’ be built from the PDF, which would mean that the replies are given in a Lovecraftian manner?
Meanwhile, a second fully and properly ‘open source’ chat AI is released, OpenAssistant. The first was OpenChatKit a month ago.
17 Monday Apr 2023
Posted in Lovecraft as character, Scholarly works
A new consideration of Lovecraft’s own “psychopathologie” and also a survey of “the various diagnoses that have been issued” for him posthumously. Regrettably the new article in the journal L’Evolution Psychiatrique is both in French and behind a paywall. But there’s a generous sampling for free and in HTML, which means Google Translate can be used. The author concludes that not only did Lovecraft keep madness at bay by writing it out in various ways…
Writing is for him an addictive, continuous, protective and necessary exercise: he never stops writing.
But that he also embarked on…
an extraordinary journey of self-therapy
16 Sunday Apr 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Nightmare on Film Street reveals a new big-screen Lovecraft adaptation by director Joe Lynch…
“The thing that I loved about this particular script, which was originally based on the Lovecraft short story ‘The Thing on The Doorstep’, was the lineage involved … Brian Yuzna is one of our producers, who produced Re-Animator, and From Beyond, and directed Society. Dennis Paoli who wrote those movies, wrote this script.”
Sounds promising, and I see he has a half dozen big-screen movies to his credit. The title of the new movie is A Suitable Flesh, and it seems it hasn’t yet screened at a film festival. With Barbara Crampton.
Update: It will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2023.
Elsewhere, RPGFan reviews the much-touted Lovecraftian videogame Dredge…
While not a hardcore gaming experience, Dredge certainly sates the thirst for Lovecraftian vibes. … Authentically Lovecraftian.
Just one of an ongoing tidal wave of Lovecraftian games, including the newly remade mystery Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened.
15 Saturday Apr 2023
Posted in Historical context, Scholarly works
New on Archive.org, a key ‘picture-book history’ from a series that Lovecraft collected and enjoyed after he saw some of them offered at budget prices in the local Woolworth store. The upload of The Story of Saxon and Norman Britain Told in Pictures (1935) is of a good clear scan, and the 122Mb PDF file is freely available for download.
Also uploaded a few months ago “to borrow”, another in the series, The Story of Tudor and Stuart Britain Told in Pictures.
14 Friday Apr 2023
Posted in Picture postals
I’m still not feeling 100%, what with a lurking and persistent cough. So this week’s ‘picture postals from Lovecraft’ is a quickie and actually a rubbing. A ‘brass rubbing’ as they’ve often known, or a ‘grave rubbing’ when done from stone.
Last I heard such things were frowned on by Lovecraft’s cemetery, even when using specialist soft-wax and paper materials that don’t damage or mark his plain grave-marker. But a while back such rubbings could be found listed on eBay. Above is a pleasing and clear one I snagged then, now able to be enlarged a bit by AI.
I’m uncertain if Lovecraft ever habitually ventured into Swan Point Cemetery for walks while alive, though he certainly anticipated the outcome of his…
ancient plan of shuffling off to a Swan Point subterranean repose. […] among the sepulchres of Clark ancestors extending back to 1711. Green wooded slopes rise beside the mournful spot, and close by is a great hollow tree inhabited by a woodpecker
I seem to recall he didn’t favour it as a destination for walks, other than that fateful walk on a “June day in 1917” which began his weird fiction writing career. But if he ever did explore properly then this spot then would have surely attracted his attention. The cemetery’s “rock garden” overlooking his beloved Seekonk…
14 Friday Apr 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
A silver toad made by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, Providence, Rhode Island. In 1890, the year of Lovecraft’s birth. You’ll recall that Lovecraft’s father was, quite possibly, connected with the silverware firm in its heyday as a buyer or salesman.
Via the Smithsonian Open Access portal.
14 Friday Apr 2023
Posted in Odd scratchings
I see that the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences 2023 Winter Fundraiser is nearly at their $20k crowdfunder goal…
13 Thursday Apr 2023
Posted in Scholarly works
Gary Romeo usefully takes a comparative look at The Weird Tales Story in its three editions, including the “expanded and enhanced” third edition of 2021. This is then reviewed, and the new additions and omissions noted.
It seems the third edition is still only available in paperback, at present. No ebook, at least not on Amazon UK.
The Dark Man journal also has an online review of the latest edition.
12 Wednesday Apr 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Newly released on Bandcamp, Music from the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast – Volume Three (2023)…
Music used in episodes of The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast (hppodcraft.com), including material from the feature audio production The Colossus. Recorded in Santa Monica, CA.
Volumes One (2009) and Two (2011) are also available.
12 Wednesday Apr 2023
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Norwegian black metal has a major exhibition at the National Library of Norway…
Once feared and frowned upon, Norwegian black metal has finally come in from the cold. Norwegian black metal bands are enjoying considerable success with good record sales, sold-out tours and mainstream awards. The exhibition tells the story of this journey in the form of media coverage of 30 years of Norwegian black metal.
Runs until the 16th September 2023, at the National Museum in the capital Oslo. Free entry.