{"id":38625,"date":"2020-05-29T08:06:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T05:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=38625"},"modified":"2020-05-29T08:06:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T05:06:39","slug":"picture-postals-providence-express","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2020\/05\/29\/picture-postals-providence-express\/","title":{"rendered":"Picture postals: Providence Express"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Providence ‘trolley-car’. When Lovecraft refers in letters or a story to a ‘trolley’ or a ‘car’ this is the sort of public passenger vehicle he means. According to local transport buffs, they were green-and-cream in Providence until 1928, so I’ve colourised accordingly.<\/p>\n

A Lovecraft dream of November 1927 involved a ‘trolley’…<\/p>\n

“… under a grey autumn sky … lit up by a faint moonlight which had replac’d the expiring orb of day. Casting my eyes about, I beheld no living object; but was sensible of a very peculiar stirring far below me, amongst the whispering rushes of the pestilential swamp I had lately quitted. After walking for some distance, I encoun\u00adter’d the rusty tracks of a street-railway, & the worm-eaten poles which still held the limp & sagging trolley wire. Following this line, I soon came upon a yellow, vestibuled car numbered 1852 … It was untenanted, but evidently ready to start; the trolley being on the wire & the air-brake pump now & then throbbing beneath the floor. I boarded it & looked vainly about for the light switch — noting as I did so the absence of controller handle which implied the brief absence of the motorman. Then I sat down in one of the cross seats toward the middle, awaiting the ar\u00adrival of the crew & the starting of the vehicle. <\/p>\n

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Presently I heard a swishing in the sparse grass toward the left, & saw the dark forms of two men looming up in the moonlight. They had the regulation caps of a railway company, & I could not doubt but that they were the conductor & motorman. Then one of them sniffed<\/em> with singular sharpness, & raised his face to howl to the moon. The other dropped on all fours to run toward the car. I leaped up at once & raced madly out of that car & away across endless leagues of plateau till exhaustion waked me — doing this not because the conductor had dropped on all fours, but because the face of the motorman was a mere white cone tapering to one blood-red tentacle….”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Providence ‘trolley-car’. When Lovecraft refers in letters or a story to a ‘trolley’ or a ‘car’ this is the …<\/p>\n

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